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An analysis of the psychology of the jury process would fit here or
could be saved for the “social” part of your course. The “Detecting Guilt” demonstration has many
interesting implications for discussing the decision-making process of real juries, judges, and
police. Section leaders should try to use current examples and events, if available. Local jury trials,
college disciplinary hearings, and police investigations can all be used to begin a discussion of the
judicial determination of guilt.
12. Free Association. In psychotherapy, free association, recall, and self-revelation all are contingent on
the patient’s trust of the therapist. Genuine free association, affective recall, and the ability to reveal
oneself indicate that the basic premise of “be on guard” in relation to others and in relation to
oneself has been loosened, has less potency as a maxim in living. This represents a momentous
advance in the individual’s life (an insight sought as a primary goal of Freudian analysis). (See
Singer, E. (1965). Key concepts in psychotherapy.)
13. An interesting variation to get at expectancy effects is to have half the judges be aware of the critical
words before the testing begins and half unaware and see if this condition influences their data and
conclusions.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
The following resources contain much to stimulate discussion of the psychological issues underlying
various types of legal evidence, police confessions, eyewitness accounts, lie-detector test, etc.
1. Zimbardo, P. (1971). The psychology of police confessions. In R. Perrucci & M. Pilisuk, The triple
revolution emerging. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
2. Barland, G.H., & Raskin, D.C. (1973). Detection of deception. In Electrodermal activity in psychological
research (pp. 417-477). New York: Academic Press.
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3. Examples of how psychologists have studied guilt in relation to subsequent compliance:
. Subjects who failed to win $20 for another person signed up down the hall to donate blood 100
percent of the time, as opposed to 57 percent of the nonguilty subjects.
. Subjects who thought they broke a stranger’s camera helped a lady who spilled groceries 55
percent of the time, as opposed to 15 percent of the nonguilty subjects.
. Subjects who knocked over a stack of dissertation references agreed to help on a conservation
campaign 80 percent of the time as opposed to 45 percent of the time for nonguilty subjects.
MATERIALS
. Data tally sheet of reactions to each of 30 stimulus words
. Expressive Behavior Encoding Guide and table for summarizing data for each of two subjects.
. Table of word association norms
. Reaction Time summary table
. Verdict slip
. Stopwatch, if you have one
. Letters in unmarked envelopes
. Materials in “crime room”: 3 matches; bloodstained envelope to “Miss Chris” with woman’s photo in it,
signed “All my love”; a metal pan.
INSTRUCTIONS TO GUILTY SUSPECT
You have just brutally murdered a woman who has been trying to blackmail you. She wanted you to buy a
compromising letter you wrote her. You refused to pay and, during a violent argument as you tried to get
away with the letter, you hit her over the head with a bat. The red blood spurting from her crushed skull
covered the envelope. Rushing out in fear, you took the letter and threw the blood-streaked envelope into the
trash basket.
Nevertheless, at this moment, you realize your fingerprints are on the envelope, and you feel there might be
something else inside the letter that might be damaging evidence against you.
You must destroy that evidence or be discovered. You did not really want to kill her, but you did; and now
you do not want to spend the rest of your life in jail or be executed. No one must know you are guilty.
Now (really) go to___________________ where you will find the trash basket. In it will be the envelope
addressed to Miss Chris and something inside it. After examining the contents of the envelope, burn
everything on the spot except this letter. Light the Miss Chris envelope and its contents with one of the three
matches available, allowing them to burn in the pan on the floor. Be sure they have burned to ashes.
Put this letter out of sight, quickly return to the classroom, knock on the door to indicate you are back, but
wait outside for further instructions. Absolutely no one must know of anything you have done. You know
you are guilty, but now you must try to conceal your guilt or you will be in serious trouble. Try to act
natural. It is important that you get into this role, to feel like a person who has committed this crime. Also
remember you do not want to be found guilty—your life depends on concealing your guilt.
INSTRUCTIONS TO INNOCENT STUDENT
You are to imagine you are very thirsty, so thirsty that you would even buy some water if you had to. Find a
water fountain on the third or fourth floor and take some long gulps of water. You are so thirsty that even if
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a bat flew overhead you would not stop. Your hands are somewhat dirty and you notice you have left some
fingerprints on the water fountain; you erase these fingerprints with a handkerchief or this letter.
You don’t want to miss the next part of the demonstration, so wait about five minutes from the time you left
the classroom, put this letter out of sight, return, knock on the door to indicate you are back, but wait for
further instructions. Do not talk to anyone or tell anyone about how you spent this time. No one must know
what you did!