Topic 4 Criminal psychology Flashcards
What is the summary of Dixon et al?
Dixon et al were aiming to investigate the effect of a suspect’s accent on ratings of guilt. They recruited 119 white undergraduate students from University College Worcester. The participants listened to a 2 minute recorded conversation based on a transcript of an actual police interview and were asked to rate on a 7 point scale how guilty they thought the suspect was. In the transcript the suspect was described as either black or white, and as having committed either a blue collar crime (armed robbery) or a white collar crime (cheque fraud). In different conditions, the same actor would also use either a standard English or a Brummie accent. The guilty ratings were significantly higher for the Brummie accent. The highest ratings of guilt were for a black suspect with a Brummie accent who had committed a blue collar crime.
What is Penrod & Cutler about?
Ppts shown one of 2 videotaped mock trials for a robbery female eyewitness was either 80% sure or 100% sure about 10 of suspects
Ppts included underground students and experienced jurors
80% confidence led to suspect being found guilty 60% of the time.
100% confidence led to suspect being found guilty 67% of the time.
Suggests that the more confident a witness is, the more jurors are likely to be persuaded
What is Pennington and Hastie about?
Evidence can be presented in different orders:
Witness order: witnesses presented in sequence they believed it to be most likely to persuade jurors
Story order: evidence can be presented in chronological sequence of when events occurred
Story order:Story order- 59% guilty verdict
Witness order:Witness order- 63% guilty verdict
Story order:Witness order- 31% guilty verdict
Witness order:Story order- 78% guilty verdict
Found that if one side used story order and the other side using story order was more likely to persuade jurors
What is Simon and Chabris about?
-Found that on average there was sustained inattentional blindness of 46%
Can be used to discredit eyewitness testimony by saying the witness did not see something that may help defend a suspect
Things that increased the unexpected event being seen:
-Opaque video
-Having easy task
-Watching team in a similar colour
-When unexpected event is less usual
What is Sigall and Ostrove about?
120 college students (60m, 60f) had to read an account of a crime where the D was a female and asked to give a sentence for the crime.
D accused of burglary or swindling
Results (mean sentence given in years)
Swindling attractive: 5.45
Swindling unattractive: 4.35
Swindling control: 4.35
Burglary attractive: 2.8
Burglary unattractive: 5.2
Burglary control: 5.1
What are the applications of topic 4 criminal psychology?
Get the witnesses more confident
Presenting evidence in story order
Make witnesses dress smarter
