The Impact of Age, Speech Style, and Question Form on Perceptions of Witness Credibility and Trial Outcome1

Christine L. Ruva · Judith Becker Bryant

51 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Applied Social Psychology

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Jury Decision Making Processes Legal processes and jurisprudence Deception detection and forensic psychology

Abstract

The experiment examined the effects that witness age (6, 10, or 22 year old), witness speech style (powerful or powerless), and prosecuting attorney's questioning style (open‐or closed‐ended) have on perceived witness credibility and trial outcome. Potential jurors (N=276) read trial transcripts involving a murder. A significant age by speech style interaction revealed that speaking in a powerless manner was significantly more harmful to the adult witness' credibility than it was to the child witness' credibility. A Significant Age × Question Form interaction revealed that question form only had a significant effect on the 6‐year‐old's credibility. Finally, verdicts, guilt ratings, and the length of the sentence were significantly correlated with ratings of the witness' credibility.

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References

1987Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior 1976Design and Analysis: A Researcher's Handbook 1979Language and Social Psychology 1969Dimensions for Evaluating the Acceptability of Message Sources 1999The ecological validity of jury simulations: Is the jury still out?1982Linguistic Evidence: Language, Power, and Strategy in the Courtroom 1981Ethos and credibility: The construct and its measurement after three decades 2001Jury decision making: 45 years of empirical research on deliberating groups.

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2019To believe or not to believe? How voice and accent information in speech alter listener impressions of trust 2010Mock jurors' perceptions of identifications made by intoxicated eyewitnesses 2011Positive and Negative Pretrial Publicity 2014From the shadows into the light: How pretrial publicity and deliberation affect mock jurors’ decisions, impressions, and memory.2015Differences in expert witness knowledge: do mock jurors notice and does it matter?

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