Key research: Dixon

• Aims

  • To test the hypothesis that a suspect with a Brummie accent will receive a higher rating of guilt than someone with a standard accent
  • To see whether the race of the suspect and/or the type of crime the suspect is accused of would make any difference to the likelihood of them being rated guilty
• Sample

  • 119 white undergraduate students (24m, 95f) at University College of Worcester
  • Mean age of 25.2 years and anyone who grew up in Birmingham was excluded. They participated as past of their course requirements
• Procedure

  • Listened to a 2 minute conversation based on a transcript of an interview that took place in a Birmingham police station in 1995. It involved two people:

  1. A male in his 40s with a standard accent - he played the role of the police officer
  2. A male in his 20s - he played the role of the suspect and as a 'natural code switcher' was able to speak in both a Brummie and standard accent
• Procedure 0.2


  There were 3 independent variable that were manipulated:

  1. The suspect spoke with either a Brummie or standard accent
  2. The suspect was either of armed robbery (blue-collar crime) or cheque fraud (white-collar crime)
  3. The suspect was described by the inspector as being either white or black

  In all the versions of the tape recording, the suspect pleaded his innocence. After listening to whichever version of the tape they were given, participants on a 7-point scale from innocent to guilty
• Results

  • The Brummie accented suspect was rated higher on guilt than the standard accent suspect
  • When the suspect had a Brummie accent, was described as being black and was being accused of the blue-collared crime, he got significantly higher guilty ratings than other conditions
• Conclusions


  Some accents (e.g. Brummie) were deemed to sound guiltier than others