Penrod and Cutler

• Sample

  Participants (mock jurors) included undergraduate students and experimental jurors.
• Procedure

  • Lab experiment with independent measures design
  • Participants were shown one of two videotaped mock trials of a robbery
  • The independent variable centred on they female eyewitness who stated in her evidence that she was either 80% confident about her information of the suspect or 100%
  • The dependent variable was whether they found the suspects guilty or not
• Results

  • When the eyewitness declared herself 80% certain about the identity of the suspect, he was found guilty 60% of the time.
  • When eyewitness declared herself 100% certain about the identity of the subject, he was found guilty 67% of the time
  • This was a significant difference, suggesting the more confident the witness, the more likely jurors are to be convinced