chapter 13 law

Question 1

psychological factors in law: defendant

Answer 1

1. defendant attractiveness
   -results show that attractive defendants defended more leniently, less likely to be judged as guilty & received less punishment
2. defendant characteristics: similarity
   -if evidence is weak/ambiguous, decision-makers hv more sympathy if defendant has similar attitudes, religion, race, gender

Question 2

how much is a confession worth?

Answer 2

exp: mock jurors made to read a murder trial
IV: no confession, low pressure confession, high pressure confession
DV: % of jurors convicting the defendant
result: jurors less likely to convict the defendant in high pressure confessions

Question 3

do innocent defenders ever confess?

Answer 3

yes

factors that increase confession:
-vulnerability: suspects (may be induced to) lack clear memory about the event (esp for youth/those who are mentally ill)
-presence of false incriminating evidence
-inducements (potential benefits of confession)

Question 4

psychological factors in law: eyewitness

Answer 4

accuracy of eyewitness identification:
phase 1: stage a theft, pick out “thief” from photos
-1/3 identifying thief was hard: cap & “thief” present for 12 sec
-1/3 “thief” revealed more of his face; present for 12 sec
-1/3 “thief” did not wear cap; present for 20 sec

phase 2:
-participants (witnesses) questioned & identified thief; session videotaped
-new participants (jurors) watched videotaped session & rated extent to which they believed the witness correct identified the thief

DV:
-% of witnesses who are accurate
-% of jurors who thought witness was accurate

results:
-as viewing conditions improve, % witnesses who correctly identified thief increase, % of jurors who thought witness made correct identification increase

acquisition stage:
weapon-focus effect: tendency for presence of a weapon to draw attention & impair person’s ability to identify culprit
cross-race identification bias: tendency for ppl to have difficulty identifying members of a race other than their own

storage & retrieval:
when there is bias it can get amplified

Question 5

psychological factors in law: the jury & judge

Answer 5

-some people may not be seen to be explicitly biased, but are implicitly biased
-white jurors likely to convict a black defendant
-juries with at least one black jury member are less likely to convict a black defendant

^due to:
1. normative social influence
2. informational social influence
3. group polarisation

implicit biases in trial judges:
-strong white preference among white judges
-no real preference among black judges
-black judges hv comparable IAT scores to blacks on the internet
-white judges have statistically stronger white preference than other whites on the internet

exp: facial features & death penalty
-men with more stereotypically black features 2x as likely to be given death penalty (if victim is white, but not when victim is black)

-black ppl use drugs less than white ppl, but are 6x more likely to be stopped & searched for drugs
-among black ppl with cocaine possession, 78% were charged, 22% cautioned
-among white ppl with cocaine possession, 44% charged, 56% cautioned

Question 6

key points

Answer 6

1. trial outcomes can be influenced by defendant characteristics (e.g. attractiveness, similarity)
2. defendants may admit to crimes they did not commit, esp under certain interrogation practices
3. eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as ppl think
4. jury members are susceptible to social influence & pitfalls of group processes in decision-making
5. implicit biases get amplified through the legal process, from law enforcement to sentencing->biases in criminal justice system