An Examination Of Post Event Information ( Pei )

Many individuals do not fully understand the possible consequences of making a false confession or report to detectives. The construction of a false version of events, whether due to

First, the potential confounding variable attributed to an interviewee’s personality. Extroversion has been associated with a higher likelihood of inducing false memories, therefore future experiments should attempt to control for this variable. Further, because participants were in a controlled research environment rather than in a police oriented environment, it can be argued that participants were not concerned with the potential consequences of confessing to a previously committed crime. Further research should consider the use of an independent groups design which features the use of both a police environment, as well as a police interviewer, in order to enforce the the perception of negative

As the old adage goes ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. Often for investigating officers, eye witness testimony and what is seen, is heavily relied on in order to prosecute crimes (Wells and Olsen, 2003). As such eye witness testimony and memory has become one of the most researched areas in Cognitive Psychology. What can be quite disconcerting is that from the research conducted into this

With regards to integrity, participants provided informed consent and Milgram’s use of deception in telling participants the shocks were administered onto another individual are arguably mitigated by debriefing and telling participants there was no victim (Cave & Holm., 2003). However, the long term effects of believing they almost killed a victim by shocking them may never fully be eliminated. Participants in the prison simulation also provided consent, however they were not informed of many aspects of the study such as the prisoners being arrested at their house in front of family and neighbours, which adversely impacts their

consequences of his behavior, while John’s story only included 10 sentences of this type. Although a detailed description of the social stories is given at the end of the study, the treatment is very individualized, and the behaviors measured would be difficult to replicate, again lowering the external validity of this study. (Reynhout et al.,

Extensive research has shown the causes of false confessions can be attributed to a phenomenon known as illusory-causation. Illusory-causation is a phenomenon which happens when, “people attribute unwarranted causality to a stimulus simply because it is more noticeable or salient than other available stimuli.” (Lassiter, 2002) Illusory-causation phenomenon can be seen most notable on how people evaluate legal evidence leading to prejudicial effects. (Lassiter, 2002) Evidence such as, videotaped confessions camera perspectives can vastly influence the jurors judgment. Videotaped confessions are most commonly recorded with the camera focused on the suspect this in turn leads mock juror to judge that the confessions were more voluntary and most likely make them guilty. (Lassiter, 2002)Furthermore, integration techniques also play a role in false confessions such as non-assaultive psychology manipulation. (ct. Kassin & Kichel, 1996),cited in (Lassiter,2002).

In 1932, Jenness became the first psychologist to study conformity, which involved an experiment with basic materials and little ethical treatment (Jenness). The participants were asked to examine a jar of beans. They were then told to make an estimate of how many beans were inside of the jar. The participants were not informed of intentions of the study, thus full consent was invalid. When they were exposed to the estimates of other participants before making an individual guess, most participants’ estimations differed from the norm, and a shift occurred from the first estimates to the cluster of numbers within the pool of peer responses. This result led Jenness to form the idea of informational conformity,

The malleability of human memory is a widely debated and researched topic in recent psychology due to our reliance on memory in almost every aspect of society, specifically in eyewitness testimonies. If a witness testifies to their memory of an event, then how could they possibly get the details wrong? Research shows that a large portion of human memory is actually reconstructive—essentially, we unconsciously alter or attend to specific aspects of memory according to our emotions, expectations and prior knowledge (Howe & Knott, 2015). This theory is most apparent in the psychological phenomenon referred to as “the misinformation effect”, the idea that introducing a person to false information, even after encoding, can cause them to unconsciously

In this particular experiment, partakers were asked to choose a line that matched the size of one of three different lines (Myers & DeWall, 2014). Typically the participants would answer correctly, choosing the string that was identical. During one query the two confederates involved in the project would deliberately choose the wrong answer. Consequently during the same question, around thirty three percent of participants conformed to the confederate’s response one time or more (Cherry, 2013). The thing that makes these results different from informational conformity is that the correct answer was obvious. Solomon’s project is an excellent case in point of normative influence. Normative influence is “Yielding to group pressure because a person wants to fit in with the group” (McLeod, 2007). Solomon Asch’s experiment also gave insight of why people conform. (Myers & DeWall, 2014) People conform when they feel inept, or in a group where every person has the same opinion. If another person agrees the results are different (Myers & DeWall, 2014). Solomon Asch also observed how people displayed extreme discomfort when confronted with the decision to disagree with the group (Myers & DeWall, 2014). Solomon Asch’s project showed signs of several conformity factors. First on the list is unanimity. More people conform in situations where the group’s response is undisputed (Boundless, 2014). “Groups high in cohesion

If it were replicated on a larger scale, it could deliver some important data. It would help courts determine whether an eyewitness account is trustworthy depending on the time since the event. Plus, findings like the ones this study was designed to produce could overall reduce the number of wrongly convicted people who fell victim to unsound evidence. Eyewitness accounts are a crucial part of the criminal justice system, and although this experiment can’t give large-scale results, it’s important that other studies like this take place in the

Law and Human Behavior (2010) describes the three types of false confessions that are voluntary, coerced-compliant, and coerced-internalized (Kassin et al., 2010). Voluntary confessions are confessions of guilt by innocent people that are not a result of any external pressures. Voluntary false confessions can occur by a person’s desire for notoriety, a need of self-punishment, an inability to differ fact from fantasy, and the desire to protect the actual perpetrator (Kassin et al., 2010). Compliant confessions occur from pressure that is presented during the course of an interrogation. The source behind a compliant confession is the manipulation of their perception and decision-making by the police during interrogation so that they will eventually break and choose to not maintain innocence but rather confess because they are convinced it’s in their best interest (Kassin et al., 2010). Internalized confessions occur by a confession that is a result from psychological manipulation. During the interrogation process, the suspect will be presented false information of their involvement in the crime and be fed information, while their own memory of events is under constant attack. An internalized confession is produced by the

Solomon Asch conducted one of the most famous studies of conformity in 1951. The problem, he believed, was there was no correct answer to Sherif’s experiment; so judging conformity was vague in terms of data (Asch 1951). In answer to this issue, he devised a study to distinctively judge the conformation of the participants. Using 50 male college students, Asch placed one participant with seven confederates, who had previously agreed on their answers, and asked each person to state which line out of three options was the closest to the sample line given.

There is a direct correlation between false confessions and age, where juveniles were would be more keen to taking responsibility for an act he or she did not commit (Farmer, 2011). To prove this hypothesis, a laboratory experiment was conducted to show that suggestibility was an important factor in regards to false confession (Farmer, 2011). This experiment was created to convince participants in three different age groups, 12 and 13 year olds, 15 and 16 year olds, and young adults that they

Conformity is a change in behavior or attitudes brought about by a desire to follow the beliefs or standards of other people (Feldman, 2015). A study on social influence, specifically on conformity, by Solomon Asch is a popular one. This study shows how an individual’s thought, opinion, or view can be changed by social influence and demonstrates the sociocultural perspective of social psychology. In the study there were seven participants, six of which were paid employees, but the seventh participant was not aware of that. The participants were told that it was a test for perceptual skills. They were all shown a paper with three lines on it, all of different lengths. They were then shown another paper with a line on it; this line matched one of the lines, in length, that was shown on the first paper. They were asked to match the line on the second paper to one of the lines on the first paper. The participant who genuinely thought they were doing a test for perceptual skills answered last. For the first few trials the six paid participants gave the correct answer. Then for the next few trials, the six participants all started to give the wrong answer. This was to see if the seventh participant would answer with the correct answer or conform to the group and give the answer the other six participants gave. In about one-third of the trials, the participants conformed to the wrong answer that the rest of the group answered with; about 75%

The purpose of the Asch experiment was to demonstrate the power of conformity in groups. Experiments led by Solomon Asch of Swarthmore College asked groups of students to participate in a “vision test”. In reality, all but one of the participants were confederates or accomplices of the experimenter, and the study was really about how the remaining students would react to the confederates’ behavior. Conformity, group size, and cohesiveness. Asch found that one of the situational factors that influence conformity is the size of the opposing majority. In a series of studies, he varied the number of confederates who gave incorrect answers from 1 to 15.