How reliable are eyewitness memories? Effects of retention interval, violence of act, and gender stereotypes on observers' judgments of their own memory regarding witnessed act and perpetrator

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of (i) stimulus person's gender, (ii) type of act (neutral or violent), and (iii) retention interval (short or long) on observers' memory of a stimulus person. Participants were presented with one of two acts: neutral (walking around in a store) or violent (robbing a store). The retention interval was 10 minutes or oneÁthree weeks. The dependent variables were questionnaire items concerning the participants' memory of (1) the stimulus person's appearance and (2) the event, and (3) rating scales where the participants were asked to evaluate the stimulus person's aggressiveness, insensitivity, and other personality traits as well as characteristics of the act. Results showed that when the act was violent, and a long retention interval was used, a female, but not a male, stimulus person was evaluated less harshly than with a short retention interval (enhancement of gender stereotype); a stimulus person was seen as behaving in a more masculine way when performing a violent rather than a neutral act; witnessing the violent act resulted in better self-rated memory of the stimulus person; and with increasing retention interval, the violent act was seen as less negative and the neutral act as more negative (regression toward the mean).

Alcohol Intoxicated Witnesses: Perception of Aggression and Guilt in Intimate Partner Violence

“…Regarding the use of stereotypes, previous research supports the notion that more stereotypical male assertive and aggressive behavior (Davies, 2007) is accepted by intoxicated individuals (Ogle & Miller, 2004). A male stereotype of assertive behavior (Davies, 2007;Hoyle, 2007;Lindholm & Yourstone Cederwall, 2010), sometimes including physical aggression (Ahola, 2012), is congruent with the behavior displayed by the man in the scenario used for the present study. However, the assertive behavior displayed by the woman in the scenario is non-congruent with the female stereotype.…”

Nosewitness Identification: Effects of Lineup Size and Retention Interval

“…The RI – that is, the amount of time between the crime and the presentation of a lineup to the witnesses – is an important estimator variable to consider in lineup identification of criminals ( Wells and Loftus, 2003 ; Deffenbacher et al, 2008 ; Paz-Alonso and Goodman, 2008 ; Ahola, 2012 ). Contrary to the system variables, the estimator variables cannot be controlled by the justice system (e.g., Wells and Olson, 2003 ).…”

Effects of theft stereotype on bystander recall, interpretation, and punishment for male and female juvenile thieves

“…According to selective evidence processing theory, stereotypic beliefs and attitudes corroborated by criminal evidence reinforce memory and decisions through attention and rehearsal of the information, whereas evidence that contradicts or is inconsistent with expectations will be ignored and unlikely to be recalled (Bodenhausen, 1988). Stereotypes can bias bystanders' perceptions and interpretations of the crime, reduce their recall of central features of a simulated juvenile crime, and result in decision to not punish when perpetrated by a female thief because the criminal is inconsistent with the “male thief” stereotype (Ahola, 2012; Bates et al, 2019; Shapiro, 2009; Shapiro & Brooks, 2018; Shapiro & Maras, 2017; Skorinko & Spellmen, 2013). Female criminals have been judged to be less responsible, less blameworthy, and less guilty than their male counterparts, particularly when their victims were male (Rivera & Veysey, 2015; also see White & Dutton, 2013, for a review).…”