Crime: Dror (2005) Study - Topic 2 Flashcards
What was the aim?
To investigate how a particularly emotional case context affects how likely people (university students – not experts) are to match fingerprints.
-> Top down process.
What was the sample used?
-> Who
->Weakness(s)
-> Strength(s)
27 university students (18 females, 9 males) with mean age of 23.
WEAKNESS:
-> Not experts, can’t generalise.
-> Confounding V – result might be due to lack of training
STRENGTH:
-> Allows large sample (readily available)
-> allows identify potential problems
FUTURE:
–> further research w/ experts needed.
What was the method used?
Lab experiment
What was the design used?
Repeated measures
Describe the procedure
1- 96 pairs of fingerprints were selected to be matched.
48 = easier to identify (obvious bottom-up information).
48 = harder to identify - ambiguous (top-down = greater influence) - increased ecological V.
2- High & low emotional contexts were introduced for each crime. Photos used to reinforce contexts.
High = Murder
Low = Bicycle theft
What was the IV?
Emotional context (high / low)
What was the DV?
The number of matches made
What was found?
When decisions are made about finger-marks:
-> High context: increases likelihood of a ‘match’ with AMIGUOUS PAIR.
-> Context made no difference to judgements about unambiguously similar / different pairs.
-> context based on a crime involving personal harm made Ps = more likely ‘match’
-> Emotional context based on the nature of the crime e.g., attempted murder and photographs (i.e., neutral / graphic) = created bias in Ps decision making.
-> MORE EMOTIVE CONTEXT = MORE MOTIVATED ANALYSTS WERE = FIND MATCH
What was concluded?
Emotional context (top down) = can influence analysis of fingerprints in ambiguous prints.
What could be suggested to experts (from results of this study)?
Don’t show fingerprints analysis the crime so emotional context doesn’t influence.
CANNOT DO THIS BECAUSE:
Used students so emotion may have influenced more bc. Not experienced / fully trained.
