Graduation Year

2017

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Psychology

Reader 1

Jennifer Ma

Reader 2

Jennifer Groscup

Rights Information

© 2017 Tara Hayes

Abstract

Pulling from past research on cross-race identifications, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of both mixed race participants and perpetrators on eyewitness accuracy and confidence levels. In the study, participants will be shown a randomly assigned photograph of an individual from one of three racial categories: Asian, Mixed (some part Asian), and non-Asian. They will then be asked to read a fictional convenience store robbery vignette and identify the perpetrator from a 9 person simultaneous photo lineup, rate their confidence, and answer a series of questions regarding the diversity of their neighborhood, past or present school or workplace, and friend group. There are no predicted main effects. However, there are three expected interactions: the first between participant race and perpetrator race, such that the perpetrator race will not influence the accuracy for Asian and non-Asian participants. The second proposed interaction is between exposure and race, such that high exposure will cause race to be irrelevant with regard to identification accuracy. The third expected interaction is between participant race and perpetrator race, such that perpetrator race will not influence the confidence levels for mixed race participants, but will influence the accuracy for Asian and non-Asian participants.

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This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

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