THE CRIMINAL APPROACH - KEY STUDIES Flashcards
What was Loftus and Palmer’s aim?
To investigate whether leading questions would influence the estimates of speed of a vehicle recalled by eyewitness participants
What was Loftus and Palmer’s method?
Experiment one: 45 participants shown 7 video clips of different car accidents, in different orders, and asked to estimate the speed of the cars
They were given a questionnaire instructing them to give an account of what they witness and to answer a series of questions
All the participants received the same questions, but one critical question was changed for each set of 9 participants - ‘About how fast were the cards going when they smashed/collided/bumped/hit/contacted each other?’
Experiment two: 150 participants were shown a minute film clip of a multiple car collision that lasted 4 seconds
They were then asked to give a description of the film and answer a questionnaire about the accident
Similar to experiment one, there was a critical question that was slightly different for each group of 50 participants
After a week, the participants returned to answer 10 questions about the film without seeing it again, and the critical question was ‘did you see any broken glass?’ (There wasn’t any)
What were Loftus and Palmer’s results?
In experiment one, the verb ‘smashed’ produced the fastest estimate of speed, and the verb ‘contacted’ had the lowest
There was an overall difference of 9mph between smashed and contacted
In experiment two, in all 3 conditions most participants rightly answered that there was no broken glass, however more did in the ‘smashed condition (32%) compared to ‘hit’ (14%)
The use of the verb did seem to have an impact on recall accuracy
What were Loftus and Palmer’s conclusions?
The verb used in the critical question altered the participant’s memory of the film, or they didn’t know the answer so relied on the verb to make their judgement
Leading questions do have an influence on eyewitness testimony by altering their memory of the incident
What are the strengths of Loftus and Palmer’s study?
The study was well controlled with a standardised procedure and instructions making it more reliable (eg same clip and questionnaire to all participants)
The speed of the car was known by the researchers meaning they could ensure that the estimates of the speed were not unduly affected by the actual speed of the car, which ensured it was the critical verb affecting memory making it more valid
In experiment two, the yes/no responses in the questionnaire produced quantitative data making it more objective and less likely to be influenced by researcher bias
The fact the videos were shown in different orders for each participant removed order effects (practice and fatigue) as their level of attention and memory would have affected their answers, not the leading question
The critical question about speed was randomly hidden amongst distractor questions to prevent participants from guessing the aim and therefore reduced demand characteristics
The film didn’t involve any distressing images, consent was obtained, there was minal deception, and full debriefing was possible - making it ethical
What are the weaknesses of Loftus and Palmer’s study?
The participants were students so may have had limited experience of driving so worse at estimating the car speed, therefore more influenced by the critical verb making it less generalisable to the whole population
In experiment two, the participants simply could have used the verb to guess that there was broken glass, meaning they were displaying demand characteristics not a distortion of memory
The study lacked ecological validity as it was a laboratory experiment watching a video clip so doesn’t reflect real life situations
Yuille and Cutshall found that in real life cases involving robbery, the recall of eyewitnesses was not affected by leading questions, lowering reliability
Being an eyewitness in real life has real consequences, but getting things wrong in a laboratory experiment has no real consequences - lowering ecological validity
Watching a real incident and being directly involved can be traumatic, something that cannot be effectively simulated under laboratory conditions in a controlled environment
What was the importance of Loftus and Palmer’s second study?
the verb would’ve actually changed their memory of whether they saw glass or not, yet in experiment one, they could have just used the verb to reconstruct their memory and use it as a cue
What was Howells et al’s aim?
To determine whether anger management is more effective than no treatment in producing change
To investigate whether improvement in treatment can be predicted from pre-treatment offender characteristics, such as level of need and how ready offenders are to engage in treatment
What was Howells et al’s method?
418 male participants who had been referred to anger management programmed in South and Western Australia and were offenders with sentences ranging from 1 month to 26 years and 4 months
86% came from prison based AMP and the other were community based
Participants attended programmes that lasted approximately 20 hours (over ten sessions), geographical areas differed but the content was very similar
The programme included structured exercises focusing on skills (eg identifying provocation, relaxation, cognitive re-structuring, assertion training and relapse prevention)
Self report data was collected from the experimental group and the control group (on a waiting list) and consisted of various measures of anger, anger intensity, knowing how to deal with anger, readiness for treatment and used Novaco’s Anger Scale
Data was collected before treatment, post treatment and with follow up assessments at two and six months
Data was also collected about the aggression of each participant from two correctional officers for the prisoners and from one staff member for the participants on the community programme
What were Howells et al’s results?
The offenders who completed the AMP showed significantly greater improvement in anger knowledge than the control group
There was also some improvement among the control group
There was a relative improvement in ability to manager anger using appropriate skills in the treatment group but not a statistically significant result
At the two month follow up, the initial improvements were still present suggesting that AMPs were helping to manage anger and the participants were continuing to make progress
What were Howells et al’s conclusions?
The overall impact of AMPs was small and the questionnaire may have had a small benefit in itself, even for those who had no treatment
Motivation was a key factor in the programme success as they make more of a positive change than those who aren’t ready to change their anger problems
AMPs did not seem to be as successful as other studies predicted using different clients but Howells et al felt that it was reasonable to account for these differences by pointing to different motivational issues and the fact their participants had multiple problems
What are the strengths of Howell el al’s study?
High in ecological validity as used real offenders, real clinical therapies and was in a natural environment for the offenders (prison or probation) therefore behaviour and treatment reflects that of real life
Large sample was used helping the reliability of the findings by minimising the impact of individual differences and enabling the results of the effectiveness of AMPs to other offender groups
The study was a randomised trial, with offenders randomly allocated to either conditions ensuring there was no allocation bias on the part of the researchers
This increases reliability and validity as no researcher bias
The control group also allowed for an effective comparison or baseline with which to compare the manipulated variable to ensure any effects were really due to the treatment
The control group weren’t deprived of the treatment, they were simply just waiting on the waiting list so no ethical issues
All the AMPs being used covered the same material and were delivered in the same way, so those in the treatment group had a standardised experience, ensuring reliability as not situational variables would have effected the results
Used more than one scale for each of the main measures which made the measures more reliable and valid
They found that readiness/motivation did have good predictive validity in terms of AMP success, which has beneficial implications as then AMPs can be made more cost-effective by identifying offenders who will benefit the most from being offered treatment
What are weaknesses of Howell et al’s study?
The control group tended to improve on measures without any treatment to a very similar extent to the treatment group, which suggests that doing assessments about anger issues might be a treatment in itself
Not all variables were accounted for within the research, including individual differences in levels of understanding the programmes that could account for the changes made
Reduces the validity as it could mean that individual differences accounted for the outcome of the research, not the AMPs
