Although the phrase “they all look alike to me” is widely known and used as a joke
(Goldstein & Chance, 1985) the implications that the phrase yields may not be as widely
understood as they should be. In the criminal justice system, eyewitness identifications can play a
major role in the decisions made by jurors even though it has been shown that jurors have little
awareness of factors that affect the reliability of eyewitness accounts (Cutler, Penrod, & Dexter,
1990). One such factor is identifications made by people identifying someone of a different race,
(when describing race as Caucasian, of African descent, of Asian descent, or Latino),
which can be referred to as other-race identification or other-race recognition (Lavrakas, Buri, &
Mayzner, 1976). If the phrase “they all look alike to me”, which states that people of another
group appear homogenous, is true for most people then it is possible that other-race
identifications should be considered less reliable than within-race identifications. It has in fact
been shown that people are more accurate at identifying others of their own race than at
identifying others of a different race (Penrod, Shapiro 1986). Since it has been
established that the other-race recognition is not always as accurate as within-race recognition,
finding the cause for this effect is important. One possible cause is the quantity of experience a
person has with another race. People are less accurate at identifying faces of a different racial
group than at identifying faces of their own racial group because they have less experience with
the other race. We would expect that as the amount of experience a person has with a different
racial group decreases the less accurate they will be at identifying faces of that race. It would also
be expected that if you raise someone’s level of experience with a different racial group, possibly
through training, the ability to identify faces in that racial group should increase.
The amount of experience a person has with another racial group should determine how
accurate they will be at identifying people of that race. Those who report having large amounts
of contact with another race should show better accuracy in identifying people of that race than
those reporting small amounts of contact with the other race. In a study done by John ...
... middle of paper ...
...vents the drawing of a firm conclusion.
REFERENCES
Brigham, John C., & Malpass Roy S., (1985) The role of Experience and Contact in the Recognition of Faces Of Own- and Other-Race Persons. Journal of Social Issues, 41, 139-155.
Lavrackas, Paul J., Buri John R., & Mayzner Mark S., (1976) A Perspective on the Recognition of Other-Race Faces. Perception & Psychophysics, 20, 475-481.
Shepherd, John, Deregowski, Jan B., & Ellis, Hadyn D., (1974) A Cross-Cultural Study of Recognition Memory For Faces. International Journal of Psychology, 9, 205-211.
Goldstein, Alvin G., & Chance, June, (1985) Effects of Training on Japanese Face Recognition: Reduction of the Other-Race Effect. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 23, 211-214.
Anthony, Tara, Copper, Carolyn, & Mullen, Brian, (1992) Cross-Racial Facial Identification: A Social Cognitive Integration. PSPB, 18, 296-301.
Shapiro, Peter N., Penrod, Steven D., (1986) Meta-Analysis of Facial Identification Studies. Psychological Bulletin, 100, 139-156.
Cutler, B. L., Penrod, Steven D., (1990) Juror Sensitivity to to Eyewitness Identification Evidence. Law and Human Behavior, 14, 185-192.
This paper will consider eye witness testimony and its place in convicting accused criminals. Psychology online (2013) defines “eye witness testimony” as a statement from a person who has witnessed a crime, and is capable of communicating what they have seen, to a court of law under oath. Eye witness testimonies are used to convict accused criminals due to the first hand nature of the eye witnesses’ observations. There are however many faults within this system of identification. Characteristics of the crime is the first issue that will be discussed in this paper, and the flaws that have been identified. The second issue to be discussed will be the stress impact and the inability to correctly identify the accused in a violent or weapon focused crime. The third issue to be discussed is inter racial identification and the problems faced when this becomes a prominent issue. The fourth issue will be time lapse, meaning, the time between the crime and the eye witness making a statement and how the memory can be misconstrued in this time frame. To follow this will be the issue of how much trust jurors-who have no legal training-put on to the eye witness testimony, which may be faltered. This paper references the works of primarily Wells and Olsen (2003) and Rodin (1987) and Schmechel et al. (2006) it will be argued that eye witness testimony is not always accurate, due to many features; inter racial identification, characteristics of the crime, response latency, and line up procedures therefore this paper will confirm that eyewitness testimonies should not be utilised in the criminal ju...
In America, essentially everyone is classified in terms of race in a way. We are all familiar with terms such as Caucasian, African-American, Asian, etc. Most Americans think of these terms as biological or natural classifications; meaning that all people of a certain race share similarities on their D.N.A. that are different and sets that particular race apart from all the other races. However, recent genetic studies show that there’s no scientific basis for the socially popular idea that race is a valid taxonomy of human biological difference. This means that humans are not divided into different groups through genetics or nature. Contrary to scientific studies, social beliefs are reflected through racial realism. Racial realists believe that being of a particular race does not only have phenotypical values (i.e. skin color, facial features, etc.), but also broadens its effects to moral, intellectual and spiritual characteristics.
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Why is it impossible to use biological characteristics to sort people into consistent races? Review some of the concepts such as “non-concordance” and “within-group vs. between group variation.”
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