Tipping the Scales: How Defendant Body Type May Result in Eyewitness Biases

Abstract

Body type is often overlooked as a basis for discrimination and has rarely been examined in legal contexts. The present research examined the role of body type on eyewitness line-up misidentification. Participants watched a video of a violent crime or theft and were asked to select the defendant out of a suspect-absent line-up. The lineup included digitally altered photos displaying muscular, normal weight, and overweight defendants. Muscular defendants were most likely to be mistakenly selected out of the simultaneous line-up, and overweight defendants were least likely to be selected. These results indicate that body type may be a biasing factor in comparative eyewitness evaluations.