8/17/2012
Social Psychology in Action 3
Social Psychology and the Law
Slides prepared by JoNell Strough, Ph.D. & Philip Lemaster, M.A. West Virginia University
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Eyewitness Testimony
• If an eyewitness fingers you as the culprit: – You are quite likely to be convicted – Even if considerable evidence indicates your innocence.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Eyewitness Testimony
• Innocence Project – 250 cases in which DNA evidence exonerated someone after being convicted • Most common cause of wrongful conviction – faulty eyewitness identification
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
1 8/17/2012
Why Are Eyewitnesses Often Wrong?
• Our minds are not like video cameras!
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Figure SPA-3.1 Acquisition, Storage, and Retrieval To be an accurate eyewitness, people must complete three stages of memory processing. Errors may creep in at each of the three stages.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Why Are Eyewitnesses Often Wrong?
• Greater stress – Worse memory for details • Crime victims are under stress. – Focus attention mostly on weapon – Less on the suspect’s features • If someone points a gun at you, your attention is likely to be more on the gun than on whether the robber has blue or brown eyes!
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
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Why Are Eyewitnesses Often Wrong?
• Even if we notice a person or event we might not remember it very well, if we are unfamiliar with it.
Own-Race Bias The fact that people are better at recognizing faces of their own race than those of other races.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Why Are Eyewitnesses Often Wrong?
• Expectations influence attention. – People are poor at noticing the unexpected. • Example – Studies of the gorilla at the basketball game
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Expectations and Interpretations Video
Click on the screenshot to watch how expectations influence attention and interpretations of behavior at the scene of the crime. Back to Directory
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
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Why Are Eyewitnesses Often Wrong?
• When people examine same-race faces – Attend to individuating features that distinguish that face • When people examine different-race faces – Attend to features that distinguish that face from their own race – Less attentive to individuating features
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Why Are Eyewitnesses Often Wrong?
• Because people usually have less experience with features that characterize individuals of other races, they find it more difficult to tell members of that race apart.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Storage
• Reconstructive memory – The process whereby memories of an event become distorted by information encountered after the event occurred
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
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Students saw one of these pictures and then tried to remember whether they had seen a stop sign or a yield sign. Many of those who heard leading questions about the street sign made mistaken reports about which sign they had seen. (From Loftus, Miller, & Burns, 1978) Source: Courtesy of Elizabeth Loftus
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Storage
• Misleading questions can change people’s minds about: – How fast a car was going – Whether broken glass was at the scene of an accident – Whether a traffic light was green or red – Whether a robber had a mustache
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Storage
• Misleading questions cause a problem with source monitoring.
Source Monitoring The process whereby people try to identify the source of their memories.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
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Retrieval
• Problems can also occur when memories are retrieved. – Witnesses often choose the person in a lineup who most resembles the criminal, even if the resemblance is not very strong. • They make their “best guess.”
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Judging Whether Eyewitnesses Are Mistaken
• Confidence is not a good predictor of accuracy. – Confident identifications have led to convictions of innocent people.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Why Doesn’t Certainty Mean Accuracy?
• Factors that influence people’s confidence are not necessarily the same things that influence accuracy. • Example – After identifying a suspect, a person’s confidence increases if he or she finds out that other witnesses identified the same suspect and decreases if he or she finds out that other witnesses identified a different suspect.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
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Responding Quickly
• Faster responses tend to be more accurate – “His face just “popped out” at me” • Inaccurate witnesses – Use process of elimination – Deliberately compare one face to another
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
The Problem with Verbalization
• Trying to put an image of a face into words can make people's memory worse.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Judging Whether Witnesses Are Lying
• Witnesses might deliberately lie when on the witness stand. – If lying, why couldn’t the jurors tell? • People are not very accurate at detecting deception.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
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Judging Whether Witnesses Are Lying
• People with a lot of experience in dealing with liars • E.g., law enforcement agents and employees of the CIA – Are NOT more accurate at detecting deception than college students
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Can Polygraph Machines Tell If People Are Lying?
• Polygraph – A machine that measures people’s physiological responses (e.g., their heart rate). • Polygraph operators attempt to tell if someone is lying by observing that person’s physiological responses while answering questions.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Although polygraphs can detect whether someone is lying at levels better than chance, they are far from infallible. Source: Spencer Grant/PhotoEdit
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
8 8/17/2012
Do Lie Detectors Work?
• “Almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy” (National Research Council, 2003; p. 212). – No!
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
The Recovered Memory Debate
• The accuracy of recovered memories has been hotly debated.
Recovered Memories Recollections of a past event, such as sexual abuse, that have been forgotten or repressed.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
The Recovered Memory Debate
• There is evidence that people can acquire vivid memories of events that never occurred, especially if another person—such as a psychotherapist— suggests that the events occurred.
False Memory Syndrome Remembering a past traumatic experience that is objectively false but nevertheless accepted as true.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
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The Recovered Memory Debate
• Suggesting past abuse may plant false memories rather than helping clients remember real events. – Not all recovered memories are inaccurate. • Difficult to distinguish the accurate memories from the false ones in the absence of any corroborating evidence.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Juries—Group Processes in Action
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
How Lawyers Present Evidence
• One of two ways: 1. Story order: • Sequence in which events occurred, corresponding to the story they want the jurors to believe 2. Witness order • Sequence thought to have the greatest impact, even if this means that events are described out of order
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
10 8/17/2012
How Jurors Process Trial Information
• When the prosecutor used story order and the defense used witness order: – Jurors were most likely to believe the prosecutor. – 78% voted to convict. • When the prosecutor used witness order and the defense used story order, the tables were turned. – Only 31% voted to convict.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
How Jurors Process Trial Information
• Prosecutors usually present evidence in story order. • Defense attorneys usually use witness order. – May explain reason the conviction rate in felony trials in America is so high (about 80%)
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Confessions—Are They Always What They Seem?
• The interrogation process can go wrong in ways that elicit false confessions. • Police investigators are often convinced that the suspect is guilty. – Belief biases how they conduct the interrogation.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
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People sometimes confess to crimes they did not commit, when they are subjected to long, stressful interrogations. Source: Spencer Grant/PhotoEdit
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Confessions—Are They Always What They Seem?
• Solution to coerced confessions – Require interrogations to be videotaped – Jury can decide whether the defendant was coerced into admitting things • Problem – Focus on suspect and the fundamental attribution error
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Deliberations in the Jury Room
• In 97% of jury decisions, final vote is the one favored by the majority in the initial vote.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
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Deliberations in the Jury Room
• So, why require deliberation? – Requires careful consideration of evidence – Does change decision about type of verdict • Most juries have discretion as to type of verdict. – E.g., manslaugheter versus murder • Minority can influence majority vote in this way on juries.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
In the 1954 movie Twelve Angry Men, Henry Fonda convinces all of his fellow jurors to change their minds about a defendant’s guilt. In real life, however, cases are rare of a minority in a jury convincing the majority to change its mind. Source: Photos 12/Alamy Limited
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
Summary and Review
• Eyewitness Testimony • Recovered memories • Jury Deliberation
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition ©2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert All Rights Reserved.
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