Victims' Race and Sex Leads to Eyewitness Misidentification of Perpetrator's Phenotypic Stereotypicality. (August 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Davies, Paul G.; Hutchinson, Shirley; Osborne, Danny; Eberhardt, Jennifer L.
• Is Part Of: Social psychological & personality science. Volume 7:Number 6(2016:Oct.)
• Page Start: 491
• Page End: 499
• Publication Date: 2016-08
• Subjects: eyewitness identification -- eyewitness memory -- perceived stereotypicality -- stereotypes -- discrimination; Personality -- Periodicals; Social psychology -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 155.2
• DOI: 10.1177/1948550616644655
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1948-5506

Abstract

Eyewitness misidentification is the primary cause of wrongful convictions in North America. Discovering a discernible pattern to these errors is a critical step toward creating procedures that reduce the occurrence of these tragic mistakes. To these ends, we hypothesized that both the victims' race and the victims' sex may impact eyewitness identification for perpetrators of certain crime types. In two experiments, we demonstrated that a Black male drive-by shooter's level of phenotypic stereotypicality is accurately identified by eyewitnesses only when the victims are Black males. Specifically, when eyewitnesses believe the victims are White or female, the drive-by shooter's level of Black phenotypic stereotypicality is falsely elevated. In contrast, when a Black male perpetrator is suspected of committing a stereotypically non-Black crime (i.e., serial killing), the perpetrator's level of phenotypic stereotypicality is accurately identified regardless of the victims' race or sex.