Smalarz Laura, Madon Stephanie, Yang Yueran, Guyll Max, Buck Sarah
Department of Psychology, Williams College.
Department of Psychology, Iowa State University.
Law Hum Behav. 2016 Aug;40(4):420-9. doi: 10.1037/lhb0000190. Epub 2016 May 5.
This research provided the first empirical test of the hypothesis that stereotypes bias evaluations of forensic evidence. A pilot study (N = 107) assessed the content and consensus of 20 criminal stereotypes by identifying perpetrator characteristics (e.g., sex, race, age, religion) that are stereotypically associated with specific crimes. In the main experiment (N = 225), participants read a mock police incident report involving either a stereotyped crime (child molestation) or a nonstereotyped crime (identity theft) and judged whether a suspect's fingerprint matched a fingerprint recovered at the crime scene. Accompanying the suspect's fingerprint was personal information about the suspect of the type that is routinely available to fingerprint analysts (e.g., race, sex) and which could activate a stereotype. Participants most often perceived the fingerprints to match when the suspect fit the criminal stereotype, even though the prints did not actually match. Moreover, participants appeared to be unaware of the extent to which a criminal stereotype had biased their evaluations. These findings demonstrate that criminal stereotypes are a potential source of bias in forensic evidence analysis and suggest that suspects who fit criminal stereotypes may be disadvantaged over the course of the criminal justice process. (PsycINFO Database Record
本研究首次对刻板印象会使法医证据评估产生偏差这一假设进行了实证检验。一项先导研究（N = 107）通过识别与特定犯罪刻板地相关的犯罪者特征（如性别、种族、年龄、宗教），评估了20种犯罪刻板印象的内容和一致性。在主要实验（N = 225）中，参与者阅读了一份模拟警察事件报告，该报告涉及一种刻板印象犯罪（儿童性骚扰）或一种非刻板印象犯罪（身份盗窃），并判断嫌疑人的指纹是否与在犯罪现场找到的指纹相匹配。与嫌疑人指纹一起的是指纹分析师通常可以获得的有关嫌疑人的个人信息（如种族、性别），这些信息可能会激活一种刻板印象。即使指纹实际上并不匹配，但当嫌疑人符合犯罪刻板印象时，参与者最常认为指纹匹配。此外，参与者似乎并未意识到犯罪刻板印象在多大程度上使他们的评估产生了偏差。这些发现表明，犯罪刻板印象是法医证据分析中偏差的一个潜在来源，并表明符合犯罪刻板印象的嫌疑人在刑事司法过程中可能处于不利地位。（PsycINFO数据库记录）
