Committee Chair

Warren, Amye

Committee Member

Ferrier, David E.; Ross, David F.

Department

Dept. of Psychology

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

Recent research has shown that mock jurors are sensitive to interrogation coerciveness and its relation to risk of false confessions in adults if they can see interrogation tactics used, but not if provided with a police report that omits these tactics (Kassin et al., 2017). The present study was designed to extend these findings to a juvenile confession case. The current study analyzed the effects of interrogation quality and type of evidence presented on mock jurors' perceptions of a juvenile confession. Participants (N= 602) read a case in which coerciveness (highly vs slightly), police report type (accurate vs inaccurate vs no report), and interrogation transcript presence (present vs. not present) were manipulated. Regardless of coercion level or accuracy, police report presence led to more guilty verdicts. Consistent with prior studies of adult interrogations, results indicate that reading a police report significantly diminishes mock jurors’ capacity to critically analyze juvenile confessions.

Degree

M. S.; A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science.

Date

5-2019

Subject

Jury -- Research; Group decision making

Keyword

juveniles; false confessions; police reports

Discipline

Psychology

Document Type

Masters theses

DCMI Type

Text

Extent

vii, 100 leaves

Language

English

Rights

https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

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Psychology Commons

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