Validating The Accents of Dixon Et Al (2002): Research on Guilt

Evaluate the validity of Dixon et al (2002) Accents on Guilt? (15 marks)

The research by Dixon et al (2002) presents low external validity as the results from the study cannot be generalised across populations, time and settings as seen as the ecological validity is low as the results as the findings of the research cannot be generalised to real life settings. The ecological validity is low as the study uses a mock jury to decide whether the suspect was guilty or not and further controls extraneous variables as it is a controlled condition, however in the real world it isn’t possible to control these variables. However as the ppts were able to deliberate in groups rather than make decisions alone this is true to life with juries, so therefore increased the ecological validity. But, it would have had higher ecological validity if they observed real life juries and draw conclusions about the study however, this still wouldn’t make it true to life as their decision has no real life consequences and therefore they do not have the seriousness of the situation. Also due to the external validity being low the attributions of guilt are generally made in a fort richer evidential context than the study provided so it is likely that the strength of evidence will moderate any effect of accent on legal decision making.

The population validity was also low as the sample included all white undergraduate psychology students, with a mean age of 25.2, and 24 were male and 95 female. Although this sample is large it is not representative to the UK, with their being almost 4 times the amount of women as men and further they were all students so only represent the population of students and further being so young, the chance of already being on jury service will be low and therefore not experienced this before. Furthermore as they excluded people from Birmingham it is unrealistic as you would tend to be in court in your county for example a Brummie convict would be trailed at Birmingham County, Crown or Magistrate court by typically a Brummie jury, so therefore the accent would not be considered if they sounded a like, however might be important if you were being tested in a different area i.e. London. Alongside this one of the IVs was the colour of the suspect, and since all ppts were white it is more likely that they would convict the black man on chance more than the white man as this links to Pfeifer and Ogloff (1991) which showed that white students rated black defendants more likely to be guilty than white defendants as many studies indicated racial bias in juries, such as the O J Simpson trial showing white people believed he was guilty due to the weight of evidence against him, compared to the black jury who interpreted the evidence in terms of police misconduct. So therefore we should have a jury equal in gender size and from the area the suspect was from, also the jury should represent the ratio of white- black in the area the court is, so the sample would be representative.

However although both the ecological and population validity are low, as seen previously the concurrent validity is high as the study relates to previous studies and can be compared and show the same results as other psychologists. As out the 3 IVs colour and accent has already been tested and further when the ppts completed the rating scales it included attractiveness which had also been previously tested. As alongside Seggie (1983) it is evident that accent can both influence responses depending on the type of crime as well as how guilty the jury finds the individual. Arguably Dixon et al (2002) not only uses accent, but also contributes to research by Stewart (1985) on whether the attractiveness can influence juries by using the SEI rating scales and presented how the attractiveness significantly predicted guilt. Although, this study may present to have problems with external validity as it uses a mock jury which fails to represent real juries as it uses all students of white backgrounds and a fake trial so isn’t taken as seriously, it suggests that possible further studies can be done as it questions whether some accents are guiltier than others and should be studied in a real life setting. However compared to Stewart (1985) who investigated the impact of appearance on jury decision, who made observations of real trials in the public library found that the less the attractive the more severe the punishment. Dixon supports this and further shows that both mock and real trials (observation) present the same outcomes, and that this can improve the court system to reduce bias and ensure all on jury duty make a final judgement of guilty/ not guilty down to the facts rather than the individuals characteristics. Dixon as from the evidence can compare his results and has improved previous research as this supports a number of studies so there is a direct correlation as it has been supported.

Furthermore there is high face validity as the study appears to test what it aims to test, as it wanted to see whether Brummie- accented suspect would produce stronger attributions of guilt than a standard accented suspect, also to test whether race and type of crime would influence this effect and this is exactly what they found. The results collected found that ppts with a Brummie accent were rated higher on guilt than the suspect with a standard accent and that the highest guilt rating was given in the Brummie, black suspect and blue colour crime condition. This face validity also shows there is high validity as although there are 3 variables the IVs has affected the DV, so accent, race and crime affects the attributions of guilt.

Overall it is evident that Dixon et al has high internal validity compared to low external validity so therefore although the study found what it wanted to find and there was a correlation between the IV and DV, this is not generalizable and therefore if redone in a different areas with different aged ppts from a variety of different professions the population validity could be higher and if the jury could take part in a real life case by sitting in the public gallery and making their own decision they could increase the ecological validity, making this a highly valid study.