Developmental differences in the use of *intention and *outcome in face recognition in an eyewitness identification context
Item
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Title
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Developmental differences in the use of *intention and *outcome in face recognition in an eyewitness identification context
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:dd8935d59195:10239
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identifier
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10340
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Creator
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Spring, Toni,
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Contributor
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Herbert D. Saltzstein
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Date
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2009
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Developmental psychology
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Abstract
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Young children's (ages, 7-9), older children's (ages, 10-12), adolescents' (ages, 13-15) and adults' (ages, 19-25) (total N = 122) use of intention and outcome in eyewitness identification was investigated in this study. The research strategy here was to study children's eyewitness identification tasks within the theoretical perspectives of moral development and decision-making theory, in particular how the intentionality and outcome of a transgression affected their eyewitness identification, both in its accuracy and in the kinds of errors made. In particular, it focused on the balance between false positives and false negatives. A false positive [F+] is saying that the person is guilty when he/she is, in fact, innocent. A false negative [F-] is saying the person is not guilty when he/she is, in fact, guilty. The identical act of setting a fire was framed in two different ways: (a) as a "neutral" intention act which resulted in a fire that ruins the restaurant; and, (b) as a "bad" intentional act of trying to set a fire that does not result in any damage to the restaurant. The developmental difference is precisely cast when the framings are mismatched between intent and outcome. Thus, the stimulus films were framed differently, by stressing the "neutral" or "bad" intentions of the actor and the greater or lesser severity of the outcome. The identification of the perpetrator was contrasted for the two acts (films) at four different age levels.;The major findings, of this study are: (1) that different moral framings of the act [transgression] affected the decisional criteria actually used by the 10-12 year-olds but not those used by the younger children [ages 7-9 year-olds] nor by the adolescents or adults. In particular, (a) the younger children appear to use a general strategy, 'when in doubt, positively identify' regardless of the nature of the act; (b) whereas the 10-12's appear to treat the neutral intent/bad outcome (Fire) as more serious than the bad intent/neutral outcome (No Fire), and deserving of a more lenient decisional criterion that results in more false positive identifications. (2) However, both groups of children [7-9 and 10-12] explicitly state that false negatives [saying the person is not guilty when he/she is, in fact, guilty] are worse than or equally bad as false positives [saying that the person is guilty when he/she is, in fact, innocent] whereas adolescents and adults state that false positives [F+] are worse. This latter finding of stated beliefs appears not to differ according to the framing of the act, i.e., is not responsive to condition. Thus, there appears to be a discrepancy between performance and [stated] beliefs.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
