NCJ Number
95370
Journal
Journal of Applied Psychology Volume: 69 Issue: 2 Dated: (1984) Pages: 280-288
Date Published
1984
Length
9 pages
Annotation
In the majority of criminal cases, the most important witness is the victim of the crime. Victimization may either enhance or inhibit eyewitness accuracy through the stress and other reactions it causes.
Abstract
Likewise, the witness variable of self-monitoring (SM) may influence identification accuracy because high SM and low SM people process information differently. Furthermore, these differences may be augmented by biased identification instructions. To investigate the influence of these variables on eyewitness accuracy and confidence, low- and high-SM subjects (comprising a total of 80 male and female college undergraduates of Anglo-American, Mexican-American, and black ethnicity/race) witnessed a stated crime of either their own wristwatches or a laboratory calculator. Police detectives took individual witness statements under the guise that a real crime had occurred, and using biased or unbiased instructions, administered a suspect-present photospread. Results indicated that victim witnesses given biased instructions were least accurate in their identifications and the high SMs were least likely to reject the lineup when instructions were biased. (Author abstract)