The effect of providing additional information about planting evidence, relative to receiving no information about DNA evidence, was not clear. Participants could have used the information to ignore the DNA evidence (resulting in responses that were neither favorable nor unfavorable to the accused, relative to participants receiving no DNA information) or to conclude that the evidence probably had not been planted (resulting in responses unfavorable to the accused) or to conclude the other parent had planted the evidence to “get back” at his or her spouse (favorable to the accused).
Because, as reported above, more men than women have been accused of sexual abuse and also because of sex-role stereotypes of men as predators ( Basow, 1996), a main effect of the gender of the accused was hypothesized, with participants reading about abusive fathers believing more strongly in the guilt of the accused than those reading about abusive mothers. There were no theoretical or empirical reasons for hypothesizing about effects of participant’s gender or about any two- or three-way interactions.
Participants also were given a questionnaire (Appendix B) for the purpose of obtaining demographic information and for assessing knowledge of basic memory processes that potential jurors should have. Method Participants The participants were 120 women and 120 men, who were undergraduates who volunteered in order to fulfill research participation requirements in introductory psychology courses. There were 20 women and 20 men in each of 2 x 3 (6) experimental conditions (gender of a parent in a scenario x a scenario with no mention of DNA, mention of DNA, and mention of DNA with additional information – scenario condition).
Mean ages (and SDs) were 18. 64 (. 79) and 18. 98 (1. 01) of the women and men respectively. All but 3 participants were freshmen or sophomores, and over 95% were white. Materials and Procedures Participants first signed an informed consent form (they were assured of confidentiality, told they could leave at any time and still receive credit, provided with the name and phone number of the head of the Human Subjects Committee if they had any concerns, and were provided with my name and phone number if they wished to be debriefed about the purpose of the experiment or they had any other questions).
They were tested in 20-30 participant groups, with approximately the same number of women and men and the same number receiving each experimental condition. After they received the two-page test booklets (Appendices A and B), they were instructed to read the brief scenario on the first page and rate their certainty that the person accused of sexual abuse in the scenario was guilty. A 5-point rating scale was provided below the scenario.
For half of the women and men in each experimental group, they rated their certainty that the accused was innocent (counterbalancing for effects of wording, i. e. , marking effects, e. g. , people’s height estimates are larger if you ask how tall a known person is than if you ask how short the same person is, Clark & Clark, 1977) and the data was recoded so that for all participants low numbers corresponded to less certainty of guilt (e. g. , 1 = extremely uncertain) and high numbers with greater certainty (e. g. , 5 = extremely certain).
Participants also were asked to be sure to respond to all items on the second page of their test booklets (Appendix B), which included required demographic information and three statements that allowed assessing their knowledge: statements that young children would not have enough knowledge about sex to remember a sexual experience that never occurred, that memories of childhood experiences usually did not change over time, and that people could honestly believe they remembered an experience that never occurred.
After each statement, participants used a 5-point scale to indicate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the statement, with low numbers indicating agreement (e. g. , 1 = strongly agree) and high numbers indicating disagreement (e. g. , 5 = strongly disagree). Each participants was allowed to leave as soon as he or she completed the test booklet.