RT Article
T1 The use of alternative scenarios in assessing the reliability of victims’ statements
JF Psychology, crime & law
VO 31
IS 3
SP 291
OP 308
A1 Arbiyah, Nurul
A1 Otgaar, Henry
A1 Sauerland, Melanie
A1 Rassin, Eric
A1 Maegherman, Enide
A1 Merckelbach, Harald 1959-
A2 Otgaar, Henry
A2 Sauerland, Melanie
A2 Rassin, Eric
A2 Maegherman, Enide
A2 Merckelbach, Harald 1959-
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1921375698
AB The use of alternative scenarios has been advocated as a method to mitigate bias when evaluating the reliability of testimonies. In two experiments, undergraduate students acted as expert witnesses when reading an alleged child sexual abuse case file and evaluated the reliability of the statements. In the first experiment, a subgroup of participants were encouraged to think about alternative scenarios (i.e. the statements are fabricated) when evaluating statements (N = 150). Contrary to our expectations, these participants were not more skeptical about the reliability of the alleged victim’s testimony than the control participants. In the second experiment (N = 205), we tested whether scenario-thinking protected against context effects (i.e. the unintended influence of irrelevant information) from a defense lawyer or prosecutor. We found no support that being sensitized to alternative scenarios made participants more skeptical of the reliability of testimonies. However, when we performed an internal joint analysis of Experiments 1 and 2, we did find some evidence that considering alternative scenarios made participants more skeptical of the suspect’s guilt than those in the control group. We discuss the use of alternative scenarios in expert witness work and potential ways to empirically test the alternative scenario approach in the future.
K1 legal decision making
K1 Child Sexual Abuse
K1 expert witness
K1 allegiance bias
K1 Alternative scenario
DO 10.1080/1068316X.2023.2236274