Transcript ACCURACY & CONFIDENCE Janet Jones

Introduction to Psychology
Class 21: Social Psychology 1
Myers: 281-284, 293-301, 539-541
Aug 3, 2001
Study this picture for 15 seconds…
02-08-03 13:28
 What color was the jacket?
 What color was the briefcase?
 What was the date?
 What was the time?
 What kind of gun was it?
 What color was her shirt?
 Did she/he have a facial scar?
EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY
 Weapons Focus Effect
Cross-Race Identification Bias
 Eyewitness suggestibility
 Children’s eyewitness recall
 Misinformation Effect
1. Recovered memories
2. False memories
SUGGESTIBILITY AND THE
DISSOCIATIVE EXPERIENCES SCALE
1.
Some people have the experience of driving or riding in a car or bus or subway and
suddenly realizing that they don't remember what has happened during all or part of the trip.
2. Some people find that sometimes they are listening to someone talk and they suddenly
realize that they did not hear part or all of what was said.
3. Some people have the experience of finding themselves in a place and having no idea how
they got there.
4. Some people have the experience of finding themselves dressed in clothes that they don't
remember putting on.
5. Some people have the experience of finding new things among their belongings that they do
not remember buying.
6. Some people sometimes find that in certain situations they are able to do things with
amazing case and spontaneity that would usually be difficult for them (for example, sports,
work, social situations, etc.).
7. Some people sometimes find that they cannot remember whether they have done
something or have just thought about doing that this (for example, not knowing whether they
have just mailed a letter or have just thought about mailing it).
8. Some people find evidence that they have done things that they do not remember doing.
9. Some people sometimes find writings, drawings, or notes among their belongings that they
must have done but cannot remember doing.
10. Some people sometimes find that they hear voices inside their head that tell them to do
things or comment on things that they are doing.
MEMORY RECONSTRUCTION
 The study by Loftus & Palmer
Speed Estimates
45
40
35
30
Contact
Hit
Bump
Collide
Smash
FALSE CONFESSIONS
 Leading questions
 Suggestibility
 Coercion
 Compliance and/or
Internalization
After hours of interrogation, Michael Crowe confesses to a
murder he did not commit.
ATTORNEY GENERAL’S GUIDELINES
 The 911 call:
 Scene of the crime:
“What can you tell
me about the car?”
Nonbiased and thorough investigation,
separate the witnesses
 Interrogation:
Open-ended
questions, documentation, volunteer
no information, encourage details,
discourage guessing
Mugshots:
 Line-ups:
“The perpetrator may or may not be in
here”, present serially as opposed to all at once
Assess certainty/confidence
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
Attributions are explanations we come
up with for the behavior of others

Dispositional attribution (internal)



Reason for action: within the person
Abilities, traits, personal effort
Situational attribution (external)


Reason for action: outside person’s control
Luck, accident, actions of others, environment
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR
Fundamental Attribution Error is the
tendency to make dispositional
attributions about and underestimate the
impact of the situation when explaining
the behavior of others
FAE: GAME SHOW STUDY

Either assigned to being a:
Questioner
 Contestant
 Audience member



“Make up challenging questions from your
own knowledge.”
After show: Rate “general knowledge
levels”
FAE: CULTURAL DIFFERENCES


Is the fundamental attribution error truly
“fundamental”?
Independent versus interdependent cultures
ACTOR-OBSERVER BIAS
The tendency to make dispositional attributions
when explaining the behavior of others and
situational attributions when explaining our own
behavior.
HEURISTIC
 A mental short-cut
 A rule of thumb
 Used to make decisions and form
judgments
 Contrast with an algorithm
QUESTION
Which is more common: words that start with
the letter k or words that contain k as the
third letter?
AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC
 Tendency to make judgments based on
how easily information comes to mind
 “Mom calls every time I think of her!”
 Airplane crashes and the fear of flying
ANOTHER QUESTION
A stranger tells you about a person who is “short,
slim, and likes to read poetry”, and then asks you
to guess whether this person is more likely to be
a professor of classics at an Ivy League university
of a truck driver. Which would be the better
guess?
HEURISTICS IN PLAY…


Representativeness heuristic: The tendency to
make judgments about something according to
how similar it is to a prototype
- Short, slim, likes poetry fits a prototype
Base rate fallacy: The tendency to ignore base
rate information when making judgments
- Number of truck drivers versus number of
Ivy League professors in classics
FRAMING

Participants read either:
 10%
of people will die while undergoing
surgery
 90% of people survive while undergoing
surgery

Then rated perceived risk
CONFIRMATION BIAS


The tendency to seek, interpret, and create
information in ways that verify existing beliefs
Examples: Freud, hypochondriacs
STUDY

Subjects given some background



View or not view confederate taking test


High Expectations: High SES, educated parents
Low Expectations: Low SES, uneducated parents
Mixed/okay performance shown
Partcipants then rate academic potential of test
taker
BELIEF PERSEVERANCE

The tendency to hold on to initial beliefs despite
evidence to the contrary

We see (and keep seeing) what we want to see

Example: Do Aliens Exist?
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHESY


The process by which expectations about a
person eventually lead that person to behave in
ways that confirm those expectations
Rosenthal study
 Randomly assigned students to a group of
“bloomers” and told the teacher
 “Bloomers” increased in IQ test performance
by end of school year