Illusory Causation: Why It Occurs

Lassiter, G. Daniel; Geers, Andrew L.; Munhall, Patrick J.; Ploutz‐Snyder, Robert; Breitenbecher, David L.

doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00456

Cited by 25 publications

(40 citation statements)

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“…In part, this is because people tend to perceive others' actions as being caused by their dispositions, whereas they perceive their own actions as appropriate responses to the situation (e.g., C. A. Anderson, Krull, & Weiner, 1996;Lassiter, Geers, Munhall, Ploutz-Snyder, & Breitenbecher, 2002;Swann, Pelham, & Roberts, 1987). By failing to perceive and predict the impact of our own actions on others, we behave in ways that perpetuate the violence cycle.…”

Section: Violence Escalation Cyclementioning

confidence: 99%

Creating Your Own Hostile Environment: A Laboratory Examination of Trait Aggressiveness and the Violence Escalation Cycle

Anderson

Buckley

Carnagey

2008

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

102

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A dyadic interactive aggression paradigm tested hypotheses from the General Aggression Model about how trait aggressiveness can create behaviorally hostile social environments. Pairs of college student participants competed in a modified reaction time task in which they repeatedly delivered and received each other's punishments. The trait aggressiveness of both participants influenced the punishment intensities (aggression level) set by each member of the dyad on later trials. Furthermore, there was a pattern of escalation from early to later trials. These trait aggressiveness effects (both self and partner) on later aggressive behavior were largely mediated by partner aggression levels during early trials. Results also suggested two aggressive motives--hostile and instrumental--resulted from high partner aggression during early trials and these motives partially mediated the effects of trait aggressiveness and of early trial aggression on later aggressive behavior.

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Section: Violence Escalation Cyclementioning

confidence: 99%

Creating Your Own Hostile Environment: A Laboratory Examination of Trait Aggressiveness and the Violence Escalation Cycle

Anderson

Buckley

Carnagey

2008

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

102

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“…This may appear at first to be an inconsequential factor, but a growing body of research indicates it may have profound effects on the conclusions drawn by triers of fact who later evaluate videorecorded confessions. A considerable body of research indicates that an observer attributes unwarranted causality (influence) to objects and other people when they stand out in his or her visual field or are the focus of his or her attention-a phenomenon referred to as illusory causation (Lassiter, Geers, Munhall, Ploutz-Snyder, & Breitenbecher, 2002;McArthur, 1980;Taylor & Fiske, 1978).…”

Section: Video Recording Interrogationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on such demonstrations, G. Daniel Lassiter (2002) and his colleagues hypothesized that video-recorded confessions made with the camera focused on the suspect would lead observers to assess that the suspect's statements were more voluntary and conclude that the suspect was more likely to be guilty than if the camera focused on the interrogator or on both the suspect and interrogator equally. Considerable research has confirmed this hypothesis (see Lassiter, Geers, Munhall, Handley, & Beers, 2001;Lassiter &Geers, 2004, Lassiter, Ratcliff, Ware, &Irvin, 2006, and in press, for extensive reviews of this literature).…”

Section: Video Recording Interrogationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Video Recording Custodial Interrogations: Implications of Psychological Science for Policy and Practice

Lassiter¹,

Lindberg²

2010

The Journal of Psychiatry & Law

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Many of the wrongful convictions that have been brought to light over the last decade have their roots in the interrogation phase of criminal investigationswhere coerced or false confessions are sometimes extracted from detained crime suspects. A "simple" solution has been advanced to correct this particular problem: video record all custodial interrogations. Certainly, such a procedural modification has the potential to improve the administration of justice; however, prudence calls for some consideration of its possible pitfalls. Toward that end, we briefly review some relevant psychological science that points to significant limitations inherent in the video-recording practice. Some limitations can be offset with proper implementation of the practice, and in these instances we provide research-based recommendations for achieving it. Other drawbacks, however, cannot be as easily rectified, and in these cases criminal justice practitioners and mental health professionals should heed the old adage, "forewarned is forearmed," when making use of video-recorded interrogations.

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“…The profile was only 38% accurate! Because profilers focus their attention on their successes, they (and potentially the consumers of their profiles) appear to overattribute the causality of solved cases to their CP predictions (Lassiter, Geers, Munhall, Ploutz-Snyder, & Breitenbecher, 2002). It should not be overlooked that incorrect predictions have the potential to mislead an investigation.…”

Section: Inappropriate Reliance On Correct Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Criminal Profiling Illusion

Snook

Cullen

Bennell

et al. 2008

Criminal Justice and Behavior

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There is a belief that criminal profilers can predict a criminal's characteristics from crime scene evidence. In this article, the authors argue that this belief may be an illusion and explain how people may have been misled into believing that criminal profiling (CP) works despite no sound theoretical grounding and no strong empirical support for this possibility. Potentially responsible for this illusory belief is the information that people acquire about CP, which is heavily influenced by anecdotes, repetition of the message that profiling works, the expert profiler label, and a disproportionate emphasis on correct predictions. Also potentially responsible are aspects of information processing such as reasoning errors, creating meaning out of ambiguous information, imitating good ideas, and inferring fact from fiction. The authors conclude that CP should not be used as an investigative tool because it lacks scientific support.

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Illusory Causation: Why It Occurs

Cited by 25 publications

References 0 publications

Creating Your Own Hostile Environment: A Laboratory Examination of Trait Aggressiveness and the Violence Escalation Cycle

Creating Your Own Hostile Environment: A Laboratory Examination of Trait Aggressiveness and the Violence Escalation Cycle

Video Recording Custodial Interrogations: Implications of Psychological Science for Policy and Practice

The Criminal Profiling Illusion

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