Accuracy and decision -making criteria in cross -race eyewitness identification: A more complex than expected phenomenon.
Item
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Title
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Accuracy and decision -making criteria in cross -race eyewitness identification: A more complex than expected phenomenon.
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Identifier
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AAI3325473
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identifier
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3325473
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Creator
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Da Silva, Juraci M.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Herbert D. Saltzstein
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Date
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2008
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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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Psychology, Developmental | Psychology, Social
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Abstract
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One hundred and nine students from John Jay College participated in a study of cross-racial eyewitness identification using signal detection analysis. No cross-race effect in discriminability was found, but Blacks were slightly better at recognizing Blacks than any other group combination. Two main effects were found on decisional criteria: (a) Blacks used a stricter criterion than White Latinos regardless of the race of the perpetrator, and (b) marginally, all participants used a stricter criterion when identifying White Latinos than when identifying Blacks. This resulted in the stricter criterion been used by Blacks identifying White Latinos, i.e., were less willing to make false positive errors; and the loosest criterion by White Latinos identifying Blacks, i.e., they appeared more willing to commit false positive errors. Unlike many previous studies, overall, more accurate participants were also more confident.;Different measures of contact, "having friends," "hanging out with," and "working closely with" members of another race, had different relationships to discriminability and response criterion. Significantly more Blacks mentioned having White Latinos friends than White Latinos mentioned having Blacks friends. Having friends and hanging out with individuals of a different race did not relate to discriminability, but was associated with using a stricter criterion. Working closely with members of another race did not relate to discriminability or to decisional criterion. Also, participants who judged that false positive errors were worse than false negative errors, in fact, used a stricter criterion in their eyewitness performance.;Thus, the "cross-race" phenomenon appears to be more complicated than the term "cross-race" effect usually implies. The capacity to discriminate between own- and other-race faces and decisional criteria used to decide "this is the guy" do not necessarily operate in the same direction for different cross-race combinations. Results suggest that same- and cross-race effect is related to and may depend on the kind of group interaction, and on the discriminability or decisional criterion that are used to measure performance.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
