SOCIAL PSYCH AND THE LAW- Shadi

motives and kinds of punishment

• why society punishes (motives)

• how they punish (kinds of forms of punishment)

what is the misinformation effect?

• Post-event exposure to misleading info can lead eyewitnesses to report and remember things they never actually saw

• factors that influence the magnitude

  • credibility

  • perceived attractiveness by the accent of the source

  • amount of time between the event and intro of misinformation

how can wording/ suggestive questioning affect our memories for previously witnessed events and create false memories for completely new events?

• wording and suggesting questioning affects memory

  • mislead post-event info

  • leading questions

  • source monitoring errors

  • reflective elaboration

• false memories for new events?

  • suggestive interrogation/ interviews

  • co-witness misinfo

  • media and social influence

  • conformity

kassin and kiechel (1996-) alt key false confession study

• Participants were told not to touch the Alt key, or it would crash

• Participants were told that they did touch the Alt key,

• The interrogation was fast-paced, or “witnessed” through a confederate, more likely to confess

• shows: innocent ppl will confess to actions through compliance

Kash Delano Register

Jack Sasson was shot and killed

investigator focused on 18 yo Register

was found guilty without parole, no fingerprints, and gf matched with his alibi

Loftus & Palmer 1974- Can memory be influenced by language?

• People saw a car crash video

• about how fast the cars were going, when they (contacted, hit, or smashed)

• contacted 31.8 mph/ hit 34 mph/ smashed 40.8 mph

loftus & miller & burns 1978

• car stopped at a STOP sign before turning

• accurate question

  • Did another car pass the red Datsun while it was stopped at the stop sign?

• misleading question

  • Did another car pass the red Datsun while it was stopped at the yield sign?

• later on

  • Shown two images

    • stop sign/yield sign

      • accurate q: 74% correct

      • misleading 41% correct

      • 34% difference in accuracy

Central Park Five 1989

• women jogging in NYC, and was later brutally assaulted

• large group of teens had been in the park that night

• police arrested - without lawyers in most cases

• After a long interrogation confessed on video

  • each boy described different details and contradicted each other

legal system bias

• bias in policing

  • black ppl and Latinos are 3x more likely to be searched when pulled over

  • bias may affect who enters the legal system in the first place

• Bias in jury composition

  • death penalty cases - death-qualified.. means people who oppose the death penalty are excluded from serving

  • tend to be white conservative men

• Bias in jury decision-making

  • more likely to convict a black defendant when the evidence was ambiguous

  • black defendants were treated more harshly than white defendants

• Bias in the perception of threat

  • Participants are more likely to mistakenly identify a harmless object as a weapon when it is followed by a black individual

• police officers

  • not more likely to shoot Black individuals than white individuals.. more likely to respond when the individual was black and armed