Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Prior research has shown that jurors rely on confidence in discriminating between accurate and inaccurate testimonies despite the weak relationship between the two. The purpose of this study is to learn if truth seekers also use confidence in judging truthfulness. In two studies, participants were either not given instructions regarding witness confidence or were told not to use witness confidence, and then they were asked to rate the believability of the videotaped testimony of four witnesses who varied in confidence and truthfulness. Regardless of the instructions, participants did rely on confidence and rated highly confident testimonies as more believable. They also rated false testimonies as significantly more believable than true statements.

Keywords

detecting deception judgment eyewitness testimony confidence juries nonverbal communication verbal communication

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

DePaulo, B. , Charlton, K. , Cooper, H. , Lindsay, J. , & Muhlenbruck, L. (1997). The accuracy-confidence correlation in the detection of deception. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1, 346-357.

DePaulo, B. , Lindsay, J. , Malone, B. E. , Muhlenbruck, L. , Charlton, K. , & Cooper, H. (2003). Cues to deception. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 74-112.

Devenport, J. , Penrod, S. , & Cutler, B. (1997). Eyewitness identification evidence evaluating commonsense evaluations. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 3, 338-361.

Ekman, P. , & O’Sullivan, M. (1991). Who can catch a liar? American Psychologist, 46, 913-920.

Fox, S. G. , & Walters, H. A. (1986). The impact of general versus specific expert testimony and eyewitness confidence upon mock juror judgment. Law and Human Behavior, 10, 215-228.

Frank, M. G. , & Ekman, P. (1997). The ability to detect deceit generalizes across different types of high-stakes lies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1429-1439.

Landry, K. L. , & Brigham, J. C. (1992). The effects of training in criteria-based content analysis on the ability to detect deception in adults. Law and Human Behavior, 16, 663-675.

Leippe, L. R. , Romanczyk, A. , & Manion, A. (1992). Eyewitness persuasion: How and how well do fact finders judge the accuracy of adults’ and children’s memory reports. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 181-197.

Pezdek, K. , & Taylor, J. (2000). Discriminating between true and false events. In D. Bjorkland (Ed.), False-memory creation in children and adults (pp. 69-91). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

10.

Sporer, S. , Penrod, S. , Read, D. , & Cutler, B. (1995). Choosing, confidence, and accuracy: A meta-analysis of the confidence-accuracy relation in eyewitness identification studies. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 315-324.

11.

Steller, M. (1989). Recent developments in statement analysis. In J. C. Yuille (Ed.), Credibility assessment (pp. 135-154). Boston: Kluwer Academic.

12.

Whitley, B. E. , & Greenberg, M. S. (1986). The role of eyewitness confidence in juror perceptions of credibility. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 16, 387-409.

Using Witness Confidence can Impair the Ability to Detect Deception

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References