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Psychology and the Courtroom (Cognitive) - Coggle Diagram
Psychology and the Courtroom (Cognitive)
How juries can be persuaded by the characteristics of witnesses and defendants
The jury system
Jury considered fundamental part of UK legal system
Used to weigh up evidence in trial
Prosecution has to persuade jury of guilt of defendant beyond all reasonable doubt
Characteristics of the witness
Witness confidence:
Weak relationship between accuracy of witnesses' accounts and confidence (Clifasefi et al 2007)
Penrod and Cutler (1995) -> tested effect of confidence using mock trial -> ps were jurors
Ps shown video of robbery and given either 80/100% confidence condition
Confederate witness said 100% confident of suspect, 67% of jury voted guilty, when witness said 80%, jury voted 60% guilty
Children as a witness:
Courts traditionally excluded child witness testimony as child not capable of observing
Problem in child abuse cases
Jury less likely to believe a child
Rozell (1985) -> children good/better than adults as observers
Children struggle translating observation verbally
Children can be reliable in child abuse cases
Struggle with chronology, leading questions affect them more
Characteristics of the defendant
The halo effect:
Cognitive bias where observer's overall impression influences their thoughts of person's chqaracter
Dion (1972) -> attractive people perceived to have better personality and less likely to be convicted
Attractiveness of the defendant and the victim:
Castellow (1990) -> mock trial with 71m and 74f
Read sexual harrassment case and asked questions
Photographs presented of victim/defendant and rated 1-9 on attractiveness already
When defendant was attractive, 56% said guilty but 76% when unattractive
When victim attractive, 77% guilty, 55% not attractive
Defendant/victim may be advised to look their best for court
Attractiveness of the defendant and the type of crime:
Sigall and Ostrove (1975) -> 120 undergraduate students, 6 groups, shown account of criminal case
Each p had to sentence a term
First IV was if case had female attractive, unattractive or no photo
Second IV was if crime was burglary or fraud
Unattractive/no photo had similar sentences
Attractive had longer fraud, less burglary
Unattractive had longer burglary, shorter
Attractive more likely to get away with crime
Race of the defendant:
Maeder (2015) -> in SA trials, white defendant, attractive victims more responsible than unattractive
Reversed effects with black defendant and non-existent for trials with aboriginal Canadian defendant
Effect of accent on juries:
Dixon (2002) -> repeated measures with 3 groups to rate 3 accents on probability of committing a particular crime
More guilt towards Received pronunciation accent on theft
Dixon et al (2002) on Accents and guilt
Method
Lab experiment, independent measures
IVs: accent type either Brummie or Standard, race of suspect either black or white, crime type either armed robbery (blue collar/working class) or cheque fraud (white collar/middle class)
DV: ps attributions of guilty operationalised using 7 point scale 1=innocent 7=guilty
Sample:
Ps students from University College Worcester -> course requirement
24m, 95f 25.2 years
Native Brummies excluded
Procedure
Tape recording of suspect:
Ps had to listen to 2 min tape recording pf mock interview held in police station in 1995
Student in mid 20s spoke with standard accent but was able to switch between accents
Suspect pleading innocent on interrogation
One tape was cheque fraud white collar, other was armed robbery blue collar
Description altered to either black or white
Rating the dependent variables:
Ps completed two sets of rating scales
Suspects guilt 1-7
Completed SEI, measure of language attitudes on 3 dimensions: superiority, attractiveness, dynamism
Materials:
Standardised exchange between police officer and suspect
Results
IVs:
Accent type: Brummie more guilty than standard, mean 4.27 for Brummie and 3.65 for standard
Race of suspect: Black not significantly more guilty than white
Crime type: blue not significantly more guilty than white
Interaction between IVs: black, brummie, blue collar had highest guilt rating
Speech evaluation instrument:
Superiority and attractiveness accounted for 13% of variance in respondents' guilt ratings
brummie suspect rated lower in superiority than standard
Conclusions
Non standard English speakers perceived as guilty more than standard
No cause and effect
Perception of language attitudes may predict whether suspect guilty or not
Strategies to influence jury decision-making
Present evidence in story order
Pennington and Hastie (1992) -> proposed story order model of presenting evidence which can be most influential approaches to jury decision making
Lawyers create a timeline:
Lawyer's job to make timeline by organising presentation of evidence in story order so jurors can use narrative to enhance memory of events
Jurors develop a coherent story:
Jurors make active sense of trial information presented to them
Each juror's story may differ slightly as they understand and perceive differently
Tend to accept story that is most complete
Judges give direction:
At end of trial, judge sums up evidence and advise jury on how to come to verdict
Directions usually are instructions on the law
Juror matches story to possible verdicts:
Process begins with judge providing one or alternate verdict decisions
Jurors must match account to possible verdict decision
Jurors will favour lawyer if lawyer created clear timeline
If lawyer's story doesn't match judge's decision, they may not believe
Using expert witnesses
What is expert testimony?
Used when particular scientific, technical or specialised area that needs to be explained in court
Provided by qualified expert
E.g. Elizabeth Loftus often employed for eyewitness testimony
Provides unbiased evidence to assist the court
Qualities required of an expert witness:
Expert witness should have detailed knowledge on subject matter
Lawyers cross examine expert witnesses in great detail
Expert witness must have ability to communicate findings and opinions clearly and consisely
Evidence for using expert psychological witnesses:
Cutler (1989) -> investigated influence of expert psychological testimony on juror decision making in eyewitness cases
Expert psychological testimony improved juror sensitivity
Sensitivity refers to knowledge of how factor influences memory and ability to use knowledge when making judgement about eyewitness accuracy
Evaluation
Validity
Valid:
High internal validity -> high control levels
95% people able to identify region of Brummie accent
Accents matched by judged who rated accents to be similar level of loudness
Not valid:
Low ecological validity
Playing tape recording of police interview where race of suspect is suggested is not true to real courtroom
Videotaped trial will not have same effect on jurors
Reliability
Reliable:
Standardised procedure of exchange with police officer and suspect
Same videotaped trial used when looking at witness confidence
Sampling bias
Bias:
People other than students exposed to more accents
Juries not solely students so cannot generalise attributions of guilt due to accents from this sample
Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentric:
Use of Brummie accents associated with working class culture adopt a western perspective of accents
Castellow et al (1990) -> attractiveness will differ in different cultures
Freewill/determinism
Determinism:
Decisions that jurors make can be determined by social factors
E.g. accents influencing jurors decision
Freewill:
Jurors make final decision themselves by making reasoned self-determined decisions
Individual/situational
Individual:
Some witnesses/suspects are more confident than others
Penrod and Cutler (1995) -> participants who were more confident when giving evidence had greater effect on jury members
Situational:
Situation of the courtroom, how evidence presented by lawyers and characteristics of witnesses and defendants influence decision of jury members
Usefulness
Useful:
Psychologists can be called in to advise jurors about results of their research
Results from Castellow useful for lawyers so they know when to emphasise the important of appearance to their clients
Ethical considerations
Not ethical:
Participants took part in Dixon study as part of their psychology course, so may have felt they were unable to withdraw
Ps may have felt distressed listening to the taped interview
Conducting socially sensitive research
Sensitive:
Shows back people are discriminated against in a legal context
Fewer guilty verdicts for person with standard English accent compared to Brummie