Social psychology and plea bargaining: Applications, methodology, and theory.

Conducted 2 experiments with male undergraduates to investigate the plea bargaining process. Exp I (143 Ss) used a role-playing procedure to identify variables that affect the acceptance of a plea bargain. 18% of the Ss playing the role of innocent defendants accepted the plea bargain, whereas 83% of the guilty defendants accepted. Two other main effects revealed that defendants were more likely to accept a plea bargain when relatively many charges had been filed against them and/or when the severity of punishment upon conviction was great, although internal analyses revealed that these effects were present in guilty defendants only. Exp II (18 Ss) was conducted using involved participants to provide validation for the major result of Exp I. Ss were made to be innocent or guilty of having prior information about an exam. All were accused of having used prior information and were given an opportuinity to plea bargain rather than face an ethics committee. In accord with Exp I, guilty Ss accepted the plea bargain significantly more often than innocent students. Results are discussed in terms of information differences between innocent and guilty defendants and the availability heuristic. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Leakage of relevant information to innocent examinees in the GKT: An attempt to reduce false-positive outcomes by introducing target stimuli.

This study focused on the Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT)—a psychophysiological detection method based on a series of multiple-choice questions, each having one relevant and several neutral (control) alternatives. The study examined a new method designed to reduce false-positive outcomes due to leakage of relevant items to innocent suspects by introducing target items (i.e., items known to all examinees but unrelated to the crime) to which participants have to respond (e.g., by pressing a key) while answering the GKT questions. Informed innocent participants showed relatively larger electrodermal responses to the critical items than uninformed participants, but not as large as the responses made by guilty participants. No differences between informed and uninformed innocent participants were obtained with a respiration measure. The use of the target items tended to reduce the differences between informed and uninformed innocent participants. The results further demonstrated that electrodermal responding to the relevant items was correlated with memory of these items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of physical countermeasures on the physiological detection of deception.

In Exp I, 48 undergraduates were divided into 4 groups, 3 of which enacted a mock crime. Two of these guilty groups were trained in the use of a countermeasure, either biting the tongue (pain countermeasure) or pressing the toes against the floor (muscle countermeasure) during the control question zones of the control question test (CQT). All countermeasure Ss were given extensive information about the nature of the CQT. Results show that no significant effects for countermeasures were found. In Exp II, 57 Ss were divided into 3 groups, 2 of which enacted a mock crime, to assess the effects of additional training and concurrent use of both countermeasures. Results show that countermeasure Ss produced 47% false negative outcomes as compared to no false negatives for guilty control Ss. False negative outcomes occurred when Ss were able to produce physiological responses that were larger to control questions than to relevant questions. Findings should be qualified by the possibility that the countermeasure task would be more difficult if the relevant questions dealt with a real crime in an actual investigation. It is concluded that a substantial number of Ss can be trained to defeat a CQT in a laboratory paradigm. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sampling of similar and dissimilar comparison persons and objects as a function of the generality of attribution goal.

Conducted an information-search procedure in which Ss were asked to seek information regarding persons and objects in order to validate a given person or object cause. Four hypotheses were tested: When asked to validate a person cause, Ss are more likely to select distinctiveness information than target-object consensus information. When asked to validate an object cause, Ss are more likely to select target-object consensus information than distinctiveness information. As the generality of person inference increases, progressively dissimilar object comparisons are sought. As the generality of object inference increases, progressively dissimilar person comparisons are sought. In Exp I, 26 undergraduates read attitude statements and answered judgment goals or questions about the statement's generality or object inference. 52 undergraduates in Exp II completed a similar task. The first 3 hypotheses were supported in both Exp I and Exp II, whereas the 4th hypothesis received only mixed support in Exp I and was not supported in Exp II. Unlike Exp I, Exp II did not include cues suggesting the relevant type of information to be sought. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Detection of guilty knowledge in real-life criminal investigations.

The present study provides a first attempt to estimate the validity of the Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT) in real-life criminal investigations. Skin resistance responses in GKT records of 50 innocent and 48 guilty Ss, for whom actual truth was established by confession, were analyzed by two methods. On the basis of an a priori decision rule, 98% of the innocent and 42% of the guilty Ss were correctly classified. Signal detection measures based on various possible decision rules indicated that the distribution of guilty Ss was highly differentiated from the distribution of innocent Ss. An optimal decision rule yielded correct classifications for 94% of the innocent Ss and 65% of the guilty Ss. These results suggest that the GKT could be a useful investigative tool that protects innocent suspects from being falsely classified as guilty. The false-negative identifications were accounted for in terms of the realistic conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of antianxiety drugs as countermeasures in the detection of guilty knowledge.

To evaluate whether antianxiety drugs enable guilty Ss to appear innocent on polygraph tests, the authors compared the effects of diazepam, meprobamate, and propranolol on the outcome of a guilty knowledge test (GKT). 75 undergraduate students were evenly divided among 1 innocent and 4 guilty groups. Ss in each of the guilty groups received either 1 of the drugs or a placebo prior to the administration of the GKT and after viewing a videotape that depicted a burglary as seen from the perspective of the burglar. The results showed that drug status had no influence on the outcome of the GKT. Innocent Ss who coincidentally obtained high scores on a recognition memory test covering details of the mock crime tended to obtain higher guilt scores on the GKT. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Awareness of crime-relevant information and the Guilty Knowledge Test.

The effects of awareness of crime-relevant information on the detection of deception with the Guilty Knowledge Test were examined. Student Ss were assigned to 1 of 3 groups: a guilty group, members of which committed a mock crime; an innocent group aware of details about the crime; or an innocent group unaware of such information. After following instructions, Ss were tested on the polygraph with a 10-item Guilty Knowledge Test and were offered $20 for an innocent test outcome. Skin resistance response scores of guilty Ss lying about crime-relevant information were higher than the scores of innocent informed Ss, whose scores in turn were higher than those of innocent unaware Ss. This replicated findings of an earlier study in which similar procedures were used and supported the view that Ss aware of crime-relevant information can appear less deceptive than Ss lying about crime-relevant information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of mobilization of knowledge on recognition and recall.

Examined the effect of mobilization of knowledge on recall and recognition in 4 experiments, using 170 undergraduates. In Exp I, the mobilization group generated instances from a specified category and received a study list that contained some of these generated items as well as other members of the category that had not been generated. Control Ss received the same study list after they had generated instances from an irrelevant category. Contrary to previous findings by J. Peeck (see record 1983-22657-001), prior mobilization did not facilitate free recall of the generated study-list items and inhibited recall of nongenerated items. This pattern of recall was replicated in Exp II. The inhibitory effect of prior mobilization on nongenerated items was eliminated in Exp III, which used a recognition memory test. In addition, prior mobilization facilitated the recognition of generated study list items. Exp IV found that when knowledge about the mobilized category was limited, prior mobilization did facilitate free recall but only for generated study-list items. An attempt was made to reconcile data with previous results and to specify the conditions under which mobilization facilitates or inhibits subsequent memory performance. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Detection measures in real-life criminal guilty knowledge tests.

Provides a 1st attempt to compare the validity of the respiration line length (RLL) and skin resistance response (SRR) amplitude in real-life criminal guilty knowledge tests (GKTs). GKT records of 40 innocent and 40 guilty Ss, for whom actual truth was established by confession, were assessed for their accuracy. When a predefined decision rule was used and inconclusive decisions were excluded, 97.4% of the innocent Ss and 53.3% of the guilty Ss were correctly classified with the SRR measure. For the RLL measure, the respective results were 97.2% and 53.1%. The combination of both measures improved detection of guilty Ss to 75.8% and decreased detection of innocent Ss to 94.1%. The combined measure seems to be a more useful means of identifying guilty suspects than each physiological measure alone. The results elaborate and extend those obtained in a previous field study (E. Elaad, 1990). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of feedback on the ability of asthmatic subjects to detect increases in the flow-resistive component to breathing.

Improved perception of increases in airflow resistance may have implications in asthma self management. Two experiments that evaluated effects of feedback on the detection of flow-resistive loads are summarized. In the 1st experiment, detection ability of asthma patients who received feedback about the correctness of their responses in a signal-detection task was compared with that of asthma patients who did not receive feedback. Exp 1 showed that Ss in the feedback condition detected the presence of flow-resistive loads more accurately than Ss in the no-feedback condition. In the 2nd experiment, effects of feedback were compared between asthmatic and non asthmatic Ss. Exp 2 showed that effects of feedback training were equivalent in Ss with and without asthma. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of group identity on resource use in a simulated commons dilemma.

Used 172 undergraduates in 3 experiments to assess the effects of making salient either a superordinate (collective) or subordinate (differentiating) group identity in heterogeneous groups. In Exp I, 22 male and 36 female Ss were assigned to either a superordinate-group identity (small community resident behavior vs other areas) or a subordinate-group identity (behavior of young people vs elderly people) condition and were asked to perform a computer task individually; Ss were led to believe they were interacting with 5 other persons (2 real and 3 bogus Ss) in their group in accumulating as many points as possible while making the resource last as long as possible. Bogus feedback about group behavior was given. In Exp II, 29 male and 19 female Ss were told that the bogus Ss were economics majors and were asked to perform as in Exp I. In Exp III, the level of social-group identity for 40 male and 26 female Ss was manipulated by varying the common fate of the group members. Results of all 3 experiments show support for the hypothesis that individual restraint would be most likely when a superordinate group identity was made salient and under conditions in which feedback indicated that the common resource was being depleted. A sex-response difference found in Exp I was not sustained in subsequent experiments. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is the hypnotized subject lying?

Do the verbal reports of deeply hypnotized Ss truthfully reflect their subjective experiences of hypnotic suggestions? Exp 1 established that the electrodermal skin conductance response (SCR) provides an effective method for detecting deception in the laboratory equally well in hypnotized and nonhypnotized Ss. In Exp 2, deeply hypnotized and simulating Ss were administered a number of hypnotic suggestions in a typical hypnotic session, without mention of deception, and were questioned about their experiences while SCR measures were recorded concurrently. Results indicate that 89% of the hypnotized Ss' reports met the criterion for truthfulness, whereas only 35% of the simulators' reports met this criterion. Implications for the theory of hypnosis are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral inhibition and electrodermal activity during deception.

Tested the assumption that the act of inhibiting ongoing behavior requires physiological work. In a guilty knowledge test (GKT) paradigm, 30 undergraduates were induced to attempt to deceive the experimenter on 2 separate occasions while electrodermal activity was measured. For 20 of the 30 Ss, overt behaviors (changes in eye movement and facial expression) were recorded during the 2nd GKT. Results indicate that the incidence of these behaviors decreased during Ss' deceptive responses. This behavioral inhibition coincided with increases in skin conductance level. In addition to suggesting nonverbal correlates of deception, findings indicate that long-term behavioral inhibition may be a factor in psychosomatic disease. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expectations for success on effort-determined tasks as a function of incentive and performance feedback.

Conducted 2 experiments to investigate an attributional analysis of the consequences of perceiving one's effort as stable, as opposed to unstable, on future performance expectancies. In Exp I, 32 male undergraduates were told that performance on the experimental tasks was purely effort determined; they expected a monetary incentive for good performance on half the tasks and received preprogrammed feedback that their performance was either variable or consistent. In Exp II, both 45 male and 51 female Ss believed the tasks were either effort or ability determined and received variable or consistent feedback; incentive was operationalized as the level of task interestingness. As predicted, Ss who believed performance was effort determined and received variable feedback had higher expectations for performance on a later task when its incentive value was high than when it was low. Ss receiving consistent feedback did not differ in their expectations, regardless of the incentive value of the task. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Awareness of the response after feedback training for changes in heart rate and sudomotor laterality.

Examined the relation between (a) the ability to control visceral responding on a biofeedback (BFB) task and (b) the ability to report behaviors actually contributing to this performance in 4 experiments with 97 male Ss. Ss received BFB training for unidentified visceral responses and then gave written reports about what they had done to control BFB displays. Independent judges were given these reports and, on the basis of knowledge about activities known to contribute to visceral activity, were asked to determine the visceral responses for which Ss had been trained. The reports of Ss who succeeded at bidirectional control of heart rate (Exp I) or sudomotor laterality (Exp II) showed awareness of behaviors related to BFB as assessed by this procedure, whereas the reports of Ss who failed at bidirectional control did not. Subsequent experiments indicated that these results did not depend on a learning strategy that might have been specific to the initial studies. Findings question the view that people are unaware of what they have done to produce the response after training on BFB tasks. (81 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness and learned resourcefulness: Effects of noncontingent success and failure on individuals differing in self-control skills.

In Exp I, 72 undergraduates were assessed using the Self-Control Schedule and received noncontingent success-, failure-, or no-feedback on a task that ostensibly assessed therapeutic abilities. Ss were subsequently tested on insolvable puzzles. In Exp II, 72 undergraduates followed the same procedure as in Exp I but were subsequently tested on solvable anagrams. Results show that the performance of Ss with low resourcefulness (LR) in self-control skills on the insolvable puzzles was debilitated by the helplessness induction, while Ss with high resourcefulness (HR) and LR Ss showed equal helplessness-induced deficits on the anagrams. As predicted from the self-control model, HR Ss more frequently checked statements indicating positive self-evaluations and task-oriented thoughts and less frequently checked negative self-evaluations than did LR Ss during exposure to uncontrollability in both experiments. It is concluded that the self-control model best accounts for Ss' self-reactions during exposure to uncontrollability or failure, while the learned helplessness model accounts for the generalization of helplessness from uncontrollable situations to controllable ones. The list of self-referent statements used in the experiments is appended. (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Validity of the guilty knowledge technique in a prisoner's sample.

Evaluated the guilty knowledge technique as a detector of knowledge held by 30 prisoners in a maximum security prison in Israel. In an initial interview, Ss responded to 20 questions designed to elicit personal responses or items. During a later interrogation, Ss were presented verbally with (a) the same 20 questions and (b) 5 alternative responses including their own personal response and 4 neutral control responses. During the interrogation, Ss listened quietly while their GSRs were monitored. On the basis of the GSR data, a significant proportion (p     

Do the clothes make the man? An exploration of the effect of lineup attire on eyewitness identification accuracy.

In 3 experiments, 392 undergraduates witnessed staged crimes and attempted to identify criminals from photographic lineups containing a picture of the guilty party or a similar looking but innocent suspect. Lineup attire was manipulated: (1) Only the suspects wore clothing similar to that worn during the crime (biased lineups); (2) everyone wore different attire (usual lineups); and (3) everyone was dressed alike. Data reveal that the rate of identifications of the guilty party was not influenced by lineup attire. However, the innocent suspect was most likely to be identified from a clothing-biased lineup. Data also show that Ss who selected the suspect clothing from photographs of clothing were significantly more accurate in their identification of the person than Ss who failed to select the suspect clothing. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of out-group cues in determining social identity.

Examined the role of out-group cues in determining social identity and guiding behavior in 2 experiments with 131 undergraduates. In Exp I, Ss were exposed to a cue either of an in-group (Ss' college), a relevant out-group (a rival college), or an irrelevant out-group (a baseball team). Ss examined a list of words and were later asked to recognize those they had seen from a larger list in which words related to the 3 groups were embedded. Results indicate that Ss made more false recognitions of in-group related words when a relevant out-group was salient than when an irrelevant out-group was salient. Exp II tested a behavioral implication of Exp I: Out-group salience increases adherence to an in-group norm. In the 1st phase of Exp II, Ss were divided into 2 groups and deliberated 2 civil suits. Ss' in-group favored the plaintiffs for both cases. Ss were divided into new groups for the 2nd phase, and the same procedure was followed. This time, however, the in-group favored the defendants. In the 3rd phase, Ss were exposed to a cue either of the out-group in Phase 1 or Phase 2. Ss' judgments for 2 new cases were biased in the direction of the norm of the in-group that was associated with the salient out-group. Ss favored the plaintiff (or defendant) when the 1st (or 2nd) out-group was salient. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of frequency of feedback on a simple coaction task.

Used a learned drive approach to predict the effects of feedback on a coaction task; 60 female undergraduates were Ss. It was hypothesized that the magnitude of social facilitation would be greater the more often Ss were given feedback of their own or the other coactor's performance. The frequency of feedback was manipulated by varying the number of responses required to produce a tone. Coactors received a tone after every 4 (FR4) or 7 (FR7) responses and performed in the presence of another person who was either on an FR4 or an FR7 schedule. To furnish a comparison to the coaction conditions, some Ss were tested individually on an FR4 and others on an FR7 schedule. Within the coaction conditions, the most responding occurred when both Ss received an FR4 schedule, and the fewest responses when both coactors were on an FR7 schedule. An intermediate number of responses was produced when one coactor was on an FR4 and the other on an FR7 schedule. Also, Ss working in coaction conditions responded more than those performing alone. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)