Reactions to child (versus adult) eyewitnesses: The influence of jurors' preconceptions and witness behavior.

Abstract

Five studies examined how college students react to child eyewitnesses in criminal cases, in Study 1, subjects made predictions about a staged crime study involving eyewitnesses of varying age. The actual study found no age differences, yet subjects predicted poorer recall (but not face recognition) for children under 10 than for those 12 and over. In Studies 2-5, subjects read and reacted to written criminal cases in which the principal prosecution eyewitness was either a child or an adult. In Study 2, a 6-year-old eyewitness was judged less credible than an adult eyewitness, and fewer guilty judgments were rendered when the eyewitness was 6 or 10 years old (versus an adult) and the prosecution case was otherwise strong. In Study 3, apparent inconsistency lowered the credibility of a 6-year-old eyewitness but not of a 10-or 30-year-old eyewitness. These studies presented a narrative description of the trial and the testimony. In Study 4, a transcript of testimony was also presented. Here a 6-year-old eyewitness was judged more credible than an adult eyewitness, and more guilty judgments were rendered (before and after jury deliberation) when the case included the child eyewitness. Study 5 manipulated the description-or-transcript distinction and observed a bias against cases with a child eyewitness when mock-jurors simply knew eyewitness age (as in Study 2) and a bias favoring these cases when mock-jurors read the eyewitness testimony (as in Study 4). This pattern suggests the important roles of jurors' preconceptions, eyewitness behaviors, and whether the latter confirm or disconfirm the former.Many studies have examined adults' eyewitness testimony, while others have focused on how jurors react to adults' testimony. Only recently has the attention of psycholegal researchers turned to child eyewitnesses, perhaps, in part, as a result of the growing presence of children in the courtroom as eyewitnesses (e.g.,

The education of jury members: Influences on the determinations of child witnesses

“…These results provide support for the Stereotypes Hypothesis that was proposed by Leippe and Romanczyk (1989). This theory suggests that jurors assess child witnesses based on whether or not their behaviours conform to prevailing negative stereotypes of child witnesses (e.g.…”

Beliefs and data on the relationship between consistency and accuracy of eyewitness testimony

“…Some pointers to the answer to these questions are provided by several recent experimental studies examining the in¯uence of witness inconsistency (speci®cally contradictions) on, for example, mock-jurors' judgements of witness credibility, defendant culpability, and on the likelihood of their returning a guilty verdict (Berman & Cutler, 1996;Berman et al, 1995;Leippe & Romanczyk, 1989;Lindsay et al, 1986). Although the methodologies of these studies diered, and the results were mixed, the balance of evidence seems to indicate that jurors' assessments of witness credibility and defendant culpability/guilt were diminished by inconsistent or contradictory testimony.…”

Interviewer feedback in repeated interviews involving forced confabulation

“…Specifically, we hypothesised that confirmatory interviewer feedback provided during an initial interview would make it more likely that participants would provide the same response to these false-event questions on a later interview. This is an important issue, as studies have shown that jurors perceive consistent eyewitnesses to be more credible than inconsistent eyewitnesses (Berman & Cutler, 1996;Berman, Narby, & Cutler, 1995;Leippe & Romanczyk, 1989), even though consistency is not always diagnostic of accuracy (Brewer, Potter, Fisher, Bond, & Luszcz, 1999). In addition, we hypothesised that confirmatory feedback would increase the apparent confidence with which participants provide these consistent responses, such that participants' repeated confabulated responses would be delivered with greater speed and fewer overt expressions of doubt.…”