Psychology in the Courtroom

Psychology in the Justice System

Although it has been mostly disproven or dismissed, one of the most infamous examples of implementing psychological techniques in the courtroom can be seen in the use of a lie detector. Let's explore some other examples of psychology and the courtroom.

Fig. 1 - Psychology in the Justice System.

There are several ways that psychology affects the justice system. One example that is very famous in psychology is the research by Loftus and Palmer (1974) who discovered that when questions are asked to witnesses in a certain way (misleading questions), they can alter their memories and cause their eyewitness testimonies to become less accurate.

Psychology in Jury Decision Making

The jury's decision varies depending on the situation, but other factors can also influence their judgment, sometimes without them being aware. These factors can include the appearance, race, accent and type of crime of the defendant, and even the witness's level of confidence. Both forensic and social psychology is involved in the courtroom.

Forensic Psychology in the Courtroom

Forensic psychologists have responsibilities in the civil and criminal court systems, such as doing mental health checks, giving legal opinions regarding topics like child custody, and providing expert testimonies on the stand. One of the main responsibilities is letting the court know about the fallibility of memory, which affects the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies.

Howe and Knott (2015) explained that memories aren't encoded in our brains like recordings but are subject to change based on our experiences (schemas).

Lacy and Stark (2013) concluded in a review that memories of a stressful event are not encoded very accurately. The main gist of the event is strongly encoded, but the peripheral, minor details are weakly encoded.

Psychology and Witness Confidence

The amount of confidence a witness has in their eyewitness testimony can affect the jury's evaluation of how accurate it is and, therefore, affects their decision to judge the defendant.

Therefore, the higher the witness's confidence, the more likely jurors would pass a guilty verdict on the defendant. This may be because truthfulness, knowledge and reliability may be associated with confidence, whilst being nervous and shy may be associated with the feeling that the witness is lying.

Social Psychology in the Courtroom

Social Psychology is also involved in the courtroom, and different social characteristics of defendants and witnesses can influence the jury's opinions and decisions.

Fig. 2 - Psychology is used in various forms within the courtroom.

The Halo Effect in the Courtroom

The Halo effect is when people assume that attractive characteristics or people are inherently good. This is based on the idea that if something has one good or positive characteristic, it has others too.

Castellow et al. (1990) conducted a mock trial and told participants acting as the jury to read a sexual harassment case. It included pictures of the victim and defendant, where both would be considered attractive or unattractive. They then asked the participants to give the defendant a guilty or non-guilty verdict.

• When the victim was considered attractive but the defendant unattractive, the guilty verdicts were given 77% of the time.
• But when the victim was considered unattractive, and the defendant attractive, guilty verdicts dramatically decreased to 56%.
• This provides support for the halo effect.

It also supports the opposite implied effect, which would be that unattractive people have other negative qualities. Mock jurors were ready to believe what they perceived as a beautiful woman who accused an unattractive man of sexual assault but were not ready to believe an unattractive woman accusing a handsome man of sexual assault.

Sigall and Ostrove (1995) made participants read a case in which a female defendant either committed a burglary or fraud. She was described as either attractive or unattractive. The attractive defendant was given a shorter sentence for burglary but a longer sentence for fraud.

Race in the Courtroom

Ogloff (1991) found that white university students were more likely to give a defendant a guilty verdict if they were black and even more so if their victim was white. This finding was present in real trials, too, and it was only when the courtroom stressed the need for a fair, prejudice-free verdict that this was affected.

Black defendants are more likely to face a longer sentence than white defendants who have committed the same crime.

Eberhardt (2006) investigated the correlation between defendants receiving the death penalty and having stereotypically black features. She looked at death penalty eligible cases in Philadelphia between 1997-1999 in which a black defendant had killed a white victim.

• Analysis showed that defendants with stereotypically black features were given the death penalty significantly more often (57.5%) than those with less stereotypically black features (24.4%), even though they, too, were black.
• This shows that Ethnocentrism plays a role in juries' decisions.

This is used as a reference when judging all behaviours in and outside your culture instead of adopting an objective approach.

Other cultures are perceived through the lens of what is and aren't acceptable in your own culture, which applies to behaviours, religious beliefs, societal rules, and so on.

Videotape Testimonies and Protective Shields

In cases where only sensitive child witnesses require protection against the stress and trauma of being in a courtroom due to the nature of the crime, videotape/video call testimonies given behind a protective screen are sometimes allowed.

However, defence lawyers have argued that this makes the defendant seem more dangerous and hence, more guilty.

Dixon et al. (2002) Accents of Guilt

The following study explored the effect of accent, race, and crime type on guilty verdicts. Dixon et al. (2002) aimed to investigate the halo effect by looking at different characteristics in defendants that they hypothesised would play a role in influencing the decision of the jury.

This was a lab experiment and the 3 Independent Variables were:

1. Accent (Birmingham or Standard)
2. Race (Black or White)
3. Type of Crime (Blue Collar- Armed Robbery, or White Collar- Cheque Fraud)

The Dependent Variables were:

1. The participants' verdicts of guilt
2. Speech Evaluation Instrument (SEI)

Overall there were 119 white undergraduate psychology students from the University of Worcester. 24 males and 95 females participated, with a mean age of 25.2 years. Participants who grew up in Birmingham were excluded to avoid bias.

A 2-minute pre-recorded transcript that was based on a real case was played for the participants. It included a conversation between a young male suspect and a middle-aged policeman. Participants heard the suspect having one of the two accents.

• The race of the suspect was manipulated by contextual cues in the transcript.
• Participants rated the suspect's guilt on a 7-point scale.
• Participants also rated the suspect on the SEI, which measured Superiority (being better, stronger, etc.), Attractiveness (being pleasing in sound or appearance), and Dynamism (being keen to make progress or full of energy).

Results of Dixon et al. (2002)

They found that suspects with a Birmingham accent were rated significantly more guilty than suspects with Standard English accents. Black suspects were not rated significantly more guilty than white suspects. This implies that race alone doesn't lead to guilty verdicts. Blue-collar crimes were not rated significantly more guilty than white-collar crimes.

However, an interaction effect was found between Birmingham accent, black and blue-collar crime, that guilt was rated significantly higher when these variables interacted (i.e., were all present). Having a Birmingham accent was rated low on the SEI in 'Superiority'. 'Superiority' and 'Attractiveness' were accurate predictors of guilt, but 'Dynamism' wasn't.

Conclusions Based on Dixon et al. (2002) Accents of Guilt

When different social-psychological features are present in a suspect and the crime they committed, it can affect the jury's judgments and make them find the suspect more or less guilty than others of the same type.

This has serious implications because even though both crimes included stealing money, the first suspect will be found more guilty and could be charged with a longer sentence than the second suspect.

The combination of the above factors influenced the outcome of the verdict, despite these factors not having much to do with the actual crime, a worrying conclusion on the fairness of trials and the potential biases involved.

Application of Dixon et al. (2002)

There are different ways in which research about psychology in the courtroom could have an influence on how things actually happen in the courtroom, specifically by improving things.

As Castello's (1990) research suggests, appearances influence the jury's verdict about the defendant's guilt, so it's advised that the defendant dress formally and clean up for the trial proceedings.

Witness confidence can be increased by using witness familiarisation (explaining what will happen in court and how) so as not to affect the jury's opinions about the defendant's guilt.

Loftus (1980) also did a mock trial of a violent crime where half the jury participants read an expert's testimony and the other half didn't. The expert testimony had written that witnesses find it harder to identify people of a different race and that the witness being drunk, or having stress caused by a weapon being present, can interfere with accurate identification.

Fig. 3 - Courtroom procedures have been depicted throughout history in different ways.

Story and Witness Order

Social psychologists point out that people often try to construct a story of an event so it makes sense. This includes jurors. Therefore, the prosecution and defence try to 'tell a story' with their arguments. Pennington and Hastie (1988) suggest that the jurors are more likely to return the verdict that best fits the story they've constructed.

Pennington and Hastie (1988) aimed to see whether jurors were more persuaded by story order than witness order. They found that when the prosecution presented evidence in story order and defence in witness order, the jury gave guilty verdicts 78% of the time.

But when the defence gave evidence in story order and the prosecution in witness order, the jury gave guilty verdicts 31% of the time.

Evaluation of Mock Trials and Psychology in the courtroom

Let's consider the strengths and weaknesses of using mock trials to study psychology in the courtroom.

Strengths of Mock Trials

They are more ethical and practical than using real-life trials. Mock trials can be highly standardised and easily replicated, increasing their reliability and allowing for different hypotheses to be tested with the same procedures and evidence.

Findings from mock trials can help lawyers and jurors have more insight into what does and don't affect judgments to help keep trials as fair as possible. Psychology in the courtroom offers various techniques to try and identify bias and potential memory problems and improve judging outcomes for those involved in the judicial process.

Weaknesses of Mock Trials

Mock trials often involve receiving evidence in forms (e.g. transcripts, video and audio recordings) that aren't representative of how real trials are carried out. Also, they are shorter than actual trials. Mock trials generally involve university students, which isn't reflective of a real jury that has people of various ages and ethnicities.

They also involve jurors making their own verdicts, which isn't like real trials in which jurors discuss and decide together.

Also, in mock trials, jurors are aware their verdicts have no serious consequences, and there is an absence of the seriousness and emotions that are present in a real trial. These things reduce ecological validity and make it harder to generalise findings.

Psychological techniques overall are subject to the above issues, as they often use mock trials and thus have the same potential weaknesses.