Crime - Topic 4 Other Research

Question 1

Pennington

Answer 1

Primacy recency effect supported

Persuasive effects if evidence is applied in story order. Jurors can make more sense of the information if it is presented in this order.

Question 2

Stewart

Answer 2

Correlational research, which investigated the relationship between the attractiveness and severity of punishment. A negative correlation between attractiveness and severity and no correlation found between race and severity of punishment.

Question 3

Castellow

Answer 3

Looked at the effects of having an attractive defendant as well as victim:

• when defendant was attractive guilty verdicts were 56% of the time
• when victim was attractive, guilty verdicts were 77% of the time
• analysis of ratings shown physically attractive defendants and victims were positively rated on personality. Supports halo effect.

Question 4

Penrod and cutler

Answer 4

In a mock trial it was shown that jurors place a lot of trust in witness confidence. If witness ays they are confident, jurors are more likely to believe them.

In a mock trial with several variables, jurors listened to expert witness testimonies along with other evidence and paid attention to details given by expert witness.

Question 5

Sigall and osgrove

Answer 5

Looked at the effect of the type of crime and the attractiveness of the defendant. When the crime was unrelated to attractiveness the participants assigned more lenient sentences. When crime was related to the attractiveness the participants gave more harsher sentences.

Question 6

Broeder

Answer 6

Demonstrated in a mock trial that evidence ruled inadmissible was hard for the jury to ignore. When a case was heard jurors gave more compensation when they heard about a drivers insurance, which was ruled inadmissible but not ignored by jury.

Question 7

Pickel

Answer 7

Calling attention to inadmissible evidence makes it harder to ignore as it makes it viewed to be more important. This explains the “backfire effect” where the judge gives legal explanation for evidence to be ignored but in reality it draws more attention to it.

Question 8

Eberhardt

Answer 8

Jury showed racial prejudice when it came to death penalty. As black defendants were more likely to get the death penalty, especially when the victim was white, but less so when victim was black.

Question 9

Weisberg

Answer 9

Participants in a mock trial will consider fmri evidence more than other methods, and more likely to reach verdict of guilt. When limitations were explained however, verdicts of guilt decreased.