Social Psychology and the Law

Question 1

In criminal cases, _____ ________ of the accused and witnesses have a powerful affect on police investigators and jurors.

Answer 1

first impressions

Question 2

Attributions about what caused the criminal behaviour are made by police, lawyers, jurors and the judge; ______ _______ and ________ ways of thinking affect those attributions.

Answer 2

• prejudice beliefs
• stereotypical

Question 3

What is the difference between First Degree Murder, Second Degree Murder, and Manslaughter?

Answer 3

• first degree murder is when the murder is both deliberate and planned. This includes if the person is killed while a different crime is being commited
• second degree murder is when the murder is deliberate but not planned
• manslaughter is causing the death of another person accidentally or because of carelessness

Question 4

In Canada, does the legal system assign a great deal of significance to eyewitness testimonies?

Answer 4

Yes.

Question 5

TRUE or FALSE: If you are identified by an eyewitness as the culprit, you are quite likely to be convicted, even if considerable circumstantial evidence indicates that you are innocent.

Answer 5

TRUE

Question 6

When Gary Wells and his colleagues examined 40 cases in which DNA evidence - obtained after the conviction of a suspect - what were their findings?

Answer 6

• In 36 cases, eyewitnesses have falsely identified the suspect as the criminal
• five of these people were on death row at the time they were exonerated

Question 7

________ ________ ________is responsible for more wrongful convictions than all other causes combined.

Answer 7

mistaken eyewitness identification

Question 8

TRUE or FALSE: Often time in North America, jurors underestimate the accuracy of eyewitnesses

Answer 8

FALSE: The often overestimate the accuracy of eyewitnesses

Question 9

Theft of calculator experiement

Answer 9

• staged theft of calculator in front of unsuspecting students
• tested how accurately these students could pick out the “thief” by showing them six different photographs
• in one condition it was difficult to identify the thief because he had a toque pulled over his ears and was in the room for only 12 seconds
• in the second condition, the person wore the toque higher on their head, revealing some of his hair so it was easier to identify him
• in the third condition, the thief wore no hat and stayed in the room for 20 seconds, making it easier to identify him
• Learned that the more visual information about the thief, the higher the percentage of students who could identify him in the photo lineup
• jurors overestimated the accuracy of the witnesses especially in the condition where the thief was difficult to identify

Question 10

Mock trial study

Answer 10

• students were shown videotapes of a mock trial that included footage of testimony given by an eyewitness or a videotape of an eyewitness identifying the suspect from a lineup, or both
• found mock jurors were more likely to believe than not believe eyewitnesses
• jurors believing that the eyewitness had accurately identified the suspect were five times higher if participants viewed the witness’ testimony than if they viewed the eyewitness identifying the suspect from a lineup
• jurors were just as likely to believe eyewitnesses who identified the wrong person as those who identified the right suspect

Question 11

eyewitness accuracy based on age study

Answer 11

• adolescents shown video of a staged crime
• they generated shorter descriptions of the suspects in comparison to the adults, but did no worse when it came to identifying suspects in a lineup

Question 12

To be an accurate witness, what are the three stages of memory processing must a person successfully complete?

Answer 12

1. Encoding (Acquisition: what people notice and perceive)
2. Storage (what people store in memory)
3. Retrieval (what people recall at a later time)

Question 13

What sources of error can an eyewitness experience when it comes to encoding?

Answer 13

• poor viewing conditions
• how much time they had to watch the effect
• people see what they expect to see
• focus on weapons
• own-race bias
• change blindness
• eyewitness being afraid

Question 14

What sources of error can an eyewitness experience when it comes to storage?

Answer 14

• misleading questions
• source monitoring errors

Question 15

What sources of error can an eyewitness experience when it comes to retrieval?

Answer 15

• “Best guess” problem in identification lineup
• Negative effects of verbalization

Question 16

What is a culprit-absent lineup?

Answer 16

eyewitnesses pick the closest identifying person in a line up, when in reality the perpetrator is not actually in the lineup, resulting in mistaken identification

Question 17

One study found that ___% of eyewitnesses correctly identified a police suspect when there was no weapon visible at the crime, but this dropped to ___% when there was a weapon present

Answer 17

• 73%
• 31%

Question 18

Why does own race bias occur?

Answer 18

• people have more contact with people of their own race, which gives them the opportunity to learn how to distinguish one individual from another
• when people examine same race faces they pay closer attention to individuating features that distinguish that face from others, compared to when they examined different race faces they’re drawn more to features that distinguish that face from their own race rather than individuating features

Question 19

In an extensive series of studies, it was found that when white and non-black participants saw a white face they focused on the _____, whereas when they saw a black face they focused on the ______ and _______.

Answer 19

• eyes
• nose
• mouth

Question 20

When it comes to memory storage, why can people have an inaccurate recall about what they saw?

Answer 20

Because they get their memories mixed up and confused with other memories

Question 21

TRUE or FALSE: information that we obtain after witnessing an event can change our memory of the event

Answer 21

TRUE

Question 22

People are especially likely to incorporate misinformation into their memory when the event they had witnessed produces _______ _______

Answer 22

negative emotions

Question 23

Misleading questions cause a problem with ______ ______, the process by which people try to identify the source of their memories. What does this mean>

Answer 23

• source monitoring
• when information is stored in memory, it is not always well tagged as to where it came from

Question 24

TRUE or FALSE: eyewitnesses who are asked misleading questions never report seeing things that were not actually there

Answer 24

FALSE: They often report seeing things that were not actually there

Question 25

TRUE or FALSE: If a witness selects a suspect from a lineup, jurors, police investigators, and judges are likely to assume that the witness is right.

Answer 25

TRUE

Question 26

Which has a higher success rate, showing an eyewitness a lineup or showing them only one person?

Answer 26

showing the eyewitness a lineup

Question 27

Witnesses often choose the person in a lineup who:

Answer 27

most resembles the criminal

Question 28

What are the five research based recommendations for how to conduct lineups?

Answer 28

1. Make sure everyone in the lineup resembles the witness’s description of the suspect
2. Tell the witness that the person suspected of the crime may or may not be in the lineup
3. Make sure the police officer administering the lineup does not know which person in the lineup is the suspect
4. If using photographs of people, present the pictures sequentially, one at a time, instead of simultaneously, all at once
5. Try to minimize the time between the crime and identification of suspects

Question 29

There is evidence that _______ witnesses are more likely to be believed by police, judges, and jurors

Answer 29

confident

Question 30

More often than not, even though the witness is confident they aren’t _______.

Answer 30

accurate

Question 31

Jurors tend to rely more heavily on _______ ______ focused on the suspect rather than the _____ ___ ___ ______.

Answer 31

• eyewitness testimony
• scene of the crime

Question 32

People are most accurate when they make their judgement _____.

Answer 32

quickly (10 seconds or less)

Question 33

Does putting an image of a face into words make people’s memory better or worse? Why?

Answer 33

• worse
• it is difficult and impairs the memory for that face

Question 34

Is it easy or difficult to discriminate accurately and consistently between children’s true and false stories of viciminzation?

Answer 34

difficult

Question 35

Accuracy rates are even lower when people try to detect deception in members of ______ _____ ______.

Answer 35

other ethnic groups

Question 36

Are people high in emotional intelligence better or worse at detecting who is lying? Why?

Answer 36

worse, because they tend to tune into that person and feel sorry for them

Question 37

TRUE or FALSE: People with a lot of experience with liars are better at detecting deception

Answer 37

FALSE: They’re no better at detecting deception

Question 38

What is the most effective approach for reducing the rate of false convictions in the legal system?

Answer 38

improve how police conduct eyewitness interviews and identification procedures

Question 39

Are traumas usually repressed or not repressted?

Answer 39

Not repressed

Question 40

TRUE or FALSE: people can acquire vivid memories of events that never occurred

Answer 40

TRUE: especially if another person, like a therapist, suggests that the events occurred