Abstract
This experiment examined the importance of report content and the role of social categorization in consistency effects on perceived credibility. Community volunteers (N = 374) evaluated the credibility of an adult who described a common, mundane event (everyday event) or a highly unusual, emotional event (intimate partner abuse, IPA) with one of two levels of report consistency. Participants evaluated consistent complainants and persons reporting everyday events more favorably than inconsistent complainants and IPA complainants, respectively. Findings suggest that social categorization fully mediates content effects on credibility. Participants viewed persons reporting everyday events as more similar, more likely to belong to the same group as themselves, and more credible compared to complainants reporting IPA. Social categorization was a weaker mediator of the relationship between consistency and credibility.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Although the terms interviewee or target may be more appropriate for everyday event conditions, complainant is used for the sake of simplicity.
Statistics Canada (2006) reports that the median age in British Columbia is 40.8 years; men represent 49% of the population and women 51%; and that 88% of British Columbians had at least completed high school, with 50% having completed college or university. English is the first language for 71% of British Columbians.
References
Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173–1182. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.51.6.1173.
Bell, S. T., Kuriloff, P. J., & Lottes, I. (1994). Understanding attributions of blame in strange rape and date rape situations: An examination of gender, race, identification, and students’ social perceptions of rape victims. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24, 1719–1734. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1994.tb01571.x.
Berman, G. L., & Cutler, B. L. (1996). Effects of inconsistencies in eyewitness testimony on mock-juror decision making. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 81, 170–177. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.81.2.170.
Berman, G. L., Narby, D. J., & Cutler, B. L. (1995). Effects of inconsistent eyewitness statements on mock-jurors’ evaluations of the eyewitness, perceptions of defendant culpability, and verdicts. Law and Human Behavior, 19, 79–88. doi:10.1007/BF01499074.
Bodenhausen, G. V., & Lichtenstein, M. (1987). Social stereotypes and information-processing strategies: The impact of task complexity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 871–880. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.52.5.871.
Brewin, C. R. (2007). Autobiographical memory for trauma: Update on four controversies. Memory (Hove, England), 15, 227–248. doi:10.1080/09658210701256423.
Brewer, N., & Burke, A. (2002). Effects of testimonial inconsistencies and eyewitness confidence on mock-juror judgments. Law and Human Behavior, 26, 353–364. doi:10.1023/A:1015380522722.
Brewer, N., & Hupfeld, R. M. (2004). Effects of testimonial inconsistencies and witness group identity on mock-juror judgments. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 34, 493–513. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02558.x.
Brewer, N., Potter, R., Fisher, R. P., Bond, N., & Luszcz, M. (1999). Beliefs and data on the relationship between consistency and accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 14, 297–313. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-0720(199908)13:4<297::AID-ACP578>3.0.CO;2-S.
Canada Evidence Act (R.S., 1985, c. C-5).
Canadian Judicial Council (2004). Model jury instructions in criminal matters. Ottawa: Author. Retrieved July 8, 2008 from http://www.cjc-ccm.gc.ca/english/lawyers_en.asp?selMenu=lawyers_modeljuryinstruction_en.asp.
Chen, S., & Chaiken, S. (1999). The heuristic-systematic model in its broader context. In S. Chaiken & Y. Trope (Eds.), Dual-process theories in social psychology (pp. 73–96). New York: Guilford.
Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions of the District Judges Association (2005). Sixth circuit criminal pattern jury instructions. Cincinnati, OH: Author. Retrieved July 8, 2008 from http://www.ca6d.uscourts.gov/internet/crim_jury_insts.htm.
Connolly, D. A., Price, H. L., Lavoie, J. A. A., & Gordon, H. M. (2008). Perceptions of children’s reports of a unique event and an instance of a repeated event. Law and Human Behavior, 32, 92–112. doi:10.1007/s10979-006-9083-3.
Daudistel, H. C., Hosch, H. M., Holmes, M. D., & Graves, J. B. (1999). Effects of defendant ethnicity on juries’ dispositions of felony cases. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29, 317–336. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1999.tb01389.x.
Elkins, T. J., Phillips, J. S., Konopaske, R., & Townsend, J. (2001). Evaluating gender discrimination claims: Is there a gender similarity bias? Sex Roles, 44, 1–15. doi:10.1023/A:1011059131505.
Giner-Sorolla, R., Chaiken, S., & Lutz, S. (2002). Validity beliefs and ideology can influence legal case judgments differently. Law and Human Behavior, 26, 507–526. doi:10.1023/A:1020251921659.
Glissan, J. L. (1991). Cross-examination: Practice and procedure. Sydney: Butterworths.
Haber, R. N., & Haber, L. (2000). Experiencing, remembering and reporting events. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 6, 1057–1097. doi:10.1037/1076-8971.6.4.1057.
Hartley, C. C. (2001). “He said, she said”: The defense attack of credibility in domestic violence felony trials. Violence Against Women, 7, 510–544. doi:10.1177/10778010122182587.
Hertel, P. (2004). Memory for emotional and nonemotional events in depression: A question of habit? In D. Reisberg & P. Hertel (Eds.), Memory and emotion (pp. 186–216). New York: Oxford University Press.
Judd, C. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1981). Process analysis: Estimating mediation in treatment evaluations. Evaluation Review, 5, 602–619. doi:10.1177/0193841X8100500502.
Judicial Council of California (2008). Criminal jury instructions. San Francisco: LexisNexis Matthew Bender. Retrieved July 8, 2008 from http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/jury/criminaljuryinstructions/calcrim_juryins.pdf.
Kline, P. (1993). The handbook of psychological testing. London: Routledge.
Kraemer, H. C., Kiernan, M., Essex, M., & Kupfer, D. J. (2008). How and why criteria defining moderators and mediators differ between the Baron & Kenny and MacArthur approaches. Health Psychology, 27, S101–S108. doi:10.1037/0278-6133.27.2(Suppl.).S101.
Lindsay, R. C. L., Lim, R., Marando, L., & Cully, D. (1986). Mock-juror evaluations of eyewitness testimony: A test of metamemory hypotheses. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 16, 447–459. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1986.tb01151.x.
McNally, R. J. (2003). Remembering trauma. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
New York State Committee on Criminal Jury Instructions. (2004). Criminal jury instructions 2d. Retrieved July 8, 2008 from http://www.nycourts.gov/cji/.
Nunnally, J., & Bernstein, I. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Porter, S., & Peace, K. A. (2007). The scars of memory: A prospective, longitudinal investigation of the consistency of traumatic and positive emotional memories in adulthood. Psychological Science, 18, 435–441. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01918.x.
Potter, R., & Brewer, N. (1999). Perceptions of witness behaviour–accuracy relationships held by police, lawyers and jurors. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 6, 97–103.
R. v. Burke. (1996). 1 S.C.R. 474.
R. v. Gagnon. (2006). S.C.C. 17.
Ross, D. F., Jurden, F. H., Lindsay, R. C. L., & Keeney, J. M. (2003). Replications and limitations of a two-factor model of child witness credibility. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33, 418–431. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2003.tb01903.x.
Salhany, R. E. (1991). Cross examination: The art of the advocate. Toronto: Butterworth.
Shobe, K. K., & Kihlstrom, J. F. (1997). Is traumatic memory special? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 6, 70–74. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.ep11512658.
Sobel, M. E. (1982). Asymptotic confidence intervals for indirect effects in structural equation models. Sociological Methodology, 13, 290–313. doi:10.2307/270723.
Sommers, S. P., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2000). Race in the courtroom: Perceptions of guilty and dispositional attributions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1367–1379. doi:10.1177/0146167200263005.
Statistics Canada. (2006). 2006 census: Data products. Ottawa, Canada: Author. Retrieved September 19, 2008 from http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census06/data/index.cfm.
Supreme Court Committee on Standard Jury Instructions. (1987). Florida standard jury instructions in criminal cases. Tallahassee, FL: Author. Retrieved July 8, 2008 from http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/jury_instructions/chapters/entireversion/onlinejurryinstructions.pdf.
Talwar, V., Lee, K., Bala, N., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (2006). Adults’ judgments of children’s coached reports. Law and Human Behavior, 30, 561–570. doi:10.1007/s10979-006-9038-8.
Taylor, T. S., & Hosch, H. M. (2004). An examination of jury verdicts for evidence of a similarity-leniency effect, an out-group punitiveness effect or a black sheep effect. Law and Human Behavior, 28, 587–598. doi:10.1023/B:LAHU.0000046436.36228.71.
van Knippenberg, D., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Homan, A. C. (2004). Work group diversity and group performance: An integrative model and research agenda. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 1002–1008. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.89.6.1008.
Worthen, J. B., & Varnado-Sullivan, P. (2005). Gender bias in attributions of responsibility for abuse. Journal of Family Violence, 20, 305–312. doi:10.1007/s10896-005-6606-5.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship, an American Psychology-Law Society (Division 41 of the American Psychological Association) Student Grant-In-Aid, and a Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant (No. 7920-05). The author thanks Carroll Boydell, Vanessa Leung, Kaylie Maughan, Colleen Pillar, and Susan Pridmore for their work on this project. Finally, the author is extremely grateful to Don Read for his contributions to the project and comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
About this article
Cite this article
Desmarais, S.L. Examining Report Content and Social Categorization to Understand Consistency Effects on Credibility. Law Hum Behav 33, 470–480 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-008-9165-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-008-9165-5