Social Psych Exam 4

What are the four (really three) different stages of memory related to eye-witnesses?

actual events, encoding/acquisition, storage, retrieval

What factors can impact encoding/acquisition of eye-witness memory?

physical conditions, emotional state, weapon-focus effect, cross-race identification bias

What factors can impact the retrival of eye-witness memory?

time (memory declines over time), post-event information, repetition/misinformation/leading questions, particularly for children

What factors impact the retrieval of information?

how face sketches are constructed, how line-ups are constructed

What factors can influence the validity of a line-up?

construction, instructions, double-blind procedure

How should a line-up be constructed?

4-8 foils that match the general description of accused, and accused shouldn’t stand out amongst them

How should a line-up be instructed?

The administrator should not say that the accused is for sure in the line-up

What makes a line-up double blind?

The administrator does not know who the suspect is in the line-up.

How can a social psychologist help in a trial?

educate judges and juries so they can better evaluate evidence in court.

What is an estimator variable

factors that are not controlled or controllable by the system

Estimator variable

distance, lighting, weapon focus, cross-race effect

System Variable

factors under control of the criminal justice system

Examples of system variables

Lineups, instructions, feedback, recordings

Weapons focus effect

People focus on a weapon when present and fail to encode other data

What stage of memory does the weapons focus effect impact?

impacts the encoding/acquisition

What stage of memory does the cross-race effect effect?

encoding/acquisition

What did the car crash study exemplify

the biasing effects of post-event information

Cross Race effect

People have greater difficulty identifying members of a different racial group

How does familiarity influence eye-witness memory?

If a subject has seen a suspect before, either mugshot or at the event, but not the perpetrator, they are more likely to pick them as the perpetrator in a line-up

Why are juries impacted by false confessions

fundamental attribution error, trust people who make statements against self-interests, confessions are very detailed, confessions corrupt other evidence

How are false confessions impacted by lack of clear memory and presentation of false evidence

Increase the likelihood of a false confession

Internalized false confessions

Suspect comes to believe they really did it

Compliance false confessions

Suspect confesses to escape a stressful situation

Voluntary false confessions

Suspect makes confession without pressure from others/police

Instrumental false confession

Suspects confess to go along with what police want

Give an example of an instrumental/coerced confession

The suspect knows they did not commit the crime but they are going along with what police want to get out of a bad situation or interrogation

Give an example of an instrumental/voluntary confession

Suspect knows they did not commit the crime, but they are confessing to help someone else (I’m Radio Rebel).

Give an example of a voluntary/internalized confession

Someone comes forward believing they committed a crime that they didn’t.

Give an example of a coerced/internalized confession

Suspect comes to believe that they committed a crime that they didn’t commit because of outside influence.

Minimization Police Tactics to get confession

excuses, mitigators, understanding, victim blame

Maximization Police Tactics to get confession

scare tactics, misrepresentation of evidence, seriousness of crime, severity of charges

How are jurors selected?

Random sample selected from master list of eligible jurors and those people are called for jury duty, then they go through voire dire and pre-emptory challenges and jurors are selected after that

Pre-emptory challenge

rejections to unbiased jurors without reason given

What factors influence who is the fore-person on the jury

high occupational status, prior jury participation, male, first person who speaks, sitting at head of the table

death-qualification in jury selection

exclusion of all potential jurors who are against the death penalty

How does the death qualification affect trial outcome?

More likely for victim to be found guilty because question for qualification assumes guilt/seriousness of crime; people who are in favor of the death penalty are more likely to vote guilty, and more concerned about crime and trusting of the police

Value of trial by jury

fate not solely in the hands of the government, participation builds trust in the legitimacy of the government, and juries tend to be more lenient than judges alone

Leniency bias

In evenly split juries where roughly half favor guilty and other half favor not guilty the final vote is more likely to be not guilty

Why does the leniency bias occur in juries?

for a guilty verdict you have to convince beyond a shadow of doubt not guilty just has to cast a little bit of doubt

What is the most common cause of a wrongful conviction?

eyewitness misidentification

What is the second most common cause of a wrongful conviction

unvalidated/improper forensics

What is the third most common cause of a wrongful conviction

false confessions/admissions

What is the fourth most common cause of a wrongful conviction

informants/snitches

What did the body camera study (Turner er al) find?

perspective that mainly shows the civilian systematically deflects officer intentionality and culpability relative to dashboard cameras

What did the Rock & Victor study show involving looking at a object through a microscope show?

Vision dominates over other sense when in direct contradiction; people have a bias in perceiving visual evidence and they think the average american is more likely to be biased than them

Moral Judgements

statements about what decisions someone should make in certain situations

Qualities of Moral Judgemements

Imperative (commands), Impersonal

What is the difference between conventions (1) and Morality (2)

1 are what is expected or condoned by law, these are more flexible than 2

What is the difference between Morality (1) and Social Norms (2)

2 do not always align with 1, additionally, 2 require costs

Utilitarianism

endorses the action that leads to the greatest good for the greatest number of people

Dentonological Rules

Rules that concern what to do and what not to do, rather than the value of consequences ; moral principles are required in all cases not dependent on circumstances

What are the opt-out v opt-in enrollment effects

people are more likely to do what they assume the norm is doing

If the automatic is being an organ donor and people have to choose to opt-out this will lead to

more organ donors

If the automatic is not being an organ donor and people have to choose to opt-in this will lead to

less organ donors

Descriptive norm messaging

message that encourages people to do something by stating that is what the majority of people are doing

Give an example of effective descriptive norm messaging

A majority of guests in this room reuse their towels

What increases the effectiveness of descriptive norm messaging?

specificity/ directly relating to something about the participant

Moral licensing

tendency to justify current bad behavior with previous good behavior

Give an example of moral licensing

I bought green paper towels so it doesn’t matter I am gonna take a long bath

Why do people say they will engage in conservation behvaior

Care for the environment

Why do people actually engage in conservation behavior?

Social Norms

Is a general user likely or unlikely to share misinformation online?

Unlikely

How does screen time at night effect sleep?

Greater screen time led to poorer sleep

How does screentime during the day affect sleep?

It did not affect sleep.

What content is likely to proliferate across social media?

engaging, negative, divisive posts

How does pluralistic ignorance relate to media representations?

People assume they are the only one who holds their views if they are only seeing opposing views, so they do not share their own views.

What are some consequences of a skewed media enviornment?

extreme beauty standard enforced, negative/extreme behaviors (binge drinking) normalized, exaggerating political divisions, reinforcing unrealistic expectations

How does social media exaggerate political divisions

People believe their opponents hold more extreme views than they do in reality

What are some potential solutions to social media harms?

Content moderation to prevent misinformation, user training, further research into effects, and strategies that work

Moral disengagement

Mechanism by which people enable or justify groups committing harm to others

What are the 8 mechanisms of moral disengagement

Moral justification, Euphemistic labeling, Advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, distorting consequences, dehumanization, blaming the victim

Moral Justification

frame your behavior as a public service

Example of moral justification

Talking to Bella is helping her end things with Taylor

Euphemistic Labeling

Making something sound more benign than it is

Example of euphemistic labeling

It isn’t cheating because bella and Taylor aren’t dating

Advantageous comaprison

Contrasting behavior with things that seem worse

Example of advantageous comparison

It could be actual cheating which it’s not

Displacement of responsibility

Playing the victim/ you were made to do it

Example of displacement of responsbility

my friend said i had to makeout with someone over halloweekend

Diffusion of responsibility

I am not the only one who did it

Example of diffusion of responsibility

Mapa kissed Bella too!

Distorting Consequences

Downplaying the effects you have on others

Example of distorting consequences

Taylor probably doesn’t even care that I kissed Bella

Dehumanization

Painting the victim to be less worthy of respect and empathy

example of dehumanization

taylor is so loca she like a wild animal 💀

Blaming the Victim

accusing the victim for the perpetrators actions

Example of victim blame

If Taylor wasn’t so Loca maybe she would actually be dating Bella and we never would’ve kissed

Meta-perceptions

beliefs about how the out-group sees our in-group; often biased and doesn’t not reflect real thoughts

How do Republicans and Democrats think the other-group rates them?

Republicans and Democrats thought the other group rates them worse than they actually do

Inter-group contact theory

Under the right conditions, face to face interactions between members of different social groups can reduce intergroup prejudice

What conditions are required for inter-group contact theory

equal status, cooperation, common goals, institutional support, repeated contact

How does intergroup contact theory reduce prejudice?

increasing knowledge, empathy, and reducing anxiety

For who is intergroup contact theory less effective

Minority groups due to prior experiences of discrimination and exclusion

How did the radio soap opera intervention work in Rwanda

Messages about reducing intergroup prejudice and trauma in 2 fictional rwandan communities were aired; shifted perceptions on intermarriage, trust, empathy, and trauma healing, and open dissent

Collective Action

When groups mobilize for social or political goals

What are predictors of collective action

group identification, perceived injustice, efficacy beliefs,moral conviction

efficacy beliefs

the belief that action can create change

Moral conviction

action feels ethically necessary