Dangerous decisions: the impact of first impressions of trustworthiness on the evaluation of legal evidence and defendant culpability

Abstract

There is little support for the long-standing assumption that judges and jurors can accurately assess credibility. According to Dangerous Decisions Theory (DDT; Porter & ten Brinke, Legal and Criminological Psychology, 14, 119Á134, 2009), intuitive evaluations of trustworthiness based on the face may strongly bias the interpretation of subsequent information about a target. In a courtroom setting, the assessment of evidence provided by or concerning a defendant may be fundamentally flawed if its interpretation is influenced by an initial, spontaneous assessment of trustworthiness. In an empirical test of DDT, participants were presented with two vignettes describing major or minor crimes, accompanied by a photograph of the supposed defendant, previously rated as highly trustworthy or untrustworthy in appearance. Participants evaluated culpability following the presentation of evidence in each case. Participants required less evidence to arrive at a guilty verdict and were more confident in this decision for untrustworthyappearing defendants. The current evidence supports DDT and has implications for legal decision-making practices.

Pitfalls and Opportunities in Nonverbal and Verbal Lie Detection

“…Anderson, Lepper, & Ross, 1980). Researchers have found such phenomena to influence flawed deception detection and evaluation of evidence in legal cases more generally (Porter, Gustaw, & ten Brinke, 2010). Fourth, after observers form a strong opinion that makes sense to them, they often create further reasons to support their view .…”

“…An opposite anchoring problem has been observed in the legal system. According to dangerous decisions theory (Porter, Gustaw, et al, 2010;Porter & ten Brinke, 2009), the reading of a suspect's or defendant's face and emotional expressions (the anchor) plays a powerful role in influencing decisions concerning his or her honesty. This theory predicts that the human brain makes instantaneous inferences about trustworthiness that influence various aspects of interpersonal evaluation, including those about credibility and culpability.…”

“…For example, attractiveness and characteristics of faces can lead to inferences of trustworthiness that facilitate the liar's success (e.g., Porter, England, Juodis, ten Brinke, & Wilson, 2008;Porter, Gustaw, & ten Brinke, 2010).…”

The Look that Binds: Partner-Directed Altruistic Motivation and Biased Perception in Married Couples

“…Thus, irrespective of the age of targets or perceivers, a trustworthy appearance seems to be regarded by perceivers as reflecting a globally positive personality capable of evoking a host of benevolent perceiver reactions (Porter et al, 2010;Rezlescu et al, 2012;van't Wout & Sanfey, 2008) Is it possible that the reverse is also true? That is, might perceivers regard targets who evoke an unambiguously benign motivation as having a globally positive (i.e., more trustworthy) physical appearance (cf.…”

“…Indeed, a growing body of research attests to the impact of facial appearance on perceivers' trustworthiness evaluations and consequent behaviors towards strangers. For example, in a courtroom-like experimental setting, participants required less evidence to reach a guilty verdict and were more confident in their decision when the supposed defendant had an untrustworthy, rather than trustworthy, appearance (Porter, ten Brinke, & Gustaw, 2010). Likewise, in the context of an economic trust game, participants gave more money to trustworthy, relative to untrustworthy, game partners (independent of the partners' perceived physical attractiveness) -an effect that persisted to some extent even when participants were provided with diagnostic behavioral information regarding their game partners (Rezlescu, Duchaine, Olivola, & Chater, 2012;van't Wout & Sanfey, 2008).…”