Is Eyewitness Testimony Believable to Jurors?
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Holly Morgan
College:
The College of Health Professions and Human Services
Major:
Forensic Psychology
Faculty Research Advisor(s):
Christine Doyle
Abstract:
This study examines if jurors are able to tell if an eyewitness is lying on the stand. It was hypothesized that people are bad lie detectors, but they would have a better chance at being able to tell if their friends are lying compared to if an eyewitness was lying. A sample of 61 participants taken from a convenience sample were given 3 online surveys to complete. The first was asking if a friend had exhibited a certain behavior (i.e. hesitations, gaze aversions, etc.) how likely they would be to believe that person is lying. The second survey had a few demographic questions. The last survey asked if an eyewitness exhibited these behaviors on the stand (i.e. too much confidence, inconsistency, etc.) how likely they would be to believe that person is lying. The hypothesis that people would perform better at identifying lying characteristics in friends than as a juror was explored. A Paired Sample t-Test compared the difference between identifying lying as a friend and lying as a juror, a statistical significant difference was found, t (56)=6.611 , p