Section four

• What is section four

  Psychology in the courtroom
• What factors can persuade juries

  Age, gender, language, race, attractiveness
• What are mock trials

  Students play the role of the jury and they are much shorter, usually read or hear a crime
• Advantages of mock trials

  Ethical

  used to establish reliability by using the same method

  The same evidence can be used to test different hypothsis
• What are the disadvantages of mock trials

  Jurors know it isn’t real so might not take it seriously therefore it lacks realism

  Students might be unaware and not have best knowledge on crime
• What is the halo effect

  Cognitive bias - the observers first impression of a person will influence their thoughts on that character
• Karen dion suggested what is beautiful is good, what does this mean

  People who are attractive are less likely to be guilty
• evidence for halo effect

  Using 60 students they found that attractive people are more likely to be viewed as less likely to be convicted of a crime
• What did sigall and ostrol find about attractiveness of the defendant

  Showed people a photo (attractive or not) and asked if they committed fraud or burglary. Suggested longer sentences when the defendant was unattractive.
• seggie studied accents, what is the evidence for accents having an effect on sentence

  Looked at 3 accents, British Australian and Asian. Participants listened to recordings of the accents pleading innocent. Asked to assess guilt. British accent found more guilty of theft and Australians found more guilty of fraud
• How might race affect conviction

  Certain minorities are negatively stereotyped so this could influence the way a jury suspects them.
• What is the evidence for race

  White uni students rated black defendants as more likely to be guilty than white defendants. This was seen stronger when the victim was white
• What is the key research

  Dixon et al
• What did Dixon aim to do

  To test the hypothesis that a brummie accent would produce stronger attributions of guilt than a standard accent.
• What was Dixon sample

  119 white undergrad psych students

  24 males and 95 females

  from Worcester
• What is the research method of Dixon

  Lab and independent measures
• What were the three IV of Dixon

  Accent

  race

  type of crime
• DV of dixon 


  Scale of suspects guilt 1-7
• Procedure of Dixon

  Ps listened to a 2 min tape recording of a mock interview. One male 20 year old played the roles of both accents. Suspect pleaded innocent to either a blue collar or white collar crime. Described as either black or white. They then completed two sets of rating scales.
• What were the rating scales used by dixon

  1-7 (guilty or not) 1= innocent

  SEI - speech evaluation instrument
• What were the two crimes in Dixon study

  White collar - cheque fraud

  blue collar - burglary
• Findings of Dixon

  brummie accent was found more guilty with a mean of 4.27, the standard accent got 3.65.

  No difference in race. No difference in type of crime.

  The brunmie accent was rated lower in terms of superiority
• Conclusions of Dixon

  Decisions about guilt may be influenced by accent.

  Non standard English is more guilty that standard English
• What is application one

  Story order - lawyers should create a timeline to enhance memory. at the end of the trial the judge sums up evidence and advices the jury.
• Application two

  Expert testimony - when an expert in a particular field explains matters to the jury