Accent and Ethnic Backgrounds Influencing Court. Perceptions as Eyewitnesses - Essay Example

? Accent and Ethnic Background: Factor influencing Court Perceptions as Eyewitnesses Accent and Ethnic Background: The U.S Civil Rights Act, Title VII provides basis upon which any employee should not be discriminated against based on color because of personal or client preference. Similarly, the title provides that a person may not be disqualified from a job vacancy based on linguistic characteristics that are profoundly linked to ethnic background or nationality. Quite contrary, an employer can exercise discriminatory procedures if a country’s judiciary mechanism appreciates in theory the relationship between language and identity. This research material seeks to establish the relationship between two factors, accent, and ethnic background and their general perceived effect on making eyewitness strong convincing case during court proceedings during criminal trials. This research study was conducted using 120 participants randomly assigned to conditions. Six avatar variations were developed and videotaped. During the study a considerable effort was made to vary the video recordings between the accent and ethnic orientations of the subjects. Credibility or favorability variable was used. Results indicate a strong relationship between the four study parameters and accent. The study further revealed that Ethnicity alone and accent treated separately do not have a significant effect on favorability of witnesses, but their combined effect is very significant to the Lebanese. Experimental analysis was done drawing from Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM). Other related studies by Frumkin (2007), Lev-Ari and Keyser (2010) were used to explain the observed results and to determine the relevance of applicability of the findings in legal judicial proceeding. Introduction Varying degrees exist on how we process information from the external environment and from other people. Usually a lot of information that we receive are from other people, (Soll, 1999; Yaniv 2004), and with this there is a tendency among people to evaluate the authenticity of the information received (Fergusson & Zayas, 2009) which are influenced by varied factors including credibility of the information presented, how reasonable the information appears, and how much cognitive capacity is presented. (Lev-Ari and Keyser, 2010)’ There is a consensus among research studies that non-native speakers have a language accent that differs to varying extent to the original speakers and this has caused the non native speakers to appear as persons of low credibility perhaps attributed to two main reasons; (1) the accent sets a signal and (2) it makes it harder for speech processing. In most situations the native speakers are quick to recognize the non-native speakers on how they pronounce words and this subsequently develops into some sort of prejudice that severely affect the credibility of the speaker. (Le-Ari and Keyser, 2010) One factor influencing the court proceedings is the language used in the presentation of eyewitness accounts of events especially if used by a non-native speaker of that language, Federal Register (1988) describes this language as a ‘powerless language’ this would include answering questions in unsure way or using a different accent in the pronunciation of words. Documentary in the Federal Register (1988) suggests that witnesses who use this type of language is considered less intelligent, lowly competent, and less believable if compared with their English counterparts who are generally regarded as more competent and truthful when they use the standard English accent. Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM; Petty & Cacioppo, 1981) as an attitude model is believed to provide a framework for the organization, categorization, and understanding of the basic processes and principles that tend to underline effectiveness of persuasive communication. Of significance, the theory attempts to define one concept in the face of many conflicting research studies on the subject. After several studies, Petty & Cacioppo (1981) sum up two distinct persuasion routes, the first type characteristically stems from an individual’s careful consideration of true merits of the presented information to support an advocacy, the other persuasion type results from using six different messages that are seemingly irrelevant to the cues in an attempt to prompt quick response with insignificant attitudinal shift. The former persuasion type commonly referred to as the ‘Central route’ seems more significant and enduring than the latter ‘Peripheral route’ (Petty & Cacioppo, 1981). The central route entails message elaboration and used for idea scrutiny, determines merits of such messages and their consequences, and is quite contrary the peripheral route as it offers a quick no or yes decision using the six cues. Thurston (1982) defines attitude as ‘general evaluations people hold in regard to themselves, other people, objects, and issues.’ These evaluations are founded on behavioral, affective, and largely cognitive experiences that are capable of influencing our personality and our perception about others. More specifically, of all the postulates presented by the ELM model, the effect of persuasion on information processing is most significant. ELM model hypothesizes variable affects information in an objective or biased manner. (Petty & Cacioppo, 1981). In the first instance of objective information processing, a treatment variable works to motivate subjects to see strengths or flaws in arguments or also inhibits subjects from doing so. In the biased approach to information processing, a treatment variable works to motivate or bring up arguments or specific thought in line reaction to a message or inhibits the thought. Perhaps it would be satisfactory stated that individuals do not consciously respond negatively to non-native speakers, yet in almost all research studies on this subject there is a consistent trend that listeners do not think quite well of their counterparts who speak in foreign non-native language. Notably there is a strong relationship through peripheral processing as postulated by ELM that lead to the developing perceptions on non-native speakers as non-credible and competent individuals. (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) Frumkin (2007) in her research findings puts up a concrete relationship that draws on perceptions of non-native accents and ethnic background and how they are perceived as eyewitnesses in court cases. Frumkin builds upon numerous research studies that have been conducted on the subject matter, her unique focus for her particular study wanted to identify if ethnic background and accent, or perhaps lack of thereof, is comparably tied into ratings of favorability as eyewitnesses. The study further wanted to expose the relationship between eyewitness accent and/or ethnic background and case disposition. In an effort to do this, Frumkin postulated several hypotheses in an attempt to prove her findings; the study sampled 193 participants for this particular study with each of the participants viewing one of the already prepared six video tapes. The primary dependant variables used in her study were: (a) credibility of the eyewitness, (b) accuracy of the participants in believing the eyewitness reports, (b) level of deception of the eyewitness and (d) how prestigious the participant believes in the eyewitness with case deception variables being, (e) the degree to which the defendant is judged as guilty, (f) the type of punishment to be stated upon the defendant if found guilty. Using ELM model to help interpret the data, Frumkin exposes two important findings for this particular study; (a) the four variable parameters varied quite significantly with accent; (b) accent emanating from ethnic background was equally important for the variables and for rating on defendant guilt. Peterson (2005) defines Avatars as ‘online manifestations of self in a virtual world, and are designed to enhance the interaction in a virtual space,’ other studies by Deuchar & Nodder (2003) supports this concept of Avatars use as it enables the user ‘to take on a visible persona’ in the context of a virtual world providing them with the ‘opportunity to engage in surreal and imaginary experiences that transcend the actual world they live.’ (Deuchar & Nodder, 2003) The use of avatars in educational setting have been explained by Antonacci et al (2008) and therefore summarizes the important issues of Avatar use in educational learning in three fold areas; (a) It gives the user the ability in carrying out tasks that would otherwise been difficult to do given the ‘real world’ setting due to constraining issues of costs, research scheduling or accessibility to location, (b) it allows for continuing and promoting social interactions which serve as a basis used in collaborative education and the virtual worlds that can be fast replicated and adapted to the growing user needs. (Antonacci et al, 2008) This study aims to partially replicate and extend Frumkin (2007) studies using UK based sample while utilizing the avatar model. It purposes therefore to expose the influence of accent and ethnic background on favorability in eyewitnesses’ accounts in courts. During the study, it was hypothesized that accented individuals are regarded as less favorable, accented individuals are also judged less credible, low prestigious and that defendants most at times are victims of lower guilt ratings accompanied with light punishments. Method Participants 120 participants were engaged in this study. Each avatar participant viewed one of the available six videotapes. The participants were randomly selected for the study with a mean age of 34.51 years (ranging from 18-75) 50% female. (Appendix table 1a & b) Participants selected were of Lebanese origin, Mexican origin and German origin. Lebanese with no accent were 21; Lebanese accent 19; Accented Mexican 20; non-accent 20; German accent free 18 while those with accent of German origin were 18. The three ethnic backgrounds represented countries of high favorability, low favorability and neutral favorability. Procedure The participants were randomly selected and watched video and thereafter answered questions, with the order of watching the videos being systematically spread out to minimize external effects on the results until all the 6 videos were watched by all the participants with each participant provided with a priori information about the type of crime a defendant was under trial for and the jury instructions. Results Lebanese ethnic background when equal variations were assumed contributed a high standard error of 3.0719, and when was not assumed a standard error of 3.05555 was recorded. For the Mexican, the standard error was much lower at 2.68805 and was the same value when equal variance was assumed and when it was not assumed. At 95% level of confidence, ethnicity in Germans contributed a standard error difference of 2.64956 with equal variances with a negative mean difference. (Table 2a-c; independent sample tests) Ethnicity at 2 degrees of freedom contributed 38.269 to the total error while accent contributed 36.867 to the total error. The combined effect between ethnicity accents contributed a high value to the total error. Subsequently, Lebanese had a mean of 34.662 for ethnicity at 95% confidence interval. When interaction between accent and ethnicity was made Lebanese had the highest mean of 38.429 with the highest area with an upper boundary of 42.271 and a lower boundary of 34.586 at 95% confidence interval. (Table 3a-c) A graphical plot of against favorability depicted that marginal means of accent and ethnicity for German was wide but not as that of Lebanese which was the widest and Mexican had the least marginal mean difference between accent and ethnicity. (Figure 1) Discussions Ethnicity alone and accent treated separately do not have a significant effect on favorability of witnesses, but their combined effect is very significant to the Lebanese. This would mean that accent would not impair a judge’s decision and neither would ethnicity, but the two would affect favorability. Generally ethnicity is the major contributor of favorability; this is because it had the highest mean among the variables of study. This could be explained by the highest number of ethnic groups in the world and the different values that they hold. Lebanese seems to be affected more by ethnicity. The ethnic groups among the Lebanese are very different in nature, this could be responsible this result. Correlation accent of ethnicity for Lebanese are not closely related, this portrays the non reliability of favorability on either ethnicity or accent. To the Lebanese accent and reliability do not have an influence on favorability in the court room when treated separately. On the other hand, there is a close correlation between accent and ethnicity to the Mexican. Favorability is highly dependent on both accent and ethnicity on the Mexican side. Consequently, two main issues arise in this study; (a) the credibility of eyewitness statements varies significantly due to accent differentials, and (b) there seemed to be a large variation of accent on ethnic background for dependant variable of favorability. These findings are in consistent with several research findings on the same phenomena notably the Frumkin (2007) study. To sum up therefore both accent and ethnic background effects can be largely considered as peripheral route of the ELM model. With the foregoing discussions and findings, it would therefore worth noting that level of guilt of the defendant varied with the ethnic background while and not for punishment. Limitations While alluding to earlier studies by Frumkin (2007) this study could have been constrained by the little time given to the eyewitness in presenting the statements, and also the study did not take into account of changing times with more people and cultural limitations, and quite specific to this study, the use of avatars do not reflect a true picture of what might have happened in real situation in terms of getting the participant’s view on the subject matter or more information rather than just the scope of the current study. Future research The study in its totality provides room for more questions, most importantly is the use of a avatars in this study, could the results be more different? If the findings were to be used for other populations could they hold any water? If the participants had a chance to watch all the video with a homogenous participant population selected, could we still predict the findings? Conclusion Remarkably, the ELM model still provides a vital tool for explaining the perceptions of eyewitness recollection of events based on accent and ethnic backgrounds. Studies of this research is perhaps more significant to U.S judicial mechanisms that suffers from yearly influx of immigrants to enhance judicial equity and fairness in judgments. References Antonacci, D., DiBartolo, S., Edwards, N., Fritch, K., McMullen, B. & Murch-Shafer, R. (2008). The power of virtual worlds in education: a second life primer and resource for exploring the potential of virtual worlds to impact teaching and learning. Report from the ANGEL Learning Isle Steering Committee. Deuchar, S. & Nodder, C. (2003). The impact of avatars and 3D virtual world creation on learning. In the proceedings of the 16th Annual NACCQ Conference. Palmerston North. Federal Register (1988). Guideline on discrimination because of national origin. Vol. 45, Ferguson, M., & Zayas, V. (2009). Automatic evaluation. Current Directions in Psychological Science. Frumkin, Lara (2007) 'Influences of accent and ethnic background on perceptions of eyewitness testimony', Psychology, Crime & Law, Lev-Ari, S., & Keysar, B., Why don't we believe non-native speakers? The influence of accent on credibility, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2010), doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2010.05.025 No. 250, Part VI. Washington, DC: U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Rules, and Regulations. Peterson, M. (2005). Learning interaction in an avatar-based virtual environment: a preliminary study. PacCALL Journal, Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change .New York: Springer. Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T. (1986) The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol 19, pp. 123-205). New York: Academic Press. Soll, J. B. (1999). Intuitive theories of information: Beliefs about the value of redundancy. Cognitive Psychology Yaniv, I. (2004). The benefit of additional opinions. Current Directions in Psychological Science Appendix Table 1a: Showing the descriptive statistics for the participant sampling and mean age Table 1b: Showing participants gender analysis Table 2a-c: Showing Independent samples Test Ethnicity = Lebanese Ethnicity = Mexican Ethnicity = German Table 3a-c: Showing Favorability between accent and non-accent 1. Ethnicity Dependent Variable: Favourability Ethnicity Mean Std. Error 95% Confidence Interval Lower Bound Upper Bound Lebanese 34.662 1.407 31.874 37.449 Mexican 33.738 1.371 31.021 36.455 German 33.292 1.444 30.431 36.152 2. Accent Dependent Variable: Favourability Accent Mean Std. Error 95% Confidence Interval Lower Bound Upper Bound no accent 34.452 1.150 32.173 36.731 accent 33.342 1.148 31.067 35.617 3. Ethnicity * Accent Dependent Variable: Favourability Ethnicity Accent Mean Std. Error 95% Confidence Interval Lower Bound Upper Bound Lebanese no accent 38.429 1.940 34.586 42.271 accent 30.895 2.039 26.855 34.934 Mexican no accent 34.095 1.940 30.253 37.937 accent 33.381 1.940 29.539 37.223 German no accent 30.833 2.095 26.683 34.983 accent 35.750 1.987 31.813 39.687 Figure 1: Showing Estimated Marginal Means of Favorability Read More