Legal actors' and laypersons' utility judgments of eyewitness lineup procedures and outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: Recent attempts to model the relative performances of eyewitness lineup procedures necessarily include theoretical assumptions about the various costs/benefits, or utilities, of different identification outcomes. We collected data to incorporate empirically derived utilities into such modeling as well as data on various stakeholders' views of lineup procedures as tertiary objectives. HYPOTHESES: This research was exploratory; therefore, we did not have a priori hypotheses. METHOD: We surveyed judges' (n = 70), prosecutors' (n = 28), police officers' (n = 82), and laypersons' (n = 191) opinions about eyewitness identification procedures and the utilities of outcomes of eyewitness identification procedures. We incorporated the utility judgments into models comparing the desirability of various lineup reforms and compared policy preferences between our samples. RESULTS: All samples frequently mentioned estimator and system variables in open-ended evaluations of lineup procedures, but legal samples mentioned system variables more often than did laypersons. Reflector variables (e.g., confidence) were mentioned less often across the board, as was the scientific basis/standardization of identification policy (especially among laypersons). Utility judgments of various identification outcomes indicated that judges adopt values more closely aligned with normative legal ethics (i.e., the Blackstone ratio), whereas other stakeholders (especially laypersons) depart significantly from those standards. Utility models indicated general agreement among samples in lineup procedure preferences, which varied as a function of culprit-presence base rates. CONCLUSION: Although legal stakeholders vary in how they value eyewitness identification outcomes, their values imply relatively consistent policy preferences that sometimes depart from scientific recommendations. Nonetheless, all samples expressed support for using scientific research to inform legal policy regarding eyewitness evidence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A taxometric approach to base-rate estimation and idiographic classification in psycholegal research.

OBJECTIVES: Taxometric analysis employs multiple, nonoverlapping statistical procedures to estimate parameters that characterize latent categories (e.g., base rates). Consistency among these estimates can inform substantive inferences about latent variables and facilitate idiographic classification. We provide a sketch of a taxometric research program to estimate guilty-suspect base rates in criminal justice and legal systems and use this sketch to explore the possible benefits of taxometric investigations for science and public policy. HYPOTHESES: We investigated whether taxometric analysis can accurately estimate base rates and facilitate idiographic classifications under conditions psycholegal researchers might face. METHOD: We demonstrate taxometric analysis on simulated data to detect latent categories, estimate their base rates, and classify individual cases. RESULTS: Our simulations show that taxometric analysis can accurately estimate taxon base rates. Specifically, estimated base rates differed from simulated base rates by less than 3%. Further, idiographic classification rules derived from taxometric analysis accurately classified individual cases in additional data sets, with positive predictive values and negative predictive values exceeding .85. CONCLUSIONS: If legal categories of interest represent nonarbitrary classes, taxometric methods afford an analytic approach by which researchers can use fallible indicator variables to estimate their base rates and develop algorithms for legal classification. We discuss potential objections to the taxometric approach and identify important avenues for future research and development in psycholegal applications of taxometric methods. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Undergraduate Men's Self-Reports of Sexual Assault and Perceptions of College Campus Acquaintance Rape.

Acquaintance rape is distressingly common on college campuses. Differing models of the perpetration of sexual assault make diverging predictions regarding the degree to which individual differences may distinguish among such sexual offenders and nonoffenders. Much research investigating these issues has primarily sampled students from large, commuter colleges. Such data may not generalize to students in other university settings (e.g., private schools, students in university housing). The present study sought to examine the rate of self-reported sexual assault among college men at a private school at which most students live in university housing. Furthermore, we examined whether individual difference characteristics-namely, endorsement of masculine gender norms and endorsement of modern myths about sexual assault-predicted participants' perceptions of acquaintance rape. A total of 219 college men completed a survey consisting of the Male Role Norm Inventory (MRNI), followed by the Acceptance of Modern Myths About Sexual Aggression (AMMSA) and the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES). They then read a hypothetical acquaintance rape scenario and provided several ratings regarding their attributions of blame. Approximately, 4.6% of men self-reported having committed sexual assault. A Bayesian analysis indicated that self-reported offenders did not score differently on MRNI and AMMSA than self-reported nonoffenders, nor did they view the hypothetical scenario differently. Overall, men who endorsed male role norms tended to accept modern myths about rape and tended to attribute more blame to the victim and less blame to the perpetrator in the acquaintance rape scenario. We discuss methodological difficulties in conducting this type of research and identify several directions for future research.

Administrator blindness affects the recording of eyewitness lineup outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: We investigated the effects of administrator knowledge of suspect identity in a lineup (blind vs. nonblind), witness identification (suspect vs. filler), and witness confidence (high vs. low) on whether administrators recorded the identification as an affirmative response; whether administrators recorded qualitative notes regarding the lineup task; and the content of those qualitative notes. HYPOTHESES: We predicted that nonblind administrators would record more identifications of the suspect than the filler, but blind administrators would record such identifications at comparable rates. We predicted this difference would be larger in the low (vs. high) confidence condition. We examined effects on administrators' qualitative notes in an exploratory fashion. METHOD: Undergraduate participant administrators (N = 488) presented a lineup to a confederate witness (who made a scripted identification decision) and completed a record of the lineup task. RESULTS: Nonblind administrators recorded 25% fewer identifications of fillers (vs. suspects), and evaluated witnesses less favorably in the filler (vs. suspect) identification condition (ηp² = .194). Blind administrators were not influenced by witness selection. Blind (vs. nonblind) administrators recorded more qualitative notes, confidence statements, and information relevant to witnesses' decision processes, regardless of whether witnesses identified the suspect or the filler. Among those who recorded a confidence statement, nonblind administrators' characterizations were biased such that independent coders judged witnesses to be more confident in their identifications of the suspect (vs. filler). CONCLUSION: Blind administration eliminates numerous biases associated with administrator expectations and may yield more informative lineup records. These results further support blind lineup reform recommendations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

False memories for dissonance inducing events.

Memories serve as a "database" of the self and people often produce distorted memories that support their self-concepts. One, surprisingly untested, possibility is that cognitive dissonance may be one mechanism by which people may misremember their past. We tested this hypothesis using an induced-compliance paradigm: participants either chose or were forced to write a counterattitudinal essay supporting a tuition increase and were afforded the opportunity to reduce dissonance via attitude shift or denial of responsibility. They then reported their memories for the experimental instructions and their initial attitudes (assessed two days prior to the laboratory session). Participants who chose to write the essay exhibited the predicted attitude-shift effect, and were more likely to misremember their initial attitudes and the experimental instruction than those who were forced to write the essay. Overall, our results provide evidence that cognitive dissonance may yield memory distortion, filling a significant gap in the motivated cognition and memory literatures.