Law and Human Behavior最新文献

Objective: Although there are many lab-based studies demonstrating the utility of confidence and decision time as indicators of eyewitness accuracy, there is almost no research on how well these variables function for lineups in the real world. In two experiments, we examined confidence and decision time associated with real lineups that had been conducted using research-based recommendations.

Hypotheses: We expected that how confident an eyewitness sounded and how quickly that eyewitness made their identification would be associated with whether that eyewitness identified a suspect or a filler. We also hypothesized that people's interpretations of eyewitness confidence could be easily influenced by additional, biasing information.

Method: Using audio recordings of these lineups, we examined (a) participants' subjective ratings of how confident an eyewitness sounded at the time of the identification and (b) objective data regarding how quickly the eyewitness made the identification decision. We also manipulated what additional information, if any, participants received in Experiment 2.

Results: In both experiments, decision time and confidence predicted whether the eyewitnesses identified the suspect or a known-innocent filler, and when decision time and confidence diverged, it is likely that the eyewitness identified a filler. In Experiment 2, we found that people's interpretations of eyewitness's confidence statements could be biased. When observers believed that the witness picked a filler rather than a suspect, or vice versa, this changed how confident they thought the witness sounded.

Conclusions: Confidence and decision time should both be collected when administering real lineups, but objective decision time data may be the most useful because people's perceptions of confidence are easily altered. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Because confessions are sometimes unreliable, it is important to understand how jurors evaluate confession evidence. We conducted a content analysis testing an attribution theory model for mock jurors' discussion of coerced confession evidence in determining verdicts.

Hypotheses: We tested exploratory hypotheses regarding mock jurors' discussion of attributions and elements of the confession. We expected that jurors' prodefense statements, external attributions (attributing the confession to coercion), and uncontrollable attributions (attributing the confession to defendant naivety) would predict more prodefense than proprosecution case judgments. We also expected that being male, politically conservative, and in support of the death penalty would predict proprosecution statements and internal attributions, which in turn would predict guilty verdicts.

Method: Mock jurors (N = 253, M_age = 47 years; 65% women; 88% White, 10% Black, 1% Hispanic, 1% listed "other") read a murder trial synopsis, watched an actual coerced false confession, completed case judgments, and deliberated in juries of up to 12 members. We videotaped, transcribed, and reliably coded deliberations.

Results: Most mock jurors (53%) rendered a guilty verdict. Participants made more prodefense than proprosecution statements, more external than internal attributions, and more internal than uncontrollable attributions. Participants infrequently mentioned various elements of the interrogation (police coercion, contamination, promises of leniency, interrogation length) and psychological consequences for the defendant. Proprosecution statements and internal attributions predicted proprosecution case judgments. Women made more prodefense and external attribution statements than men, which in turn predicted diminished guilt. Political conservatives and death penalty proponents made more proprosecution statements and internal attributions than their counterparts, respectively, which in turn predicted greater guilt.

Conclusions: Some jurors identified coercive elements of a false confession and rendered external attributions for a defendant's false confession (attributing the confession to the coercive interrogation) during deliberation. However, many jurors made internal attributions, attributing a defendant's false confession to his guilt-attributions that predicted juror and jury inclinations to convict an innocent defendant. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objectives: Hispanic individuals are a growing proportion of the general and carceral populations in the United States. This study examined the relationship between the type of sentences (prison, jail/probation) given to White, non-Hispanic individuals and to similarly situated individuals who were perceived to be Hispanic (any race) or perceived to be White but, based on validated estimates, self-identified as Hispanic.

Hypotheses: Psychological theory indicates that, for group-based stereotypes and attitudes to impact decisions, decisionmakers must first identify and categorize target individuals as members of the relevant group. Following this theory, we predicted that individuals perceived by members of the criminal justice system to be Hispanic will be more likely to be sentenced to prison than similarly situated individuals perceived to be White. However, sentences of individuals predicted to have been misperceived as White but to self-identify as Hispanic will not differ from those of individuals accurately perceived as White.

Method: We analyzed official state records of more than 220,000 unique sentencing decisions for nearly 200,000 individuals under state correctional supervision between 2005 and 2018, including demographic characteristics, statutory crime-seriousness and criminal-history scores from state sentencing guidelines, and sentencing outcomes.

Results: Even after controlling for crime severity and criminal history, we found that individuals who were labeled as Hispanic in criminal justice records were nearly twice as likely to be sentenced to prison as those who were labeled as White (odds ratio [OR] = 1.95, 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.86, 2.04]). By comparison, individuals who were labeled in criminal justice records as White but, on the basis of validated estimates, were predicted to self-identify as Hispanic had the same likelihood of being sentenced to prison as individuals who were accurately perceived to be White (OR = 1.01, 95% CI [0.94, 1.07]).

Conclusions: Results suggest that ethnic stereotypes or attitudes regarding Hispanic individuals may negatively impact criminal sentencing decisions regarding people perceived as Hispanic by actors in the legal system. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Recently, experimental work on racial bias in legal settings has diverged from real-world field data demonstrating racial disparities, instead often producing null or potential overcorrection effects favoring Black individuals over White individuals. We explored the role of social desirability in these counterintuitive effects and tested whether allowing participants to establish nonracist moral credentials increased their willingness to convict a Black defendant.

Hypotheses: We predicted that establishing nonracist moral credentials would increase convictions of Black defendants-especially for participants likely to harbor racial bias and external motivation to control it.

Method: In two experiments, we randomly assigned White mock jurors (Study 1: N = 1,018; Study 2: N = 1,253) to establish nonracist moral credentials by acquitting a Black defendant in an initial case, acquit a White defendant in the same case, or see no prior case. Next, they judged an ambiguous case against a Black (Studies 1 and 2) or White (Study 2) defendant. After choosing verdicts, they provided open-ended guesses of what the study was about. Participants completed measures of explicit prejudice, motivations to control prejudice, and political orientation.

Results: Most participants who were asked to judge at least one Black defendant guessed that the study was about racial bias and convicted Black defendants less often than did those who guessed the study was about something else. White participants who established nonracist credentials were significantly more likely to convict Black defendants compared with White participants who did not establish nonracist credentials. Subsequent analyses revealed that conservatives showed this predicted credentialing pattern, whereas liberals did not. Credentialed liberals' convictions of Black defendants remained low; instead, they convicted White defendants more than did noncredentialed liberals.

Conclusions: Social desirability plays a clear role in whether White people acquit Black defendants in experiments, which does not align with persistent racial bias in the legal system. Research participants' concern about looking prejudiced might undermine the validity of experiments investigating racial bias in legal settings by artificially inflating pro-Black judgments. The opportunity to credential oneself as nonracist, however, might make conservatives more comfortable making anti-Black legal judgments-whereas credentialed liberals continue to judge Black individuals more favorably than White individuals in legal settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Given the greater contact that Black youth have with the legal system compared with White youth, it is important to consider the differential ways that police use of force against these youth is perceived. Black youth may be at greater risk than White youth for animalistic (being seen as animal-like) and mechanistic (being seen as object-like) dehumanization, which, along with a tendency for Black youth to be perceived as older (adultification), may impact observers' perceptions of police use of force toward Black youth. This study examined whether dehumanization and adultification were associated with the perceptions of force used and harm caused by police.

Hypotheses: We made five hypotheses. First, participants would dehumanize Black individuals more than White individuals, more mechanistically dehumanize Black women than Black men, and more animalistically dehumanize Black men than Black women. Second, dehumanization would be positively associated with adultification. Third, force would be rated as less appropriate and more excessive for White than for Black targets, particularly for males. Fourth, dehumanization, particularly animalistic dehumanization, would be associated with higher participant ratings of force justification and lower participant ratings of force severity and excessiveness. Fifth, participants would perceive girls as more harmed than boys and White individuals as more harmed than Black individuals.

Method: After completing an implicit dehumanization measure, participants viewed an image (varied on age and gender) of a juvenile, estimated the juvenile's age, and read a vignette in which the juvenile had an altercation with police. Participants rated the amount, severity, and justification of the force used by the officer as well as the physical and emotional harm caused to the juvenile.

Results: We found that Black targets were dehumanized more than White targets. Adultification, unrelated to implicit dehumanization, predicted perceiving police use of force against juveniles as more justified and less severe. Black girls were most likely to experience adultification; participants generally perceived them as less victimized than Black boys and White girls.

Conclusions: Adultification is associated with fewer protections for youth. Those with particular intersectional identities, such as Black girls, may be uniquely vulnerable to harm caused by police victimization. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Despite documented racial disparities in all facets of the criminal justice system, recent laboratory attempts to investigate racial bias in legal settings have produced null effects or racial-bias reversals. These counterintuitive findings may be an artifact of laboratory participants' attempts to appear unprejudiced in response to social norms that proscribe expressions of racial bias against Black individuals. Furthermore, given pervasive stereotypes linking Black people with crime and heightened attention to issues of racial injustice in the legal system, laboratory participants may be especially likely to attempt to appear unprejudiced in studies examining judgments of Black individuals in legal as opposed to nonlegal contexts.

Hypotheses: We predicted that counterintuitive race effects (null and pro-Black effects) are more likely to occur in laboratory research examining race in legal than in nonlegal contexts.

Method: We conducted a quantitative review of race effects in three leading social psychology and legal psychology journals over the last four decades (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin [PSPB]; Law and Human Behavior [LHB]; Psychology, Public Policy, and Law [PPPL]). We then conducted two experiments in which students (N = 314; Experiment 1) and Mechanical Turk workers (N = 695; Experiment 2) read descriptions of White and Black targets in either legal or nonlegal contexts and rated each target along various characteristics (e.g., dangerous, trustworthy).

Results: Our analysis of the literature indicated that counterintuitive race effects were more frequent in studies examining race in legal compared with nonlegal contexts. Our experiments likewise revealed that pro-Black race effects were stronger in legal than in nonlegal contexts.

Conclusions: Laboratory research on racial bias against Black people-especially in legal settings-may produce misleading conclusions about the effects of race on important real-world outcomes. Methodological innovations for studying racial bias are needed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Our study examined officers' attitudes and perceptions of adolescents in general (and challenges in policing adolescents) and the degree to which community variables affect those perceptions.

Hypotheses: Our examinations of officers' descriptions of adolescents and challenges in policing adolescents were exploratory. We hypothesized that community characteristics would significantly influence officers' perceptions of adolescents, such that working in more impoverished, higher crime, and more proportionally Black communities would be associated with more negative perceptions of adolescents.

Method: Data were obtained from 1,112 active law enforcement officers representing 30 police agencies/departments across the United States. Participating officers completed a survey about adolescents and challenges in policing adolescents. Publicly available data sets were used to measure select community and police agency/departmental characteristics. We examined qualitative data using an inductive methodological approach.

Results: Police officers' descriptions of adolescents were significantly more negative than positive. Negativity was observed in the relative frequency of negative versus positive comments about adolescents as well as the use of inherently problematic descriptors. Police officers working in more impoverished, higher crime, and more proportionally Black communities displayed significantly more problematic attitudes and significantly fewer positive attitudes compared with those in less proportionally Black communities. The findings related to race were partially-but not completely-explained by other community variables.

Conclusions: Officers' negative descriptors, their occasional use of inherently problematic terms, and the intensification of those tendencies when working in communities with more poverty, higher crime, and a larger proportion of Black residents suggest an urgent need for intervention to help officers better understand youth. Training that would help police officers better understand youth, recognize developmental influences, and see each youth individually rather than as a representative of a group could help officers interact more supportively with youth, be less likely to inadvertently create confrontation, and more effectively de-escalate situations involving distressed or activated youth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: White and non-White adolescents report different experiences in the legal system. This disparity impacts their evaluations of, and attitudes toward, legal authorities such that non-White and older adolescents tend to perceive the legal system more negatively. Yet, many researchers assume that the process of legal socialization, which involves internalizing norms and information about the law and the legal system, is universal for all ages and races.

Hypotheses: We hypothesized that legal socialization models would change over the course of adolescent development and would differ by race.

Method: We used data from two longitudinal studies to examine racial differences in the integrated legal socialization model in early, middle, and late adolescence. Study 1 included 140 young adolescents (59% White, 41% non-White), and Study 2 included 296 midadolescents (82% White, 18% non-White) followed into late adolescence/emerging adulthood.

Results: Study 1 identified differences in the integrated legal socialization model for young White and non-White adolescents. Normative status predicted rule-violating behavior for White participants, whereas no predictors or mediators related to rule-violating behavior for non-White participants. In Study 2, legal and moral reasoning during midadolescence became relevant in the model for both groups. Enforcement status predicted rule-violating behavior for non-White youth, whereas normative status continued to predict rule-violating behavior for White youth. In late adolescence/emerging adulthood, differences in the model shifted toward the relation between reasoning and legal attitudes.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that legal socialization is a developmental process occurring and changing throughout adolescence and that this developmental process differs for White and non-White youth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).