Cross‐cultural differences in eyewitness memory reports

Abstract

Summary Increasingly, investigators conduct interviews with eyewitnesses from different cultures. The culture in which people have been socialised can impact the way they encode, remember, and report information about their experiences. We examined whether eyewitness memory reports of mock witnesses from collectivistic (sub‐Saharan Africa) and individualistic (Northern Europe) cultures differed regarding quantity and quality of central and background details reported. Mock witnesses (total N = 200) from rural Ghana, urban Ghana, and the Netherlands were shown stimuli scenes of crimes in Dutch and Ghanaian settings and provided free and cued recalls. Individualistic culture mock witnesses reported the most details, irrespective of detail type. For each cultural group, mock witnesses reported more correct central details when crime was witnessed in their own native setting than a non‐native setting, though for different recall domains. The findings provide insight for legal and investigative professionals as well as immigration officials eliciting memory reports in cross‐cultural contexts.

The acculturation effect and eyewitness memory reports among migrants

“…We also expected that the self-reported individualism of sub-Saharan African migrants would increase during the years in Western Europe. Based on the findings of previous research (Anakwah et al, 2020), we predicted that sub-Saharan Africans living in Western Europe would report more central and background details than sub-Saharan Africans living in Africa. Although previous research suggests that mock witnesses report more details for their own-native setting than a nonnative setting (Anakwah et al, 2020), in view of the hypothesized acculturation, we expected these migrants to report an equal amount of details for sub-Saharan African crime settings and Western European crime settings.…”

“…With time, they may adapt to their new cultural environment, internalizing some of the norms of the host culture in the process (Arends-Tóth & Vijver, 2009;Triandis, 2001). The culture in which individuals have been socialized can impact the content of their memory reports (Gutchess & Boduroglu, 2019;Wang, 2009;Anakwah et al, 2020). Given that migrants adapt to their new cultural environments, it is necessary to examine whether this adaptation process also shapes the content of their eyewitness memory reports.…”

“…Consistent with research on cultural self-construal and autobiographical memory, research has also demonstrated cultural differences in eyewitness memory reports. For example in research by Anakwah et al (2020), participants from a collectivistic culture (Ghana) and an individualistic culture (The Netherlands) were shown stimuli scenes of crime scenarios in both countries and reported what they saw. Results showed that mock witnesses from individualistic cultures provided more detailed memory reports than mock witnesses from collectivistic cultures.…”

Police Victim and Witness Interviewing in a Northern Canadian Territory: Measuring Perceptions and Practice

“…More importantly for this research, there is a discernible gap in the police interviewing literature. Some studies have looked at cultural considerations for suspect interviews (Beune et al 2011), but there are few studies of cross-cultural interviewing of witnesses and victims by police, even though it is well known that culture has an effect in both communication and memory (Anakwah et al 2020;Hope and Gabbert 2019). In addition, although Indigenous people are over-represented as victims of crime (Scrim 2016), little research has been conducted in Canada on the needs and experiences of Indigenous victims and witnesses in court or police settings, or how cultural norms and perceptions affect the police interview process.…”

“…Individuals from collectivist cultures may also pay attention to, and subsequently remember, different aspects of an event than a person from a more individualistic culture and give narrative accounts with less personal details and more general descriptions of routines and social activities (for a more detailed explanation of the collectivist/individualist continuum, see Conway and Jobson 2012). Recent interviewing research (Anakwah et al 2020) comparing interviews with African and European eyewitnesses suggests that it may be necessary, to achieve the level of detail required for a police interview, for the interviewer to request additional information from witnesses from collective cultures. As such, there is value in examining how cross-cultural police victim and witness interviews could be carried out with sensitivity and efficacy in Canada and around the world.…”