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of PsychologyEl Paso Area
Legal Psychology Ph.D. Program
University of Texas at El Paso
Read about Recent Research conducted by faculty and graduate students in our program, including "in press" articles that describe our latest findings!
(Students and faculty are highlighted in each citation.)A more complete listing of recent publications is also provided below.
Billings, F. J., Taylor, T., Burns, J., Corey, D. L., Garven, S., & Wood, J. M. (in press). Can reinforcement induce children to falsely incriminate themselves? Law & Human Behavior.
This study examined whether reinforcement can induce children to falsely incriminate themselves. Ninety-nine children in kindergarten through third grade were questioned regarding the staged theft of a toy. Half received reinforcement for self-incriminating responses. Within 4 min reinforced children made 52% false admissions of guilty knowledge concerning the theft, and 30% false admissions of having witnessed it. Corresponding figures for controls were 36 and 10%. Twelve percent of children admitted to participating in the theft, but the effect of reinforcement was only marginally significant. The findings indicate that reinforcement can induce children to falsely implicate themselves in wrongdoing.
Kassin, S. M., Leo, R. A., Meissner, C. A., Richman, K. D., Colwell, L. H., Leach, A-M., & LaFon, D. (in press). Police interviewing and interrogation: A self-report survey of police practices and beliefs. Law & Human Behavior.
By questionnaire, 631 police investigators reported on their interrogation beliefs and practices—the first such survey ever conducted. Overall, participants estimated that they were 77% accurate at truth and lie detection, that 81% of suspects waive Miranda rights, that the mean length of interrogation is 1.6 hours, and that they elicit self-incriminating statements from 68% of suspects, 4.78% from innocents. Overall, 81% felt that interrogations should be recorded. As for self-reported usage of various interrogation tactics, the most common were to physically isolate suspects, identify contradictions in suspects' accounts, establish rapport, confront suspects with evidence of their guilt, and appeal to self-interests. Results were discussed for their consistency with prior research, policy implications, and methodological shortcomings.
MacLin, M. K., Zimmerman, L. A., Meissner, C. A., MacLin, O. H., Tredoux, C. G., & Malpass, R. S. (in press). The science of collecting eyewitness evidence: Recommendations and an argument for collaborative efforts between researchers and law enforcement. Police Practice & Research.
Psychological researchers have brought a scientific understanding to the collection of eyewitness evidence, and have proposed a variety of recommendations designed to improve its reliability. However, such procedures can only be implemented through successful collaboration between researchers and law enforcement personnel. Research and development units are rare within North American law enforcement organizations. This article outlines areas of eyewitness memory and identification in which both academic research and law enforcement procedure and training would benefit from collaborative relationships. We outline some of the more central findings of the scientific study of memory applied to eyewitnesses. Both application of this knowledge and sharpening of the questions needing further study would benefit from collaborative activities.
Malpass, R. S. (in press). A policy evaluation of simultaneous and sequential lineups. Psychology, Public Policy & Law.
Eyewitness identification policy is being rewritten in a number of states and communities. Some jurisdictions in which lineup reforms are being implemented exclude simultaneous lineups altogether while others allow them if double-blind administration of sequential lineups is not possible. The Innocence Project advocates the latter and puts forward blind sequential lineup administration as the best form of lineup identification. While sequential lineups are claimed to be superior no explicit policy analysis has been done. The present study employs a policy analysis model based on decision theory to examine the policy utility of simultaneous and sequential lineups, as well as to examine a range of values placed on identification outcomes and their probabilities. Simultaneous lineups are shown to be superior to sequential lineups under most conditions examined in this analysis.