Module A
Social Psychology in Action:
Applications to Law and Health
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Applications to Law and Health
• Social Psychology and the Legal System
• Social Psychology and Personal Health
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Social Psychology and the Legal System
• Before the Trial Begins: Effects of Police
Interrogation
– What is the best way to interrogate suspects?
• Most people prefer an inquisitorial approach versus an
adversarial approach
• Videotaped interrogations should show both the interrogator
and the defendant
– How do interrogators encourage compliance?
• Conduct formal interrogation in intimidating location
• Get witness or suspect to experience uncertainty, trust in the
officer, and expect that he or she is supposed to know the
answer to every question
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Social Psychology and the Legal System
– Additional aspects that involve social influence
• Minimize severity of the crime and the charge
– Suspect may confess after being given a false sense of
security
• Present suspects with fake polygraph results and
fingerprint data, inaccurate eyewitness identifications,
and false information about the confession of a fellowsuspect
– False evidence and uncertainty about what to do, people’s
belief in their own false confessions, and the remembrance of
imaginary details about a crime they did not commit increase
the likelihood of false confessions.
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Social Psychology and the Legal System
• Effects of Media Coverage on Perceptions of
Defendants
– Tends to assist the prosecution and hurt the defense
• The negative information people receive leads to a strong
tendency to perceive that the suspect is guilty.
• Typically, more publicity is related to a greater likelihood
that the jurors will convict the defendant.
– Government officials provide the media with much information
about the crime and suspects.
– Biasing effects of pretrial publicity can be reduced when jurors
are given reasons to be suspicious of the motives behind why
incriminating evidence might have been given to the media.
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Social Psychology and the Legal System
• The Accuracy of Eyewitnesses
– Eyewitness Testimony—evidence given by
persons who have witnessed a crime plays an
important role in many trials
– Researchers have found that eyewitness testimony
is not very reliable.
• Identify innocent persons as criminals
• Make errors regarding important aspects of a crime
• Report “remembering” events that did not actually occur
– Suggestibility due to leading questions and source monitoring
can lead to memory distortions
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Social Psychology and the Legal System
– Other factors that decrease the accuracy of
eyewitness testimony
• Intense emotions
• Time and intervening information (e.g., misleading
post-event information)
• Memory distortion and memory construction
– False memories can be created and can influence jurors’
judgments of guilt or innocence.
» These memories are created by imagining the event and by
confabulating (making up information).
– Recovering forgotten memories of traumatic events
» Evidence for the accuracy of these memories is mixed.
» Some of these memories may have been constructed.
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Social Psychology and the Legal System
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Social Psychology and the Legal System
– Increasing eyewitness accuracy
• Conduct cognitive interviews in which eyewitnesses are
asked to report everything they can remember and to
describe events differently from what they report
actually occurred
• Improve police lineups by using the blank-lineup
control in which lineup contains only non-suspects
• Present pictures of the crime scene and of the victim
• Display the line-up one person at a time rather than as a
group
• Encourage witnesses to offer first impressions
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Social Psychology and the Legal System
• Effects of Attorneys, Judges, Defendants, and
Jurors
– Attorneys
• Battle to get desired outcome
– Voir Dire: attorneys examine potential jurors to determine who
will be helpful to them
• Ask leading questions to elicit specific responses
• Attorneys’ remarks when emotionally charged may be
impossible to disregard
– Mental contamination (judgments, emotions, or behavior are
influenced by mental processes that are not under one’s
control) occurs
– Forensic psychologists have contributed to changes in the legal
system to increase its fairness.
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Social Psychology and the Legal System
– Defendant and Juror Characteristics
• Defendant’s race (ethnicity)
– African American defendants are at a disadvantage in the
legal system.
» More likely to be convicted of murder and to receive the
death penalty than are whites
• Defendant’s physical appearance, gender, and
socioeconomic status
– Attractive defendants, female defendants, and those of higher
socioeconomic status are less likely to be found guilty of
most major crimes
• Defendant’s behavior in the courtroom
– Defendants who smile are more likely to receive leniency.
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Social Psychology and the Legal System
• Juror’s gender
– Women are more likely than men are to convict in sexual
assault cases
• Jurors differ in terms of the attitudes and beliefs they
hold
– Some have a leniency bias and others believe in legal
authoritarianism
• Jurors differ in how they process information
– Some have already arrived at a decision before the trial begins
and seek evidence that confirms their initial opinion.
– Others construct two schemas: one for the guilt and one for
the innocence of the defendant.
» These jurors fit information they hear into the relevant
schema and listen to all available evidence.
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Social Psychology and the Legal System
• What are your thoughts?
– What roles do the media play in the processes of the
legal system?
• Does media coverage result in increasing or decreasing
the fairness of the system?
– Why?
– Can the accuracy of eyewitness testimony be
improved?
• Why or why not?
– To succeed in having a legal system that imprisons the
correct person for a given crime, what are the most
serious obstacles interfering with the achievement of
this goal?
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Social Psychology and Personal Health
• Health Psychology—branch of psychology
that studies the relation between
psychological variables and health
– Research suggests that there is a strong
relationship between people’s lifestyles and their
health.
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Social Psychology and Personal Health
• Stress: Its Causes, Effects, and Control
– Stress—response to events that disrupt, or threaten
to disrupt, our physical or psychological
functioning
• Major sources of stress
– Major stressful life events
» Holmes and Rahe (1967) found that accumulated stress is
related to health problems.
» Recent research discovered that people experiencing chronic
stress were more likely to get a cold than those experiencing
acute stress.
– Daily Hassles
» Scores on the Hassles Scale (Lazarus, et al., 1985) are
positively correlated with negative psychological symptoms.
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Social Psychology and Personal Health
• Stress’ effects on the body
– Direct effects—stress affects physiological functioning
» Ethnic differences exist: African Americans are more
prone to stress-induced heart disease than are European
Americans.
– Indirect effects—stress negatively affects health-related
behaviors
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Social Psychology and Personal Health
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Social Psychology and Personal Health
• Coping with stress
– Emotion-focused coping
» Perform behaviors that decrease the negative emotions
that result from stress, which may not be an effective
long-term strategy
» Positive reappraisal or positive self-talk tend to be more
helpful.
– Problem-focused coping
» Perform behaviors that change or remove the sources of
stress
– Seeking social support
» Utilizing others’ resources, both emotional and taskrelated, to cope with stress is a highly beneficial strategy
to protect one’s health from the damages due to stress.
» Pets can provide nonjudgmental social support, which
makes their owners better able to deal with stress.
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Social Psychology and Personal Health
– Seeking social support
» People who lack social support face an increased risk of dying
from diseases, accidents, and suicide.
» Happily married people tend to have higher-functioning
immune systems compared to people who are divorced or
separated.
» Providing social support provides similar (or perhaps greater)
health benefits as receiving social support does.
– Gender differences in coping styles
» Women typically use a greater variety of coping mechanisms
than men do, including both emotion-focused and problemfocused strategies.
» Men are more likely to cope by avoiding or withdrawing from
their problems compared to women.
» Differences may be due to gender role differences or due to
women perceiving stressors as more serious compared to men.
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Social Psychology and Personal Health
• Personal Characteristics and Health
– Anger and hostility
• Type A behavior pattern
– High levels of hostility in individuals with this personality
pattern is positively associated with heart disease.
– Perfectionism
• Two patterns exist
– Personal standards perfectionism and Self-Critical
Perfectionism—individuals constantly engage in harsh
criticism of their own behavior, an inability to derive
satisfaction from successful performance, and chronic
concerns about other’s expectations and criticism
– Both patterns are harmful to health, but self-critical
perfectionism is more damaging.
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Social Psychology and Personal Health
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Social Psychology and Personal Health
• Personal Characteristics and Health
– Socioeconomic status
• Higher socioeconomic status is related to better health.
– Due to greater availability of nutritious foods, better living
environment, higher-quality health care
– Also, socioeconomic status is positively correlated with general
intelligence, which may result in better knowledge and strategies
about how to stay healthy.
» However, both general intelligence and health knowledge
can be increased, regardless of one’s socioeconomic status,
by altering environmental conditions.
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Social Psychology and Personal
Health
• Promoting Healthy Lifestyles
– Both genetic and environmental factors
influence longevity.
• People whose parents live a long life are more likely
to do so
• Positive self-perceptions of aging and a healthy
lifestyle are associated with living longer.
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Social Psychology and Personal Health
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Social Psychology and Personal Health
• Promoting Healthy Lifestyles
– Social-psychological perspective on the increase in
obesity (about 65% of U.S. adults are obese)
• Environmental factors responsible include:
– Dramatic increase in portion size of food, people walk less than
they did, media campaigns, people do not eat sensibly (no more
sit-down dinners), overweight people are more accepted
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Social Psychology and Personal Health
• Promoting Healthy Lifestyles
– Tactics
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Eat only low-calorie snack foods
Eat only when hungry
Avoid temptation
Increase walking
Drink water instead of soft-drinks
Lower stress levels
Avoid fad dieting (eat less and exercise more)
Stick with it (weight management involves a life-long
commitment)
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Social Psychology and Personal Health
• What are your thoughts?
– Which sources of stress cause you the most
difficulty?
• What are some strategies that would reduce the effects
of these stressors?
– Why does being a happy person decrease the
chances of developing a cold?
• How does being happy and relaxed and having a large
support group buffer the effects of stress?
– What are ways to change the unhealthy lifestyles
of millions of people in the U.S.?
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon