Examining the consequences of dehumanization and adultification in justification of police use of force against Black girls and boys.

OBJECTIVE: Given the greater contact that Black youth have with the legal system compared with White youth, it is important to consider the differential ways that police use of force against these youth is perceived. Black youth may be at greater risk than White youth for animalistic (being seen as animal-like) and mechanistic (being seen as object-like) dehumanization, which, along with a tendency for Black youth to be perceived as older (adultification), may impact observers' perceptions of police use of force toward Black youth. This study examined whether dehumanization and adultification were associated with the perceptions of force used and harm caused by police. HYPOTHESES: We made five hypotheses. First, participants would dehumanize Black individuals more than White individuals, more mechanistically dehumanize Black women than Black men, and more animalistically dehumanize Black men than Black women. Second, dehumanization would be positively associated with adultification. Third, force would be rated as less appropriate and more excessive for White than for Black targets, particularly for males. Fourth, dehumanization, particularly animalistic dehumanization, would be associated with higher participant ratings of force justification and lower participant ratings of force severity and excessiveness. Fifth, participants would perceive girls as more harmed than boys and White individuals as more harmed than Black individuals. METHOD: After completing an implicit dehumanization measure, participants viewed an image (varied on age and gender) of a juvenile, estimated the juvenile's age, and read a vignette in which the juvenile had an altercation with police. Participants rated the amount, severity, and justification of the force used by the officer as well as the physical and emotional harm caused to the juvenile. RESULTS: We found that Black targets were dehumanized more than White targets. Adultification, unrelated to implicit dehumanization, predicted perceiving police use of force against juveniles as more justified and less severe. Black girls were most likely to experience adultification; participants generally perceived them as less victimized than Black boys and White girls. CONCLUSIONS: Adultification is associated with fewer protections for youth. Those with particular intersectional identities, such as Black girls, may be uniquely vulnerable to harm caused by police victimization. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Reflecting the Times? Reexamining the Effect of Alcohol Intoxication on Perceptions of Campus Sexual Assault.

We examined the effects of victim and perpetrator alcohol intoxication on perceptions of campus sexual assault. Participants (N = 276) read a campus assault vignette; both perpetrator and victim intoxication levels were manipulated. Participants reported attitudes toward both parties and perceptions of responsibility, blame, and criminal and civil liability. Contrary to some past research, participants blamed victims less-and more strongly considered the incident rape or sexual assault-when victims were highly intoxicated. Perceptions were most punitive toward sober perpetrators with highly intoxicated victims. Results suggest possible shifts in perceptions of consent, further discussed in the context of historical and population factors.

Testing the waters: An investigation of the impact of hot tubbing on experts from referral through testimony.

OBJECTIVE: The present research examined whether concurrent expert testimony ("hot tubbing") and court-appointed testimony reduced adversarial allegiance in clinical experts' judgments compared with traditional adversarial expert testimony. HYPOTHESES: We predicted Hypothesis 1: Defense experts would render more not responsible judgments and lower ratings of criminal responsibility than would prosecution experts; Hypothesis 2: Adversarial allegiance effects on experts' judgments would be heightened for adversarial experts and attenuated for concurrent experts over time; Hypothesis 3: Adversarial and concurrent experts would report higher dissonance than would court-appointed experts and adversarial experts' ratings would increase over time, concurrent experts' ratings would decrease, and court-appointed experts' ratings would remain unchanged. METHOD: Clinicians and advanced clinical doctoral students conducted simulated criminal responsibility evaluations for the prosecution, defense, or court. We categorized participants as favoring the prosecution or defense based on their preexisting attitudes and randomly assigned them to the adversarial, concurrent, or court-appointed expert testimony conditions. Participants completed a dichotomous responsibility judgment, strength of responsibility ratings, and cognitive dissonance measure after initial evidence review (n = 93), report completion (n = 52), and testimony (n = 48). Concurrent experts generated a joint report outlining areas of agreement and disagreement before providing testimony. RESULTS: Concurrent testimony did not eliminate adversarial allegiance. Adversarial and concurrent experts' perceptions of responsibility did not significantly differ (d = .04, 95% CI [-.64, .71]) or change over time (ηp2 = .03); however, prosecution experts-across testimony types-rated the defendant as significantly more responsible than did defense experts (d = 1.87, 95% CI [1.06, 2.67]). Concurrent and adversarial experts did not differ in their reports and minimally differed in testimony content. CONCLUSIONS: Experts who initially favored the prosecution or defense showed adversarial allegiance regardless of expert testimony method, and we observed no attenuation of this bias over the course of their case involvement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Inside interrogation: the lie, the bluff, and false confessions.

Using a less deceptive variant of the false evidence ploy, interrogators often use the bluff tactic, whereby they pretend to have evidence to be tested without further claiming that it necessarily implicates the suspect. Three experiments were conducted to assess the impact of the bluff on confession rates. Using the Kassin and Kiechel (Psychol Sci 7:125-128, 1996) computer crash paradigm, Experiment 1 indicated that bluffing increases false confessions comparable to the effect produced by the presentation of false evidence. Experiment 2 replicated the bluff effect and provided self-reports indicating that innocent participants saw the bluff as a promise of future exoneration which, paradoxically, made it easier to confess. Using a variant of the Russano et al. (Psychol Sci 16:481-486, 2005) cheating paradigm, Experiment 3 replicated the bluff effect on innocent suspects once again, though a ceiling effect was obtained in the guilty condition. Results suggest that the phenomenology of innocence can lead innocents to confess even in response to relatively benign interrogation tactics.