crime - psychology and the courtroom

Question 1

castellow A-Pr

Answer 1

A: to test the idea that the attractiveness of the defendant/victim effects the jury
M+D: lab experiment + independent measures
pps: 145 students from America
Ps: pps were told they were reading a sexual harassment case and would answer Q’s about it. photos of the defendant and the victim were attached. who were categorised as attractive or unattractive by a panel. pps were asked to rate both defendant and victim in bi-polar scales

Question 2

castellow R+C

Answer 2

R: physically attractive were more positively rated on the bipolar scales - proving the halo effect.
Attractive defendant = 56% guilty
Unattractive defendant = 76% guilty
Attractive victim = 77% guilty
Unattractive victim = 55%
C: appearance has a powerful effect on jury decisions

Question 3

Ross A-Pr

Answer 3

A: to see if the use of protective shields and videotapes increases the likelihood of a guilty verdict
M+D: lab experiment + independent measures
PPS: 300 pps, 100 in each condition
condition 1: control (child in full view)
condition 2: child behind screen
condition 3: child gave evidence via videotape
Ps: the judge gave warning that jury should not use relay of evidence to imply guilt

Question 4

Ross R+C

Answer 4

R: no significant difference amongst the conditions
significant difference between gender 59% of females assigned guilt but only 39% males.
the use of shields did not have an impact

Question 5

Cutler A-Pr

Answer 5

A: to see if witness confidence effected the jury
M+D: lab experiment + independent measures
PPS: 538 undergrad students
Ps: pps watched a mock trial based on a robbery case. they then completed a questionnaire which measured their verdict and confidence in verdict. witness confidence was 80% or 100%

Question 6

Cutler R+C

Answer 6

R: 80% - 60%
100% - 67%
C: confidence of the witness makes the jurors pay more attention when making a decision

Question 7

Eberhardt A-pr

Answer 7

A: to investigate racial bias in sentencing
M+D: lab experiment + independent measures
PPS: students
Ps: she asked naïve raters to rate how stereotypically black certain faces were (all faces had previously been sentenced)

Question 8

Eberhardt R+C

Answer 8

R: the more stereotypically black faces had been issued a harder sentencing
C: the race of a person does affect how they are judged, therefore there is a racial bias in the judicial system

Question 9

dixon A-pps

Answer 9

A: to further document the consequences of accent in a legal context by investigating the influence of an English or a brummie accent on attributions of guilt toward a criminal suspect. also the effect of race and type of crime committed.
lab experiment + independent measures.
department of psychology at uni college - Worcester. 119 white undergrads - 24M, 95W

Question 10

Dixon - procedure

Answer 10

conditions was each accent (english/brum) with each race (black/white) and each type of crime (black/blue).
listened to 2 minute recording of an interview between a young male suspect and police officer.
blue collar crime: armed robbery
white collar crime: cheque fraud.
2 rating scales, 1. 7point bipolar scale from innocent to guilty
2. rating based on superiority, attractiveness and dynamism

Question 11

dixon - R+C

Answer 11

brummie accent was rated more guilty than english.
brum/blue/black had the highest guilty rating.
suspect level of superiority and attractiveness predicted guilt but dynamism did not.
C: attribution of guilt is affected by accent, race and type of crime.

Question 11

application: order of presentation

Answer 11

pennington: to. investigate whether or not story evidence summaries are causes of final verdicts.
story order had an affect on the verdict. prosecution use story order = 78% guilty. defendant use story order = 69% not guilty

Question 12

application: expert witness

Answer 12

Loftus: effect of expert witness on jury. use of an expert witness decreased guilty verdict rate from 58% to 39%