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Videotaped Confessions: The Impact of Camera Point of View on Judgments of Coercion 1
Author(s) -
Lassiter G. Daniel,
Irvine Audrey A.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1986.tb01139.x
Subject(s) - suspect , confession (law) , attribution , psychology , interrogation , social psychology , coercion (linguistics) , focus (optics) , criminology , law , linguistics , philosophy , physics , optics , political science
Twenty‐four college students viewed one of three videotapes of a mock police interrogation that ended in a confession. In one videotape the camera was focused primarily on the “suspect”; in a second the camera was focused primarily on the “detective”; and in the third the camera was focused on the suspect and detective equally. Subjects in the suspect‐focus condition subsequently judged that the confession was elicited by means of a small degree of coercion; subjects in the equal‐focus condition judged that it was elicited by means of a moderate degree of coercion; and subjects in the detective‐focus condition judged that it was elicited by means of a large degree of coercion. It is argued that the effect of camera point of view on judgments of coercion is mediated by causal attributions. Consistent with this interpretation, camera point of view also had a significant effect on subjects' attributions for the suspect's behavior, with subjects in the suspect‐focus condition making the most dispositional attributions and subjects in the detective‐focus condition making the least dispositional attributions. Alternative explanations are considered and limitations of the present research are discussed. It is concluded that to the extent that interrogations are videotaped with the camera focused on the suspect, judges and/ or jurors may be biased to perceive a confession as voluntary.