Speech style and occupational status affect assessments of eyewitness testimony

Jules, Sean J.; McQuiston, Dawn E.

doi:10.1111/jasp.12002

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A powerless and powerful speech style dimension has been shown to be associated with observer evaluations of the speaker and his or her communicated message (Erickson et al, ; Hosman, Huebner, & Siltanen, ; Hosman & Wright, ; Jules & McQuiston, ). In this study, relationships between rated power of speech and objective as well as perceived identification accuracy depended on the type of material presented (identification statement only vs. identification plus descriptions).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Laboratory studies also provide more direct evidence that hedges and hesitations negatively affect evaluations of witness credibility and guilt (Hosman & Wright, ; Schooler, Gerhard, & Loftus, ). Moreover, Jules and McQuiston () demonstrated that observers rated witnesses' recollections of details and witnesses' identification decisions as more accurate when witnesses used a powerful (vs. powerless) speech style. Leippe () concluded that all these linguistic characteristics convey a general impression of expertise, which can be applied to a witness's ability to give an accurate memory report.…”

Section: Behavior Cuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Observer judgments of identification accuracy are affected by non‐valid cues: A Brunswikian lens model analysis

Kaminski

Sporer

2017

Euro J Social Psych

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigated persuasive effects of behavior cues on observer judgments of eyewitness identification decisions. Forty-eight positive identification statements (50% of which were objectively correct) were evaluated regarding witness likeability, trustworthiness, knowledge, and impression of confidence. Moreover, ratings of different speech style characteristics (e.g., hedges, hesitations, gestures, speech rate, and answer length) and of different person and event description qualities were collected. It was investigated (i) whether these cues were related to objective identification accuracy and (ii) whether observers used them to make their judgments and how they weighed them. Observers heavily relied on the impression of witness confidence and overestimated the discriminative value of several description qualities, although none of these cues was a valid indicator of identification accuracy. Effects of speech style characteristics depended on the presence of additional descriptions. Recommendations for the evaluation of identification decisions in criminal proceedings are discussed.Eyewitness testimony including identification decisions is often the only, or the major, source of evidence available in court and consequently serves as an essential basis for later convictions (Garrett, 2011). At trial, judges and/or jurors have to evaluate the accuracy of identification decisions to arrive at their verdicts. Importantly, it is not only a witness's misidentification per se that leads to judicial errors but rather the erroneous evaluation of these identification decisions that leads to wrongful convictions.Many studies have shown that observers' ability to discriminate between correct and incorrect identification decisions is limited, that is, their judgment accuracy is often no better than chance level (e.g., Beaudry et al., 2015;Brigham & Bothwell, 1983;Wells & Lindsay, 1983). Thus, to explain fact finders' judgment accuracy, it is necessary to get a deeper insight into observers' judgmental processes. In these evaluation processes, an identification decision serves as a persuasive message that affects fact finders' judgments. Many studies have examined the persuasive impact of various aspects of an identification decision on observer judgments (i.e., witnessing conditions, post-identification confidence, response latency, and self-reports of witnesses' decision processes; e.g., Dunning & Stern, 1994;Kaminski & Sporer, 2017;Neal, Christiansen, Bornstein, & Robicheaux, 2012a). In contrast, this study focused on the persuasive impact of different perceived behavior cues and quantitative and qualitative aspects of witnesses' descriptions of the perpetrator and the crime.Behavior cues have been extensively analyzed in other legal contexts like the detection of deception. Within the framework of the Brunswikian lens model (Brunswik, 1956(Brunswik, , 1965, Hartwig and Bond (2011) and others (e.g., Fiedler, 1989;Sporer & Küpper, 1995) contrasted observers' use of (behavioral) deception cues with their v...

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Behavior Cuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observer judgments of identification accuracy are affected by non‐valid cues: A Brunswikian lens model analysis

Kaminski

Sporer

2017

Euro J Social Psych

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Social scientists from a variety of fields have contributed to the broader theoretical discussion of status (Berger and Webster 2006;Correll and Ridgeway 2003;Jules and McQuinston 2013;Love and Davis 2014;Martin and Sell 1985;Simpson, Willer, and Ridgeway 2012). Expectation states theory is a theoretical research program, dating back to the early 1950s, concerned with the combination, sources, maintenance, and consequences of social expectations.…”

Section: Expectations States Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Unequal and Unfair: Free Riding in One‐Shot Interactions

McDougal

2018

Sociological Inquiry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigates the effect of status on perceptions of and reactions to free riders. Extrapolating from expectation states theory, I posit that higher status actors are granted a greater degree of social leniency than lower status actors when it comes to free riding. Specifically, I hypothesize that higher status actors are less likely to evoke the same negative emotional and behavioral responses elicited by lower status free riders. Using gender as an indicator of status, I employ a simple vignette to examine this relationship. Results validate previous findings related to the negative emotional and affective responses individuals have toward free riders. Furthermore, while findings fail to support the stated hypotheses, additional results demonstrate the subtle complexity of the relationship between gender, status, and free riding as well as its effect on the emotional and behavioral responses of individuals within small groups. As a result, I suggest that an outright rejection of the stated hypotheses may be premature and that further research in this area is warranted.

show abstract

“…For example, Jones and Aronson (1973) found that when the victims were perceived as “respectable,” the defendant was sentenced to longer prison terms compared with when the victim was perceived as “less respectable.” However, Mazzella and Feingold (1994) took a meta-analytic approach to examine how certain victim characteristics may influence mock jurors’ decisions and found that the effects of victim SES was inconsequential. More recently, Jules and McQuiston (2013) examined the potential influence of occupational status (low vs. high) on mock jurors’ assessments of eyewitness testimony. Mock jurors were more likely to perceive the witness as more intelligent and more trustworthy when the witness was of high status as (e.g., a physician) as opposed to when the witness was of low status (e.g., a cashier).…”

Section: Social Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“But He’s a Star Football Player!”: How Social Status Influences Mock Jurors’ Perceptions in a Sexual Assault Case

Pica

Sheahan

Pozzulo

2017

J Interpers Violence

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There have been several recent, high-profile cases in the media that have shed light on the perceived leniency in sentencing defendants in sexual assault cases. In a number of these cases, the defendant was well known within their community (e.g., Brock Turner; People v. Turner) or nationally (e.g., Ghomeshi; R v. Ghomeshi). The purpose of this study was to examine how the social status of the defendant (low vs. high), victim social status (low vs. high), victim gender (male vs. female), and the reason the victim was unconscious during the assault (consuming alcohol vs. consuming cold medicine) influenced mock jurors' decisions in a sexual assault case. Mock jurors ( N = 489) read a mock trial transcript depicting an alleged sexual assault. Mock jurors were asked to render a dichotomous verdict, continuous guilt rating, and rate their perceptions of the victim and defendant. There was no influence of the variables on mock jurors' dichotomous verdicts; however, social status influenced guilt ratings. There also was a combined influence of the defendant's social status and the reason the victim was unconscious such that when the defendant was described as low status, and the victim was unconscious due to alcohol consumption, the defendant received higher guilt ratings compared with when the victim was unconscious due to cold medicine. Moreover, the victim was perceived as having more control over the situation when the defendant was the star quarterback (i.e., high status), the victim was female, and she was unconscious due to alcohol consumption compared with cold medicine. These results suggest that victims may be blamed based on their perceived social status and other factors that may have influenced their control over the sexual assault, such as alcohol consumption.

show abstract

Speech style and occupational status affect assessments of eyewitness testimony

Cited by 5 publications

References 12 publications

Observer judgments of identification accuracy are affected by non‐valid cues: A Brunswikian lens model analysis

Observer judgments of identification accuracy are affected by non‐valid cues: A Brunswikian lens model analysis

Unequal and Unfair: Free Riding in One‐Shot Interactions

“But He’s a Star Football Player!”: How Social Status Influences Mock Jurors’ Perceptions in a Sexual Assault Case

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About