Who is lying, who is not: An attributional analysis of the effects of nonverbal behavior on judgements of defendant believability

Abstract

AbstractThe effects of a defendant's nonverbal behavior and severity of crime on judgements of the defendant's believability were investigated in the present study. Subjects, 131 undergraduates acting as jurors, were exposed to testimony in which the defendant claimed innocence regarding his participation in either a major or a minor crime. In one condition, the defendant displayed nonverbal cues associated with deception, while in another his behavior was made to appear less deceptive. In a third condition, subjects merely read a transcript of the defendant's testimony. As predicted from an attributional theoretical approach, the defendant's nonverbal behavior had a significant effect upon subjects' ratings of the defendant's believability under conditions of a minor crime, but did not influence ratings of believability under the major crime condition.