The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context 2012

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ISSN: 1889-1861

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Volume 4, Number 2, July 2012

TThhee ooff ff iicciiaall JJoouurrnnaall ooff tthhee SOCIEDAD ESPAÑOLA DE PSICOLOGÍA JURÍDICA Y FORENSE

Website: http://www.usc.es/sepjf

The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context, 2012, 4(2) www.usc.es/sepjf

ISSN 1889-1861 © The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context

Editor Ramón Arce, University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). Associate Editors Gualberto Buela-Casal, University of Granada (Spain). Francisca Fariña, University of Vigo (Spain). Günter Köhnken, University of Kiel (Germany). Ronald Roesch, Simon Fraser University (Canada). Editorial Board Rui Abrunhosa, University of O Miño (Portugal). Ray Bull, University of Leicester (UK). Thomas Bliesener, University of Kiel (Germany). Fernando Chacón, Complutense University of Madrid (Spain). Ángel Egido, University of Angers (France). Jorge Folino, National University of La Plata (Argentina). Antonio Godino, University of Lecce (Italy). Friedrich Lösel, University of Cambridge (UK). María Ángeles Luengo, University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). Eduardo Osuna, University of Murcia (Spain). Francisco Santolaya, President of the Spanish Psychological Association (Spain). Juan Carlos Sierra, University of Granada (Spain). Jorge Sobral, University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). Max Steller, Free University of Berlin, (Germany). Francisco Tortosa, University of Valencia (Spain). Peter J. Van Koppen, Maastricht University (The Netherlands). David Wexler, University of Arizona (USA), Director of International Network on Therapeutic Jurisprudence. Indexation ANEP ACPN DIALNET DICE DIE ELEKTRONISCHE ZEITSCHRIFTENBIBLIOTHEK (EZB) DOAJ EBSCO GOOGLE SCHOLAR ISOC LATINDEX PASCAL PSICODOC REFDOC SCIRUS SCOPUS ULRICHS WEB Official Journal of the Sociedad Española de Psicología Jurídica y Forense (www.usc.es/sepjf) Published By: SEPJF. Published in: Santiago de Compostela (Spain) Volume 4, Number 1. Order Form: see www.usc.es/sepjf Frequency: 2 issues per year (January, July). E-mail address: [email protected] Postal address: The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, E-15782 Santiago de Compostela (Spain).

ISSN: 1889-1861. D.L.: C-4376-2008

The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context, 2012, 4(2) Eur. j. psychol. appl. legal context, 2012, 4(2), 99-196, ISSN: 1889-1861 www.usc.es/sepjf

CONTENTS

Articles

Serial effects of evidence on legal decision-making

Raluca Enescu and André Kuhn 99

Family and socio-demographic risk factors for psychopathy

among prison inmates

Cirilo H. García, José Moral, Martha Frías, Juan A. Valdivia

and Héctor L. Díaz 119

In search of a fast screening method for detecting the malingering

of cognitive impairment

Guadalupe Sánchez, Fernando Jiménez, Amada Ampudia and

Vicente Merino 135

Therapeutic effects of a cognitive-behavioural treatment with

juvenile offenders

Santiago Redondo, Ana Martínez-Catena and Antonio Andrés-Pueyo 159

Is miss sympathy a credible defendant alleging intimate partner

violence in a trial for murder?

Antonio Herrera, Inmaculada Valor-Segura and Francisca Expósito 179

The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context, 2012, 4(2): 99-118 www.usc.es/sepjf

Correspondence: Raluca Enescu, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Law, Department of International and Comparative Criminal Law, Rothenbaumchaussee 33, 20148 Hamburg, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] ISSN 1889-1861 © The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context

SERIAL EFFECTS OF EVIDENCE ON

LEGAL DECISION-MAKING

Raluca Enescu* and André Kuhn**

* University of Hamburg (Germany) ** University of Lausanne (Switzerland)

(Received 8 February 2011; revised 6 January 2012; accepted 2 February 2012)

Abstract The order in which evidence is presented

to a criminal court might influence the verdict. This study investigated the serial position effect in a judicial context. 1831 Swiss criminal judges received a filmed mock trial with a specific order stemming from the combination of 3 witnesses: a forensic expert, an eyewitness and an alibi witness. The evidence order was completely counterbalanced and each witness represented a different type of testimony chosen in accordance with the legal practice. If judges rendered their verdict on the basis of the first witness, a primacy effect would be observed. Conversely, if the last testimony would be preponderant, a recency effect would influence their judgment. Results showed a recency effect based on a defence eyewitness whose placement in the last position provoked significantly less condemnations. Furthermore, the probative value estimated by the judges for each piece of evidence was not associated with its serial impact. Results are discussed in relation to legal decision-making and the identification of a central witness mediating order effects. Keywords: decision making; evidence; order effects; criminal trial; verdict.

Resumen

El orden de presentación de las pruebas ante un tribunal penal puede influir en el veredicto. En este estudio se investigó el efecto del orden de presentación. 1831 jueces suizos de la jurisdicción penal recibieron la recreación filmada de un juicio con un orden específico derivado de la combinación de 3 testimonios: testimonio de un forense, testimonio de un testigo presencial y un testigo de coartada. El orden de presentación de las pruebas fue contrabalanceado, caracterizando cada testigo un tipo diferente de testimonio elegido de conformidad con la práctica jurídica. Si los jueces emitieran el veredicto sobre la base del primer testimonio se observaría un efecto de primacía. Por el contrario, si el último testimonio fuera el preponderante, un efecto mediaría el juicio alcanzado. Los resultados mostraron un efecto de recencia para el testigo de la defensa, de modo que cuando este se colocó al final del juicio, la tasa de condenas fue significativamente menor. Por su parte, el valor probatorio estimado por los jueces para cada una de las pruebas no se asoció con su impacto en el orden de presentación. Las implicaciones de los resultados se discuten en relación con la toma de decisiones legales y la identificación de un testimonio central que medie efectos en el orden de presentación. Palabras clave: toma de decisiones; pruebas; efectos de orden; juicio penal; veredicto.

100 R. Enescu and A. Kuhn

The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context, 2012, 4(2): 99-118

Introduction

As a perception or an opinion, a verdict is made up of various components. The

Gestalt theory (Koffka, 1933; Lewin, 1935; Wertheimer, 1959) has given rise to a

psychology of wholes, summed up in the idea that an entity cannot be defined by the

sum of its parts. The distinction between parts and whole means that each unit performs

a precise function within an entity. The same part will change its role if it belongs to a

different whole or if taken in isolation. Moreover the parts exercise a mutual influence

until such time that they reach equilibrium within a stable entity (Guillaume, 1979). The

reasoning behind an opinion stems from the way in which its contradictory pieces of

information are organised by means of psychological mechanisms such as serial effects

(Atkinson, 1977; Baddeley, 1999; Ebbinghaus, 1913), cognitive consistency (Festinger,

1957, 1964; Heider, 1946), anchoring effects (Wagenaar, 1988; Wagenaar, van Koppen,

& Crombag, 1993) and heuristics (Gigerenzer, 2002; Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky,

1982). Opinions about persons, also called social impressions, have similarities with the

task of forming opinions about defendants and the acts they might have committed. In

both cases, pieces of information will be presented and integrated into a judgment.

The combination of personal characteristics within an impression is directly

related to Gestalt theory, since it focuses on how a unified impression can be formed

from discrete elements. When two experimental groups read the same terms in different

orders of presentation, the resulting impressions differed greatly. They were based on

the characteristics presented first and showed the influence of a primacy effect (Asch,

1946). If the first elements were positive, the importance of the negative terms

presented thereafter was minimized; if they were negative, the value of the subsequent

positive elements was reduced. This effect has been observed afterward in settings such

as ability attribution (Jones, Rock, Shaver, Goethals, & Ward 1968), political and social

issues (Edwards & Smith, 1996) and health policy (Jonas, Schulz-Hardt, Frey, &

Thelen, 2001). Such results were explained by the construction of a reference frame,

imposing unconsciously an interpretative direction on subsequent elements anchored to

the first impression (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977).

In 1938, Weld and Roff transcribed eleven witness statements of a real trial and

read them out to the participants. The assessment of guilt was noted on a nine-point

scale after each item was presented. It was observed that the very fact of being charged

with a crime in itself constituted an incriminating factor. Thirty-three subjects out of

Serial effects of evidence on legal decision-making 101


fifty already judged the defendant guilty after hearing only the charge. This observation

is in agreement with that of Schünemann (1983) who obtained more guilty verdicts

when the indictment was read than when it was not read before the hearings.

Concerning the four orders in which the witness statements were read, a recency effect

was observed independently of whether the last witnesses spoke for the prosecution or

the defence. Thus, it was the evidence presented at the end of the trial that most strongly

influenced the choice of verdict. Although no complete counterbalancing of the

witnesses was undertaken, this result shows that the primacy effect observed in a social

context is not replicated in a judicial setting and that the same witness plays a different

role according to the presentation order of the series.

When the defence and prosecution arguments were presented orally by two

persons playing the role of both parties involved in a trial, the later elements were the

most convincing (Walker, Thibaut, & Andreoli, 1972). The judicial context differed

again from the formation of an impression in which the first piece of evidence had the

most weight. In the work of Asch (1946), the pieces of information referred to character

traits, that is, stable characteristics also called dispositional elements. A trial lays greater

emphasis on the reconstruction of a specific event in which a defendant might be

involved, thus providing situational elements. If decision makers choose to attribute the

cause of an action to situational rather than dispositional factors, the power of

information about stable characteristics provoking a primacy effect would be reduced

(Jones et al., 1968), thus increasing the probability of a recency effect.

By changing the order of evidence in mock rape trials, Pennington (1982)

observed a primacy effect, which contrasted with the previous results. When the

strongest defence witnesses came first, followed immediately by the prosecution ones,

the defendant was found innocent more frequently than in the opposite order. But if

there was an overnight recess between both types of arguments, the verdict was based

on a recency effect, finding the defendant guilty more often. In line with the social

impression, primacy has been explained by the construction of a “cognitive frame”

based on the first piece of evidence that jurors used to interpret following evidence in a

coherent way (Kerstholt & Jackson, 1998). This frame provoked an overestimation of

supportive evidence and an underestimation of discrepant information in order to

provide a consistent judgment (Lagnado & Harvey, 2008). In the case of a time interval,

Pennington (1982) stated that jurors did not remember the first arguments as well as the

last ones. This interpretation has been extended by Costabile and Klein (2005) who



showed that the verdict choice of jurors was based on the last piece of incriminating

evidence even without time interval. Participants chose their verdict according to the

evidence that they best remembered, but the authors provided also the explanation of

Kerstholt and Jackson (1998) in cases where early evidence served the construction of a

frame and provoked primacy effects. This happened when the researchers did not

provide the jurors with background information and when they rated the guilty

probability in an end-of-sequence mode.

Interest in the effects of ordering in the legal domain has also given rise to a

belief adjustment model following the receipt of new information (Hogarth & Einhorn

1992). In this model, individuals process each piece of evidence sequentially without

carrying out a global evaluation of the evidence. Independently of the response mode

(step-by-step or end-of-sequence) and of the length of the series, a recency effect was

observed, the subjects modifying their opinion according to the value attributed to each

new factor. These results supported those obtained in 1938 by Weld and Roff and are

consistent with the Bayesian approach defended later by Champod and Taroni (1994) as

the ideal way to compute evidence, in which each witness statement modifies the

perceived likelihood of an event. In reality, it has been long shown that individuals do

not calculate probabilities as per a Bayesian model (Schum & Martin, 1982), but weigh

new information against the probability of an event, and then adjust the value in favour

of this last factor. This approach corresponds to an intuitive calculation of the mean

between two values (Lopes, 1985).

Serial effects have recently been studied in the field of pleas and their influence

on the length of the sentence (Englich, Mussweiler, & Strack, 2005). The results

showed that anchoring took place in favour of the prosecution, which therefore had an

advantage in speaking first, since the length of the sentence passed depended on what

had first been recommended by the public prosecutor. According to the authors, this

primacy effect could be explained by the fact that the defence based itself upon the

details of the charge in order to overturn them, thus placing greater importance on those

incriminating elements and on the case for the prosecution. These observations

completed the anchoring of judicial decisions, especially towards guilty verdicts, found

through an archive study gathering written material in 555 Spanish criminal cases

(Fariña, Arce, & Novo, 2002).

The current research aims to draw a parallel between an opinion and a verdict

from the perspective of the presentation order of its elements. In view of earlier work



and the emphasis placed on the order of evidence, the hypothesis of a recency effect on

the verdict choice will be tested: the nearer to the end of the trial a witness is heard, the

more influence he will have on the judgement. It is assumed that judges will carefully

examine each piece of evidence, but would forgo the final judgement until they have

received all evidence.

Method

Participants

The material was sent to all Swiss criminal judges (N = 1831). The German-

speaking judges represented 75% of the population, the French-speaking cantons 22%,

and the Italian-speaking, 3% of the judges in the country. The judges sitting on the

federal benches in Lausanne and Bellinzona were treated separately and the material

was provided in all three national languages. Courts in bilingual regions were sent the

research material in French and German.

208 judges returned the questionnaire, which represents a response rate of 11%.

The linguistic distribution of the respondents is similar to the one of the population:

82% questionnaires in German, 17% in French and 1% in Italian. 72% of men and 27%

of women took part in the study, 52% were professional and 48% lay judges (no legal

studies and called by the president of a court to judge cases within their fields of

competency). The mean age was the response category that listed 40 to 49 years old,

their average employment rate in criminal justice was the category from 21% to 30%

and the mean professional experience as a criminal judge was the category between 4

and 6 years.

Material

Following encouraging results obtained with a sample of 535 participants from

the University of Lausanne (Enescu, 2008), it was decided to test the hypothesis of a

recency effect on Swiss criminal judges. The written court case presented to the students

was transformed into a 20 minutes film of a mock criminal case. The scenario had been

revised by a group of judges who agreed to keep secret the aims of the study. The

material was passed in a sealed envelope to each judge by way of the office of the court

where they sat. The pack contained an introductory letter describing the general aims of

the research. The instructions and a DVD with choice of language were enclosed. The



original version of the film was shot in French and additional versions were dubbed into

Swiss German and Italian (330 copies of each order were made). The dubbing and the

translations allowed a perfect synchronization with the original language. The names of

the characters (judge, witnesses, victim, and defendant) and of the town where the

accident took place were adapted to the linguistic region.

The case described a road traffic accident and the defendant was accused of

assault through negligence (Article 125 paragraph 1 of the Swiss Criminal Code) and of

a second charge of violation of duties in case of accident (Article 92 paragraph 2 of the

Swiss Road Traffic Act). Both offences are misdemeanours and the defendant had no

prior criminal record. Three witnesses were presented in a real courtroom:

- A prosecution witness: forensic expert who compared samples of paintings

on the car of the defendant and on the motorcycle of the victim, he concluded

that they were matching with high probability;

- A defence witness 1: council employee, friend of the defendant, he provided

him with an alibi by stating that they were having breakfast each day at the

time of the accident;

- A defence witness 2: teacher and eyewitness not acquainted with the

defendant, he saw a car of a different colour than the one of the defendant.

No prosecutor was present during the hearing, which is in accordance with the

Swiss practice in such a criminal case, and a court registrar was seated next to the judge

to record the proceedings. At the beginning of the trial, the judge read a resume of the

facts, the charges and the prosecution’s demand to condemn the defendant and pass

upon him a suspended sentence whose severity should be decided by the judge. The

defendant chose to appear without a lawyer and explained why he could not have

committed the offence because he was at a friend’s place at the time of the accident (no

guilty plea exists in Switzerland). The victim was then asked by the judge to describe

the accident and what injuries he suffered from. The role of the judge is active in the

Swiss criminal procedure. He questions the defendant, the victim and each witness in

order to clarify their statements. The judge was calling in the courtroom each witness

one after the other and introduced him before he presented his testimony. After making

sure that neither the victim nor the defendant had additional questions, he ordered the

witness to leave the courtroom. The camera filmed each person when speaking (judge,

defendant, victim, witnesses) and participants could see that the public gallery was



empty. At the end of the trial, the defendant was asked to speak last and he chose to

repeat his presence at a friend’s place. The judge decided to retire with the registrar in

order to decide the verdict and the sentence if appropriate. The film stops at this

moment and the participants proceed with the questionnaire.

The probative value of the incriminating forensic expert was designed to balance

with both discriminating witnesses and not to provoke only condemnations. The

defence witness who was acquainted with the defendant was meant to have a weaker

evidential value than the eyewitness. The expert was supposed to have at least a

moderately value, especially because he was incriminating and presenting forensic

evidence identifying the defendant’s car (Ask, Rebelius, & Granhag, 2008). A pilot

study with the same road traffic accident featuring a defence expert and two

incriminating eyewitnesses provoked only acquittals. The permutations of the

witnesses’ appearances led to six orders of presentation corresponding to six versions of

the film:

- Order 1: prosecution expert – defence witness 1 – defence witness 2.

- Order 2: defence witness 1 – prosecution expert – defence witness 2.

- Order 3: defence witness 1 – defence witness 2 – prosecution expert.

- Order 4: prosecution expert – defence witness 2 – defence witness 1.

- Order 5: defence witness 2 – prosecution expert – defence witness 1.

- Order 6: defence witness 2 – defence witness 1 – prosecution expert.

The questionnaire related to the film of the case was drawn up in three languages

and the following questions were asked:

- Verdict (guilty, not guilty)

- If relevant, the charge upheld

- Sentence imposed if guilty verdict

- Confidence in the verdict on a seven-point scale for each charge: (1) not at

all confident, (2) hardly confident (3) not very confident, (4) fairly confident,

(5) very confident, (6) extremely confident and (7) absolutely confident.

- Probative value of each witness statement1 on a seven-point scale

adapted from Wagenaar et al. (1993): (1) highly incriminating, (2)

moderately incriminating, (3) slightly incriminating, (4) neutral, (5)

1 The rating scales were presented with respect to the ordering of the witnesses in the film, aiming to

minimize errors in the attribution of the probative values.



slightly exculpating, (6) moderately exculpating and (7) highly

exculpating.

- Six socio-demographic questions: age-range (10-year ranges); studies

and profession in the case of lay judges2; employment rate as a

criminal judge (9-year ranges); years of experience as a criminal

judge (3-year ranges); sex; location of the court (canton).

Procedure

Each judge received a DVD containing a mock criminal case presenting three

witnesses in one of the six possible orders. In addition, it was of paramount importance

not to reveal any other order of presentation of the witnesses. For that reason, the judges

of the same court all received the same version of the film, namely with the witnesses in

the same order. The first stage involved sending out the copies of the DVD to each court

with a criminal division. Approximately 300 units per order of presentation were evenly

distributed. An accent was put on correct cantonal and regional proportions for each

version of the DVD, and on not sending multiple sets to a judge who was sitting in

several courts. The material was sent in November 2006 and a letter of reminder was

sent in January 2007. In order to secure a maximal ecological validity, instructions

asked to watch individually the trial only once before answering the questionnaire.

Of the 208 answers received, the distribution of the six orders of evidence was in

a range of 24-42 judges:

- Order 1: prosecution expert – defence witness 1 – defence witness 2

- (42 judges, 20%)

- Order 2: defence witness 1 – prosecution expert – defence witness 2

- (35 judges, 17%)

- Order 3: defence witness 1 – defence witness 2 – prosecution expert

- (24 judges, 12%)

- Order 4: prosecution expert – defence witness 2 – defence witness 1

- (32 judges, 15%)

- Order 5: defence witness 2 – prosecution expert – defence witness 1

- (41 judges, 20%)

2 The judicial organization is independent in each Swiss Cantons (States) and there is no common

definition of a lay judge. Researchers agreed on the definition that lay judges are not legally trained and are chosen for specific trials because of their skills.



- Order 6: defence witness 2 – defence witness 1 – prosecution expert

- (34 judges, 16%).

The material was sent to all criminal judges in Switzerland (N = 1831). The

response rate was relatively low (11%), while in a previous experiment 30% of the

judges returned their answers (Kuhn & Jayet, 2005). The period during which the

material was sent, November 2006, was probably not conducive to a high response rate.

The end of the year is a busy period for the courts and the end of 2006 was particularly

so, since the Swiss criminal law (especially relating to punishments) was amended on 1

January 2007 and raised concerns among the judges. The same amendment in the

general part of the Swiss penal code made it necessary to send the material before the

end of 2006. The punishments imposed after 1 January 2007 would have been difficult

to compare with the sentencing decisions found in 2005 by Kuhn and Jayet (Kuhn,

2011).

Results

17% judges (n = 36) condemned the defendant and 83% (n = 171) acquitted

him3. The confidence in the verdict was very high (M = 5, SD = 1.3, N = 191) and the

probative value of the witness statements were in accordance with the researchers'

expectations: the scientific expert was considered moderately incriminating (M = 2.6,

SD = 1.2, N = 206), the council employee - eyewitness - moderately exculpating (M =

5.8, SD = 1.1, N = 206), and the teacher –alibi witness– slightly exculpating (M = 5.3,

SD = 1.5, N = 206). The difference between the exculpating scores was significant,

t(206) = 3.8, p < .001, and the effect size moderate (d = .04), therefore their effect on

the verdict was separately tested.

Disparities of the sentence between judges were observed, varying between 2

and 300 days for the same case. The average length of the sentence was 59 days with a

mode of 60 days (n = 35). Two months of incarceration appeared to be the “ordinary”

sentence in this criminal case. Of the 36 judges who condemned the defendant and

specified their sentence, 28 passed a suspended sentence.

3 The number of judges will henceforth be 207, as one respondent returned an empty questionnaire except

for the socio-demographic data.



A recency effect was observed and confirms the hypothesis under investigation.

A χ2 analysis of the six evidence orders and the verdict choice showed a recency effect

(see Table 1) based on a defence witness, χ2(5, N = 207) = 11.15, p < .05, φ' = .23.

Table 1. Counterbalanced Order of Evidence and Type of Verdict Rendered.

Order Descriptiona Type of value Guilty Not guilty Total

1 pro-def1-def2 observed value 7 35 42

theoretical value 7 35 42

2 def1-pro-def2 observed value 0 35 35


3 def1-def2-pro observed value 6 18 24


4 pro-def2-def1 observed value 8 24 32


5 def2-pro-def1 observed value 10 31 41


6 def2-def1-pro observed value 5 28 33


Total 36 171 207

Note. a pro = expert prosecution witness; def1 = council worker, defence witness 1 and “def2” = teacher, defence witness 2.

When the observed values were compared with those expected independently of

the two variables, the second order – which presented the council employee for the

defence first, followed by the expert for the prosecution and finally the teacher for the

defence – was the only relevant order for interpreting this result.

Due to the low number of verdicts in each category using the six evidence

orders, it was decided to merge the orders according to the placement of one specific

witness. No attention was paid to the permutations of the two other pieces of evidence,



since the previous results did not show any influence of this factor. The place held by

the scientific expert grouped together Orders 1 and 4 (expert in first position, n = 76),

Orders 2 and 5 (expert in second position, n = 76), and Orders 3 and 6 (expert in third

position, n = 57). The χ2 analysis of these three orders of presentation and the type of

verdict was not significant, χ2(2, N = 207) = 1.52, p < .47, φ' = .09, which means that the

proportions of convictions and acquittals observed did not depend on the order of the

witnesses as grouped according to the position occupied by the prosecution expert.

If the six original orders were merged according to the position held by the first

defence witness, the council employee who provided an alibi, he appeared first (Orders

2 and 3, n = 59), second (Orders 1 and 6, n = 75) or last (Orders 4 and 5, N = 73). His

position did not influence the choice of verdict, χ2(2, N = 207) = 4.93, p < .09, φ' = .15.

Finally, when the six original orders were regrouped according to the position of

the second defence witness, namely the eyewitness, his testimony came first in Orders 5

and 6 (n = 74), second in Orders 3 and 4 (n = 56) and last in Orders 1 and 2 (n = 77).

The result of the χ2 showed a significant recency effect of the witnesses order on the

choice of verdict, χ2(2, N = 207) = 6.38, p < .05, φ' = .18.

Table 2. Serial Position of a Defence Witness and Type of Verdict Rendered.

Order Type of value Guilty Not guilty Total

1 Observed value 15 59 74

Theoretical value 13 61 74





Total 36 171 207

When the defence witness appeared last, 9% guilty verdicts were observed,

which is significantly lower than in the first (20%) or middle position (25%). When

heard in the first or second place, his influence on the verdict was equally weak. For the



same case and with identical witnesses, the same defendant was convicted in a range of

9-25% due to the change of position of one defence eyewitness.

As verdict is a dichotomous variable, its prediction may be estimated with a

binary logistic regression analysis. The previous orders of each testimony were the

categorical independent variables. The first position of each witness was chosen as the

reference category by simple contrast. If the overall ordering of a witness was

significant, his middle and last positions were compared to the first one. The verdict

was best predicted by the position of the eyewitness, whose last position significantly

increased the odds to acquit the defendant by 2.5 in comparison to the first position. His

second place in the series didn’t play a significant role in the prediction of the verdict.

The orders of the expert and of the alibi witness did not influence the verdict choice.

Results showed that a recency effect stemming from the defence eyewitness correctly

predicted 83% of the verdicts, χ2(2, N = 207) = 6.8, p < .05.

Table 3. Binary Logistic Regression Analysis Predicting the Type of Verdict Rendered.

Variable B SE Wald p df Exp(B) 95% CI

Eyewitness 5.98 .05 2

Eyewitness 2nd position

-.27 .42 .41 .52 1 .76 .33 - 1.74

Eyewitness 3rd position

.93 .49 3.62 .05 1 2.54 .97 - 6.65

Expert 2.46 .29 2

Alibi witness 2.46 .29 2

Additional χ2 analyses provided interesting results, although not connected with

serial effects. The influence of the judges’ training on the choice of verdict indicated

that trained lawyers rendered guilty verdicts less often than expected, while lay judges

gave guilty verdicts more often than expected, χ2(1, N = 203) = 6.64, p < .01, φ = .18.

Other analyses comparing professional to lay judges were not significant, as was the

interaction between the type of verdict and its confidence. Variables of sex, linguistic

region, years of experience, and full or part-time activity in a criminal court showed no

significant results.



Discussion

From a criminal system with sentences of imprisonment (immediate or

suspended) and fine, Switzerland moved to a system with monetary, community service

and imprisonment sentences (suspended or not) on the 1st January 2007, limiting

custodial sentences of less than six months to exceptional cases (Kuhn, Moreillon,

Viredaz, & Willi-Jayet, 2004). The letter of reminder sent in January 2007 had almost

no effect on the response rate, only three additional questionnaires being received. The

transition to the new criminal law took place at the same time as the sending of the

material and might have prevented a greater number of judges from taking part in the

study. A second hypothesis for the 11% response rate could be the high participation of

Swiss judges in a previous research by Kuhn and Jayet (2005). The results

communicated at that time might have been badly received, hindering some people from

participating in a new study about criminal trials.

The results showed the presence of a recency effect on the choice of verdict: the

proportions of condemnations and acquittals followed the presentation of the last

witness (council worker for the defence – expert for the prosecution – teacher for the

defence) when all six orders of witnesses were analysed, just as when the six orders

were regrouped according to the placement of the teacher. The fact that two witnesses

did not provoke any serial effect does not support the belief adjustment model of

Hogarth and Einhorn (1992), where the last piece of evidence was always overweighted.

The evidential value of the eyewitness for the defence was significantly lower

than the one of the second defence witness, contradicting the researchers' expectations.

Nevertheless, it is the former witness that influenced the verdict according to his serial

position and not the most exculpatory one. It was also expected that the position of the

expert would have an effect on the verdict choice, but he didn’t show such an influence.

The probative value seemed not to be connected to the order effect of one piece of

evidence. The forensic evidence was interpreted in the context of the case and did not

lead to a verdict that followed its conclusions. This result differs from the findings of

Ask, Rebelius and Granhag (2008) who observed that forensic evidence had more value

if it produced incriminating information. A pilot study showed also that a discriminating

forensic expert had a drastic effect on the verdicts, which were all acquitting the

defendant.



The influence of an expert depends on the credibility, which is based on

trustworthiness, knowledge, confidence and likeability (Brodsky, Griffin & Cramer,

2010). The present expert used partly technical jargon and therefore could have been

perceived as not likeable, reducing his credibility (Brodsky, Neal, Cramer, & Ziemke,

2009). A limitation of the current study was the lack of information about the credibility

of the witnesses. In future research, this characteristic should be measured and a

condition in which the expert is a woman added, since gender can influence the impact

of such testimony due to role stereotypes and the type of offence to be judged (Schuller

& Cripps, 1998).

An explanation of the recency effect of the second defence witness could be that

he was considered as the key witness in this criminal case. As the terms used by Asch

(1946) in the context of impression formation, a judicial decision making could also

rely on the choice of a central piece of evidence or of a key witness who would be the

basis of the most convincing story for the events that occurred (Pennington & Hastie,

1986). The order effects might be mediated by the distinction between central or

peripheral pieces of evidence, only the former ones producing a recency effect. Since

the presentation of prosecution and defence witnesses is usually mixed in the Swiss

procedure, the role and the position of one witness – and not of a group of prosecution

or defence witnesses - can be determinant in creating the narrative that will be used to

choose the verdict (Pennington & Hastie, 1988). To ensure ecological validity, future

research could address both the central or peripheral role of a witness appearing in the

middle of contradicting ones and the position in the evidence series in order to study the

occurrence of a serial effect and its influence on the verdict.

If each piece of evidence produced a preliminary judgment and if the final

verdict was made up of the sum of the previous judgments, the result would not depend

upon the presentation order of the evidence. The significative effect of the witnesses

order on the verdict shows that forming a verdict does not follow an additive process

since the proportions of convictions and acquittals vary according to the placement of a

witness speaking for the defence.

When the same terms were presented in different orders, Asch (1946) observed

that the resulting impressions differed greatly, following a primacy effect: if the first

elements were positive, the importance of the negative terms was minimized, leading to

a favourable impression. If the first elements were negative, the value of the positive

ones that followed was lessened, and the final impression was unfavourable. This serial



primacy effect was not borne out by this research. It is the final element that possessed

the greatest influence on the final judgment and not the first one as observed by Asch in

the context of impression formation or by Pennington (1982) in a judicial decision

making.

The fact that identical elements placed in different positions caused different

impressions resulted from the construction of a reference frame following the first

pieces of information, which provided an interpretative direction for the later elements

(Pennington, 1982; Kerstholt & Jackson, 1998). This explanation, although based on

similar results (a different verdict was obtained by changing the order of the witnesses),

did not apply in the present case: it is the final witness who shifted the ratio of

convictions to acquittals in his direction. The current observations, therefore, were not

stemming from a frame of reference based on the first witness, but from the influence of

the last witness statement on the choice of verdict. This result could be mediated by the

best memory of this piece of evidence or by its centrality. A limitation of the study lays

in the impossibility to examine the process underlying the order effects. Future research

could investigate this important point by asking the respondents to describe the pieces

of evidence and to argument their verdict.

An oral presentation by two people presenting the arguments of the defence and

of the prosecution led to a recency effect (Walker et al., 1972) and Insko (1964) also

highlighted the influence of a personal testimony on the type of serial effect: the

situations in which the witnesses were seen produced a recency effect, while those in

which the information was read provoked a primacy effect. A trial belongs to the first

category of situation, as did the material used for the present study, which allowed

judges to see the witnesses. This aspect might have made the recency effect on the

verdict more likely. However, the results of Weld and Roff (1938) also revealed a

recency effect using material read out to the participants. Moreover, undergraduates’

responses after reading the summary of a mock criminal trial showed a recency effect

(Costabile & Klein, 2005; Enescu, 2009).

This study emphasized the effect of the recency on the choice of verdict, which

was significantly influenced by the last piece of evidence. The influence of situational

factors, which referred to the circumstances in which the offence took place, and the

lack of dispositional ones, might have played a role in the results. This assumption

would be in agreement with the statements of Jones and Nisbett (1971) for whom only

stable dispositional factors give rise to a primacy effect.



The recency effect implies that the choice of the evidence order does lead to a

different judgement. An end-of-sequence response mode that is ecologically valid was

used and found a defence witness whose position influenced the proportions of

condemnations. Is it right to take this knowledge into consideration in the conduct of

trials? Pleas are made in a specific order: the public prosecutor speaks first, followed by

the prosecution, and then the defence, before the defendant (presumed to be innocent as

no plea of guilt exists in Switzerland) has the right to speak last of all. This order stems

from a presumption of a recency effect (contrary to the results of Englich et al., 2005),

given that the rights of the defence take precedence over those of the prosecution. Since

the results of the studies carried out on the order of witnesses lead towards the existence

of a recency effect (except the results of Pennington, 1982), should a similar order in

favour of the defendant equally be respected in the choice of the evidence order (the

evidence for the prosecution presented before the evidence for the defence)? In

Switzerland, the president of the court chooses the evidence order according to the

availability of the witnesses and experts. An improvement of the courtroom procedure

could state that the choice of the evidential order will, in general4, be left to the defence

in order to control the consequences of serial effects. The application of such findings in

the courtroom is of major importance for the rights of the defendant and needs to be

addressed conjointly by researchers and legal scholars.

Acknowledgements

Research supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Chuard-Schmid

Foundation and the Vaud Academic Society (Nr. 100011-109796).

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Correspondence: Cirilo Humberto García. Facultad de Psicología de la Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Dr. Carlos Canseco 110, Colonia Mitras Centro, Monterrey, N. L., México. E-mail: [email protected] ISSN 1889-1861 © The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context

FAMILY AND SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC RISK FACTORS FOR PSYCHOPATHY AMONG PRISON INMATES

Cirilo H. García*, José Moral*, Martha Frías**, Juan A. Valdivia***, and Héctor L. Díaz****

*Autonomous University of Nuevo León (México) **University of Sonora (México)

***Washington State University (USA) ****The University of Texas – Pan American (USA)

(Received 16 June 2011; revised 22 February 2012; accepted 24 February 2012)

Abstract

A field study was conducted with prison inmates to explore to what extent family and socio-demographic characteristics represent risk factors for psychopathy and delinquent behavior. A psychopathy scale derived from Hare’s Revised Psychopathy Checklist and an instrument containing questions related to family and socio-demographic characteristics were administered to 178 prison inmates. The psychopathy scale’s reliability (α = .92) and construct validity were established. A confirmatory factor analysis provided support for a model showing a negative association between psychopathy and age at which the person stopped living with his family of origin, age of first incarceration, severity of delinquent acts, length of prison sentence, and length of time spent in prison. (χ2/df = 1.40, FD = 1.34, PNI = 0.38, RMSEA =.04, IFI = .94, CFI = .94 and TLI = .93). Furthermore, the model sustained a positive association of psychopathy with income and frequency of incarceration. Level of education and age were eliminated from the model given that no significant associations were found among these variables and psychopathy. The validation of this model enables to interpret research findings in relation with attachment theory. Keywords: psychopathy; attachment; sentenced; delinquency; family.

Resumen

Se realizó un estudio de campo con un grupo de prisioneros para investigar en qué medida las características familiares, sociales y demográficas de éstos representan factores de riesgo para la psicopatía y la delincuencia. Se administró a 178 internos en prisión una escala para medir la psicopatía derivada de la PCL-R de Hare junto con un instrumento creado ad hoc con preguntas relacionadas con sus características familiares, sociales y demográficas. Esta escala de psicopatía se mostró fiable (α = .92) y válida, validez de constructo. Un análisis factorial confirmatorio prestó a poyo a un modelo que sustenta una asociación negativa entre la psicopatía y la edad de abandonó del hogar de su familia de origen, la edad del primer internamiento en prisión, la gravedad del delito, la longitud de la sentencia y la cantidad de tiempo que estuvo internado en prisión (χ2/gl = 1.40, FD = 1.34, PNCP = 0.38, RMSEA =.04, IFI = .94, CFI = .94 y TLI = .93). Por su parte, el modelo evidenció una asociación positiva entre la psicopatía, los ingresos económicos y la frecuencia de encarcelación. El nivel educativo y la edad fueron eliminados del modelo dado que no se encontraron asociaciones significativas entre estas variables. La validación de este modelo permite interpretar los hallazgos en relación con la teoría del apego.

Palabras clave: psicopatía; apego; sentenciado; delincuencia; familia.

120 C. H. García et al.


Introduction

Many research studies related to psychopathy have been conducted during the

last 20 years in English-speaking countries while very have been conducted in Spanish-

speaking countries (Moral, 2010; Muñoz, Khan, & Cordwell, 2011; Rodríguez et al.,

2011; Rufino, Boccaccini, & Guy, 2011). Researchers were initially concerned with

establishing the construct’s validity and reliability so it could be clearly differentiated

from other psychiatric conditions or disorders. Hare (1991, 2003) for instance,

concentrated his efforts in the validation of his Revised Psychopathy Checklist to

predict recidivism and reoccurring delinquent behavior.

More recent studies have explored neuropsychological perspectives that

establish relations between the brain’s anatomy and the psychopaths’ cognitive and

affective functioning. A significant finding for instance is that the deficient functioning

of the tonsils is associated with psychopathy (Marsh et al., 2011). Researchers should be

very careful however to assume causal relationships between a deficient neurobiological

structure and psychopathy. This could lead to theoretical reductionism, which has been

highly criticized in psychology.

It is made theoretical reductionism whenever it is proposed a cause stemming

from a dimension different from that of the effect under consideration. Studies related to

conditioning for psychopathy, for instance, seek to find causes for this disorder in the

same psychological realm in which it takes place. Attachment theory, in turn (Van der

Horst, 2011) proposes that the psychopath personality develops when family members

and caretakers fail to provide children with a sound support system that enables them to

feel understood and accepted. Such proposition implies that said childhood experiences

as well as the psychopathy take place in the psychological realm. The findings of recent

research studies strongly suggest significant associations between early abusive

experiences, neglect, parental conflicts, authoritarianism in the family, and subsequent

problems of social adaptation and onset of psychiatric disorders (Dunst & Kassow,

2008; Gao, Raine, Chan, Venables, & Mednick, 2010; Mack, Hackney, & Pyle, 2011).

There are genetic, environmental and/or demographic risk factors that may

contribute to psychopathy (Gunther, Vaughn, & Philibert, 2010) such as male gender

(Guillet & Tamatea, 2012; Seara-Cardoso, Neumann, Roiser, McCrory, & Viding

2012), being one of the youngest siblings among a large number of brothers and sisters

(Khan & Cooke, 2008; Lalumière, Harris, Quinsey, & Rice, 1998), academic failure

Psychopathy among prison inmates 121


(Juárez, Villatoro, Gutiérrez, Fleiz, & Medina, 2005), family disintegration (McDonald,

Dodson, Rosenfield, & Jouriles, 2011), alcoholism or antisocial behavior of the father

(Moffitt, 2005; Rodríguez et al., 2011), low socio-economic status (Silva, 2003),

presence of gangs in the neighborhood (Mobilli & Rojas, 2006), minority status

(Ullrich, Farrington, & Coid, 2008), and school violence (Merrell, Buchanan, & Tran,

2006). An early onset of the problem is often manifested through antisocial behavior,

academic failure, cruelty, recidivism of delinquent behavior, and failure of rehabilitation

programs provided by the prisons. The previously-mentioned factors are also significant

indicators of psychopathy among adult prisoners (e.g., Verona, Patrick, Curtin, Bradley,

& Lang, 2004).

This study was conducted on a group of prison inmates and sought to explore the

associations between family dynamics, age at which the inmates stopped living with

their parents, age at initial imprisonment, current age, number of years of formal

education, income, and psychopathy. At the same time, the study seeks to discover the

effect of psychopathy on delinquent or illegal behaviors that lead to the subject’s

imprisonment, length of the prison sentence, the actual length of time spent in prison,

and the frequency or number of the subject’s imprisonment. Ultimately, the study aims

at proposing a model to help to predict the onset of psychopathy. Such model will

include familial, social and demographic characteristics including age of initial

imprisonment. The model will hopefully also enable to determine how psychopathy can

lead to eventual involvement with the judicial and law enforcement systems.

Method

Participants

This study relied on a cross-sectional survey administered to a convenience

sample of 178 prison inmates in the city of Apodaca, Nuevo León, México. Study

participants were male inmates currently serving sentences in a medium security prison.

The mean age of participants is 34.6 years, (SEM = 0.57), with a range going from 22 to

58 years of age. The mean level of education is 7.52 years (SEM = 0.17), which is

equivalent to one and a half years of education beyond elementary school. The level of

education on study participants ranged from 1 to 11 years.



Procedure

In most instances, a questionnaire that included questions related to family

background, history of delinquent or criminal behavior, and a psychopathy scale was

administered to prison inmates in the institution’s common dining area. In very few

occasions the instrument was administered to inmates in their respective cells. Four

university students from the Autonomous University of Nuevo León (México) served as

interviewers and were responsible for data collection under the supervision of the first

author. These included two undergraduate students from the criminology and

psychology departments as well as two graduate students. Data collection was

conducted during a two day period after obtaining the necessary authorization from the

department of prisons and corrections of the State of Nuevo León (Subsecretaría de

Administración Penitenciaria del Gobierno del Estado de Nuevo León) and after

obtaining informed consent forms from all subjects or participants. Prison guards and

administrators facilitated access to all prison inmates willing to participate in this study

who were not busy working or subjected to some type of institutional punishment.

Inmates were transferred to the institution’s common dining area by the prison guards to

be interviewed during the times of the day that the study interviewers had authorization

to visit.

Instruments

A socio-demographic questionnaire was used to collect data and information

related to criminal behaviors, family background, age, level of formal education, marital

status, occupation, income earned prior to imprisonment (see Appendix A). A 36 item

Likert type scale to measure psychopathy was developed and validated using question

items from the Hare Revised Psychopathy Checklist (see Appendix B). Participants

were asked to answer all questions in a four point scale: 1 (Definitively, no), 2 (I do not

think so), 3 (I think so) and 4 (Yes, of course).

The two negative items were scored using a reverse scoring method. The items

in this scale cover the affective and interpersonal dimensions of Hare’s Revised

Psychopathy Checklist, which possesses a very high Alpha Coefficient (α = .84) (Hare,

2003). This Checklist is lowly correlated (r <.30) with intelligence, anxiety and

depression tests. This is indicative of the instrument’s validity and reliability (Campbell

& Russo, 2001; García-Cadena, 2009).



A team of four master’s level psychology students from the Autonomous

University of Nuevo León, a psychiatrist and this study’s principal investigator worked

on the development of items for the psychopathy scale. Three additional independent

experts were asked to rank order the severity of criminal offenses committed by the

inmates in the study. The resulting items were included in the study’s survey

questionnaire. One of these three experts is a social psychologist with more than 25

years of experience in public safety issues. The second one is a young criminologist and

the third is a researcher in the legal and forensic psychology. None of them were

informed about the objectives of the research study or the study’s theoretical model.

Researchers averaged the severity rankings of the criminal offenses provided by these

three experts and proceeded to include those mean ranking scores in subsequent

analyses.

Data Analysis

The severity of the criminal offenses committed by the prison inmates was

evaluated using a 1 to 30 scale utilizing a Thurstone approach. The resulting evaluations

are considered reliable given that all scores are found within one quartile of the scale.

The construct validity of the psychopathy instrument was determined through an

exploratory factor analysis by principal components. This method seemed appropriate

given the 5:1 subjects/variable ratio, which is a conventional standard in research

(Henson & Roberts, 2006). Moreover, the instrument’s reliability was determined

through the calculation of Cronbach Alphas. Structural equation modeling was used to

measure the effect of the independent variables (age at which they left the parents’

home, current age, income, level of education, age of first imprisonment related to the

psychopathy) on the dependent variables (total number of imprisonments, severity of

criminal offenses, length of sentences, and actual amount of time spent in prison).

Structural equation modeling was appropriate given that the number of elements in the

matrix is greater than the number of parameters to be calculated (Kline, 2010). Data

were analyzed with the assistance of SPSS 15 and AMOS 16.



Results

Table 1 identifies the criminal offenses that lead to the sentencing of subjects in

this study, the score assigned to the severity of each offense by each of the three experts,

and the mean scores assigned to each offense.

Table 1. Experts’ Evaluation of the Severity of Criminal Offenses.

Criminal Offense M

Homicide 28.33

Homicide and offenses against someone’s health 28.33

Homicide and rape 28

Theft and homicide 27.33

Kidnapping and possession of weapons 27

Homicide and carrying firearms 26.67

Theft with violence and depriving others of their freedom 23.67

Comparable rape 22

Complicity in a homicide 21.67

Theft and rape 21.67

Theft with violence and homicide attempt 21.33

Domestic violence and rape 21

Theft with violence and shooting a firearm 19.67

Theft with violence 18.67

Attacks against someone’s modesty or shame, theft, injuries and offenses against one’s health

18

Offenses against one’s health 17.67

Marihuana’s trafficking, possession and sale 17.33

Theft and offenses against one’s health 16.67

Theft and injuries 16

Theft and carrying firearms 14

Fraud 12.67

Carrying firearms 12.33

Injuries 12.33

Attacks against someone’s modesty or shame 11.67

Simple theft 9.67

Damages to someone else’s property 9

Traffic accidents 9

Damages 8.67 Note. M = Mean evaluation score of the severity of criminal offenses provided by three experts

using the Thurstone approach. The range of scores was in all the crimes assessed within one

quartile of the measurement scale (7.5).



The psychopathy scale has 36 items and was validated through an exploratory

factor analysis of principal components resulting in a single 13 item dimension (see

table 2). We selected the items with the highest factor loadings (>.50) in order to get the

best construct indicators and to facilitate the necessary adjustments to the structural

model we seek to develop. The internal consistency of the 13 items is (α = .92). The

mean score of all subjects on this scale is 2.28 with a standard deviation of 0.83, an

asymmetry of -0.08, and a kurtosis of -1.56. Table 2 shows the factor loadings and the

final communalities estimates (portion of the variance of the item explained by the

factor or shared variance) of the 13 items. This factor explains 52.54% of the total

variance. The correlations matrix for the 13 items enabled to extract the main factors: Its

KMO index value was very high (.94), the Bartlett test enabled to reject its equivalency

to an identity matrix, χ2(70) = 995.12, p < .01 and its determinant was close to zero (<

.01) while reaching 91% (71 out of 78) of medium strength correlations (from .30 to

.69) with a variation from .13 to .70 and a mean of .47.

Table 2. Final Communalities Estimates and Factor Loadings of Items Extracted from a

Single Dimension of Psychopathy.

Items Final

Communalities

Factor

Loadings

12. It is justified to lie to protect yourself .71 .84

24. I enjoy deceiving others .71 .84

17. If I do harm to others is because they deserve it .69 .83

10. I enjoy lying .67 .82

28. I manipulate other people to get what I want .67 .82

15. Lying is justified in order to get what you want .63 .80

27. It is correct to make others suffer if they deserve it .62 .79

19. I feel the pain of others in my own flesh .45 .67

8. The best thing I can do is to tell the truth .43 .66

30. I am surrounded by lot’s of dumb and stupid people .36 .60

34. Only dumb people get robbed .31 .56

29. I reach my goals taking other people into account .30 .55

36. Dumb people deserve to be deceived .26 .51

Note. Extraction Method: Principal Components.



In the initial structural model two variables assumed to be predictors of

psychopathy were found not to be significant and were consequently excluded. These

included: level of education (β = -.02, p = .81) and age (β = -.07, p = .42). The degrees

of freedom of the final model finally reached values from good (χ2/df = 1.40 <2, df =

1.34 < 2, PNI = 0.38 < 1, and RMSEA = .04 <.05) to adequate (IFI = .94 >.90, CFI =

.94 >.90, and TLI =.93 >.90) (Moral, 2006). In this model, age of initial imprisonment

(β = -.35, p < .01) and age until which inmates lived with their parents (β = -.25, p <

.01) showed significant negative correlations with psychopathy. Further analyses,

revealed a significant positive association between income and psychopathy (β = .17, p

< .05). Significant negative associations were also found between psychopathy and

severity of criminal offenses (β = -.25, p < .05), length of sentence (β = -.55, p < .01)

and actual length of imprisonment (β = .36, p < .01). A significant positive association

was found between psychopathy and frequency of imprisonment (β = .22, p < .01).

Psychopathy accounted for 21% of the variance in this model while it also explained

31% of the variance of the length of the sentence, 13% of the variance of the actual

length of time spent in prison, 6% of the variance of the severity of the criminal offense,

and 5% of the variance of frequency of imprisonment (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Standardized Model Estimated by the Maximum Likelihood Method.

21%

Psychopathy

33% 8

e1

.57

53% 10

e2

.73

70% 12

e3

.84

50% 15

e4

.70

66% 17

e5

.81

43% 19

e6

.65

68% 24

e7 62%

27

e8

.78

61% 28

e9

.78

24% 29

e10

.49

20% 30

e11

.45

23% 34

e12

.48

21% 36

e13

.46 .82

Age of first Imprisonment

Age of emancipation

Income 13%

Time spent in prison

6%

Severity of offense

31%

Length of sentence

5%

Number of times in prison

e14

-.35

-.25

-.36

-.55

.22

e15

e16

e17

e18

-.25

.17



Discussion

Most explanations of personality disorders focus on early stages of development

and assume problems in child rearing and family structure that resulted from the loss of

one of the parents through divorce or death (Rutter, 2005). According to attachment

theory, children lacking the attachment to a significant adult figure are unable to

empathize and care about others (Van der Horst, 2011). It is difficult to objectively track

down early experiences and even more difficult to measure the effects of those

experiences on people’s current thoughts and feelings.

This study found a significant association between the age at which prison

inmates left their parents’ homes and psychopathy among a group of prison inmates in a

medium security prison in Apodaca, Nuevo León, México. Findings suggest that the

lesser the time subjects spent in their homes of origin, the higher their level of

psychopathy will be. The subgroup of subjects diagnosed as psychopaths lived at their

homes of origin an average of 13 years while inmates not diagnosed as psychopaths

lived at their homes of origin an average of 18 years. This finding suggests the

possibility that the previously mentioned 5 year difference enabled inmates without

psychopathy to develop the capacity to empathize and care about others, even though

our study design does not enable us to clearly establish cause and effect relationships. It

is possible that separating too early from the protection of one’s family of origin may be

a risk factor for psychopathology and more specifically for psychopathy.

Available psychological literature proposes that definite detachment could

develop after prolonged separation from an attachment figure during the first three years

of life (Dunst & Kassow, 2008). This study however did not attempt to test this

proposition, which in our opinion deserves more rigorous research. It would be worth

discovering to what extent the prolonged lack of access of children to attachment

figures may contribute to psychopathy and to what extent psychopathy may lead to

criminal behavior. By attachment figures we mean persons to which normally children

become attached and who children prefer over other individuals.

The findings about the negative associations between psychopathy and the

severity of criminal offenses, the length of the sentence, and the actual length of time

spent in prison are consistent with those reported by Verona et al. (2004) and support

their conclusions that there is no cause and effect relationship between psychopathy and



violence, and that the delinquent acts of psychopaths tend to be instrumental in nature

and they do not necessarily cause harm to their victims.

The findings of this study also support studies conducted in English speaking

countries showing a negative association between age of initial imprisonment and the

degree of psychopathy, and a positive association between psychopathy and the number

of imprisonments and the recidivism of juvenile delinquency (Hart & Hare, 1997,

Hemphill, Hare, & Wong, 1998). All the previous findings are related to factor 1 of the

psychopathy scale covering the socio-affective dimension.

Finally, we recommend the use of our psychopathy scale in penal institutions in

order to separate or differentiate between psychopath and non-psychopath inmates. This

would enable such institutions to provide inmates with appropriate and necessary

education and treatment. Different living spaces could be designated for members of

these two groups. Services could also be provided to psychopath inmates to help them

with their social and affective functioning and development. Therapy sessions could

focus on the role of the therapist as an attachment figure who provides unconditional

acceptance. The therapeutic relationship would help create a solid emotional and

interpersonal foundation, which psychopath inmates very much need (Ansbro, 2008).

Obviously, it would be best to simultaneously research the potential positive effects of

the previous recommendations in a long term study in at least a medium security prison.

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Appendix A

Potential predictors and indicators of psychopathy

1. What was your estimated weekly gross income prior to imprisonment? ______

2. Until what age did you live with your parents? __

3. How many times have you been in prison? ___

4. At what age were you imprisoned for the first time? ___

5. How many consecutive years and months have you spent in prison? ____

6. What criminal offense were you accused of? ____

7. If you have already been sentenced, how many years have you been sentenced

to? ____



Appendix B

Psychopathy Scale

1. The worst is to deceive others.

2. I m not at fault when I destroy the belongings of others, if they deserve it.

3. I always get what I want even if doing so damages other people.

4. People who do not take care of their belongings at responsible for having them

stolen.

5. Almost nobody loves other people.

6. I have sometimes loved another person.

7. Do unto others as you would like for them to do unto you.

8. The best thing I can do is to tell the truth.

9. I worry about the feelings of others.

10. I enjoy lying.

11. I have to be careful about what I say because I could offend others.

12. Lying is justified if you do it to protect yourself.

13. I do not experience remorse when I harm other people

14. I do not worry about what happens to other people.

15. Lying is justified in order to get what you want.

16. It is just for others to make me suffer if I made them suffer first.

17. If I do harm to others is because they deserve it.

18. People who lye are intelligent.

19. I feel the pain of others in my own flesh.

20. Almost nobody hates other people.

21. Almost nobody experiences fear.

22. When somebody neglects his/her belongings, he/she is responsible for their

theft.

23. It is immoral to deceive others.

24. I enjoy deceiving others.

25. I will do anything in order to get what I want.

26. The greatest thing is to lye without getting caught.

27. It is correct to make others suffer if they deserve it.

28. I manipulate other people to get what I want.

29. I reach my goals taking other people into account.



30. I am surrounded by lots of dumb and stupid people.

31. I have sometimes hated other people.

32. It is not my problem if others suffer because of what I do.

33. I have sometimes been afraid of something or someone.

34. Only dumb people get robbed.

35. It is people’s fault if others take advantage of them because they are stupid.

Dumb people deserve to be deceived


Correspondence: Fernando Jiménez. Facultad de Psicología. Dpto. de Personalidad, Evaluación y Tratamiento Psicológicos. Universidad de Salamanca. Avda. de la Merced, 109. 37005 Salamanca (Spain). E-mail: [email protected] ISSN 1889-1861 © The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context

IN SEARCH OF A FAST SCREENING METHOD FOR DETECTING THE MALINGERING OF COGNITIVE

IMPAIRMENT

Guadalupe Sánchez*, Fernando Jiménez*, Amada Ampudia**, Vicente Merino*

*Universidad de Salamanca (España) **Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM (México)

(Received 8 January 2012; revised 14 March 2012; accepted 16 March 2012)

Abstract

Forensic settings demand expedient and conclusive forensic psychological assessment. The aim of this study was to design a simple and fast, but reliable psychometric instrument for detecting the malingering of cognitive impairment. In a quasi-experimental design, 156 individuals were divided into three groups: a normal group with no cognitive impairment; a Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) group; and a group of informed malingerers with no MCI who feigned cognitive impairment. Receiver Operating Curve (ROC) analysis of the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM), and of several subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-III) revealed that the WMS-III was as reliable and accurate as the TOMM in discriminating malingerers from the honest. The results revealed that the diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the WMS-III Auditory Recognition Delayed of Verbal Paired Associates subtest was similar to the TOMM in discriminating malingering from genuine memory impairment. In conclusion, the WMS-III Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates subtest and the TOMM provide a fast, valid and reliable screening method for detecting the malingering of cognitive impairment. Keywords: malingering; cognitive impairment; recognition of verbal paired associates; TOMM; WMS-III

Resumen

En el contexto forense se le demanda al perito psicólogo una evaluación expeditiva y concluyente. Por ello, se planificó un estudio con el objetivo de diseñar una herramienta psicométrica simple, rápida y fiable para la detección de la simulación de deterioro cognitivo. Mediante un diseño cuasi-experimental, 156 individuos fueron divididos en tres grupos: un grupo normal de sujetos sin deterioro cognitivo; un grupo con Deterioro Cognitivo Leve (DCL); y un grupo de sujetos sanos simuladores de deterioro cognitivo. Análisis de la curva ROC del Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) y de varios subtests de la Wechsler Memory Scale-III (WMS-III) mostró que la WMS-III era tan fiable y exacta en la discriminación entre respuestas simuladas y honestas como el TOMM. Además, los resultados también revelaron que la exactitud diagnóstica, la sensibilidad y especificidad del subtest del WMS-III Reconocimiento de Parejas de Palabras eran similares al TOOM en la discriminación entre simuladores y casos verdaderos de deterioro cognitivo. En conclusión, el subtest del WMS-III de Reconocimiento de Parejas de Palabras y el TOMM conforman un método rápido, válido y fable para la detección de la simulación de deterioro cognitivo. Palabras clave: simulación; deterioro cognitivo; reconocimiento de parejas de palabras; TOMM; WMS-III.

136 G. Sánchez et al.


Introduction

In nature, some animals that encounter a life threatening situation have the

ability to change their behaviour in order to elude the peril. Well-known strategies are

remaining motionless, pretending to be dead, camouflage to blend in with the

surrounding environment, etc. It is hardly surprisingly, therefore, that humans under

similar circumstances should develop behavioural strategies to escape danger or

punishment or for profit (e.g., reduction in prison sentence, financial compensation and

insurance claims and benefits, child custody, to avoid losing or to obtain personal

wealth). Moreover, neuroimaging techniques are not sufficiently sensitive to detect

early changes in the brain associated to cognitive impairments (Muñoz-Céspedes &

Paúl-Lapedriza, 2001).

In recent years, the prevalence of cognitive malingering in the courts has been

on the rise, the most common form being the feigning of memory loss caused by brain

injury. However, recent neuropsychology studies suggest that only 40% of cases are

legitimate claims of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) (Larrabee, 2003; Mittenberg,

Patton, Canyock, & Condit, 2002). Defendants often allege memory crime-related

amnesia to elude punishment (Oorsouw & Cima, 2007) in the commonly held belief

that, during the lapse in time between committing the offence and the trial, offenders

will have forgotten the events making it easier for them to feign cognitive impairment

since they only have to stifle their normal cognitive functioning such as recalling or

speaking rather than having to malinger positive symptoms such as hallucinations,

ravings or paranoia (García, Negredo, & Fernández, 2004). On the whole, as

malingerers lack any specific coherent syndrome disorder, they tend to exaggerate

symptoms rather than fabricate them. Hence the most frequent malingering disorders are

exaggerated cognitive, behavioural, sensorial, and personality disorders.

The main features of malingering on both the DSM-III and DSM-IV-TR include

(1) the intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological

symptoms, (2) motivated by external incentives such as obtaining financial

compensation, evading criminal prosecution, avoiding military duty, avoiding work, or

obtaining illicit drugs” American Psychiatric Association 2000, pp. 739–740). Slick,

Sherman, and Iverson (1999) have defined the malingering of cognitive impairment as

the volition to exaggerate cognitive impairment to gain material wealth or to elude

responsibility and punishment (p. 552). Consequently, the diagnosis and assessment of

Memory malingering assessment 137


mild or moderate cognitive impairment (such as memory loss) due to traumatic brain

injury (TBI) or dementia is crucial for forensic contexts. In severe cases there is often

no discrepancy between neuropsychological findings and neuroimaging techniques;

however, in mild to moderate cases, the assessment of injuries and their impact on a

person´s daily life is highly challenging and problematic.

This has prompted business, lawyers, insurance companies and researchers to

design and develop psychometric methods and instruments for detecting malingering.

As memory loss is the most commonly feigned brain injury, most tests have focused on

the evaluation of this cognitive process, and the detection of abnormal memory

performance (Bender, 2008; Martins & Martins, 2010).

In order to assess the reliability of empirical data, some researchers have worked

with groups of malingers in various contexts using different scales and instruments

(Arce, Fariña, Carballal, & Novo, 2006; Jiménez & Sánchez, 2002, 2003, Kirk et al.,

2011, Luna & Martín-Luengo, 2010; Rogers, 2008; Rosenfeld, Edens, & Lowmaster,

2011). Other authors, have analyzed diagnostic accuracy (e.g., Berry & Schipper, 2008),

in terms of sensitivity and specificity of malingering using the ROC curve (Irwin, 2009;

Jiménez, Sánchez, & Tobon, 2009; Pintea & Moldovan, 2009; Santosa, Hautus, &

O'Mahony, 2011; Streiner & Cairney, 2007) in order to compare the data.

The decade of the 1990´s witnessed a surge in journal publications on

neuropsychological research (e.g., Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, Journal of

Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, The Clinical Neuropsychologist) focusing

on deceit and malingering. Of 139 forensic articles, 120 (86%) addressed deceit or

malingering (Sweet, Ecklund-Johnson, & Malina, 2008; Sweet, King, Malina, Bergman,

& Simmonds, 2002). Similarly, the prevalence of malingering and deception was higher

in criminal than in civil contexts (Ardolf, Denney, and Houston, 2007). An estimated 25

to 45% (Kopelman, 1987) and up to 65% (Bradford & Smith, 1979) of defendants

standing trial for murder allege crime related amnesia to elude responsibility and

punishment with a plea of insanity (Jelicic & Merckelbach , 2007; Merckelbach &

Christianson, 2007; Oorsouw & Merckelbach, 2010).

As for the methodology regarding the participants, García et al. (2004) propose

two alternative methods for assessing the feigning of cognitive impairment: a) a

laboratory experimental design where subjects are assigned to an experimental group of

malingerers who receive specific malingering instructions for feigning a particular

situation or event, and b) an assessment of real malingers e.g., parties involved in



litigation who stand to gain from deception. Though the latter would be the optimum

choice for research purposes, it is undoubtedly the most difficult to assess empirically

due to the difficulty in locating and evaluating real malingerers (Iverson & Franzen,

1996).

As for the psychometric instruments employed for detecting malingering, some

techniques are based on the ceiling-floor-effect and others on the forced-choice formats.

Though most of the tests are simple, they appear to be complex, and induce malingers to

overate the difficulty of a task and score higher (ceiling) or lower (floor) than

individuals with severe brain dysfunction (Flowers, Bolton, & Brindle, 2008;

Ziólkowska, 2007). The forced-choice format, where subjects have to choose between

two or more alternatives, either visual or auditory, is currently the most widely used

format (García et al., 2004; Muñoz-Céspedes & Paúl-Lapedriza, 2001). These tests

calculate the percentage of random answers, subjects answering significantly below

chance performance is indicative of malingering or exaggerating. Though these simple

tests are sensitive to wild exaggeration, they succumb to subtle deceit (García et al.,

2004).

Sharland and Gfeller´s (2007) review of the neuropsychology techniques used

for detecting the malingering of memory impairment revealed that 75% of professionals

used the TOMM, 41% the Word Memory Test (WMT), and 18% the Victoria Symptom

Valid Test (VSVT).

In this study two instruments were employed to detect the malingering of

memory impairment i.e., the specificity and sensitivity of the Wechsler-III Memory

Scale, and the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM).

The Wechsler Memory Scale-III (WMS-III, Wechsler, 2004) for the detection of

malingering has revealed that the General Memory Index was usually below the

Attention-Concentration Index in patients with well documented brain damage (Ord,

Greve, & Bianchini, 2008; West, Curtis, Greve, & Bianchini, 2011) whereas in the

malingerers group the opposite tendency was observed (Mittenberg, Arzin, Millsaps, &

Heilbronner, 1993). This technique was employed in this study as it enables the

assessment of immediate memory, working memory and delayed memory. Each of

these types of memory can be evaluated in terms of two modalities: auditory and visual,

and two types of tasks: recall and recognition. Wechsler Memory Scale consists of a

total of 11 tests (6 primary and 5 optional subtests), that have been adapted to the

Spanish population (Wechsler, 2004). As the Wechsler Memory Scale is extensive, and



the aim of this study was to develop a fast screening method for the detection of

malingerers, only 5 of the 11subtests were assessed in this study.

The Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM), designed to detect the malingering

of memory impairment (Tombaugh, 1996, 1997, 2002, 2011), provides good sensitivity

for forensic settings (Delain, Stafford, & Ben-Porath, 2003; Gast & Hart, 2010; Sweet,

Condit, & Nelson, 2008).

As forensic evaluations are often performed under the pressure of tight deadlines

set by the courts for the submission of forensic reports, the present study aims to design

a fast screening psychometric instrument with good diagnostic accuracy and

discriminating power indexes for the detection of malingered memory loss. The

participants, assigned to one of three groups (Normal, MCI or informed malingers),

were administered 6 different types of memory evaluation tests (Digit Span, Faces I and

II, Verbal Paired Associates I and II, Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates and

Family Pictures I and II). In addition to correlations and ANOVAs, Receiver Operating

Curve (ROC) analysis was undertaken. A ROC curve is a graphical representation of

the success rate or sensitivity (probability of correctly detecting a presented signal)

against a false alarm rate or specificity (probability of detecting a signal when it is

actually not presented) for detection tasks with binary classifier system of responses

(yes/no, present/absent), the number of true positive, true negatives, false positives and

false negatives will determined by the position of the cut-off point for detecting

malingering. In both medicine and psychology, test sensitivity and specificity are used

to validate diagnostic decision-making. These concepts, combined with the area under

the curve (AUC), are widely used to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy and

discriminating power of a psychological test (e.g., for illness classification), and

circumvent the need for expensive, time consuming diagnostic tests.

Method

Participants

A total of 156 participants who freely volunteered were assigned to one of three

groups. The first group, termed normal, consisted of 57 individuals, average age of

31.48 years (SD = 2.13), with no memory impairment were given specific instructions

to answer truthfully and honestly to each of the tests. The second group, termed MCI

was composed of 41 individuals, average age of 64.00 years (SD = 2.60), who had been



previously evaluated on the Mini-Mental State Examination memory tests (Folstein,

Folstein, & McHugh, 1975) and had been diagnosed for MCI (score range 24-29;

Spanish adaptation of Lobo, Ezquerra, Gómez, Sala, & Seva, 1979), were given specific

instructions to answer truthfully and honestly to each of the tests. The third group

comprised 58 informed malingers, average age of 21.12 years (SD = .22) with no

memory impairment, who were instructed to feign they suffered memory impairment.

Measuring instruments

The Spanish version (Wechsler, 2004) of the Wechsler Memory Scale-III

(WMS-III) was used since, at the time of data gathering, the adapted IV version of the

WMS that assesses immediate, delayed, and working memory was unavailable in Spain.

Each of these types of memory can be evaluated by two modalities: visual and auditory

with two task types: recall and recognition. The WMS-III consists of a total of 11 tests

(6 primary and 5 optional subtests). Bearing in mind the main objective of this study

was to design a fast screening psychometric instrument for detecting the malingering of

memory impairment, the full WAIS-III scale was not applied and the most

representative subscales of the subject's ability to remember and manipulate the

information presented both auditory and visually in working memory were selected.

Thus, participants underwent the following tests:

− Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM). This instrument developed by Tombaugh

(1996, 1997, 2002, 2011) for detecting the malingering of mnemonic disorders

comprises 50 items (drawn objects), and has been found to be unaffected by

demographic variables such as age or educational status. Comparative studies

(Tombaugh, 1997) have shown that the implementation of TOMM that partially

measures learning and memory, detects cognitive impairment in patients. It is a

visual test for assessing the ability to memorize, either immediate or delayed, a

series of drawn objects that have been previously presented.

− Mini-Cognitive Test. The Mini-Examen Cognoscitivo is Lobo´s et al. (1979)

Spanish adaptation of the Mini-Mental State Examination (Folstein et al., 1975).

This test was only administered to the MCI group. It is a fast screening test to

discriminate (5-10 minutes) between cognitive normality and abnormality

specifically, but not only, in elderly populations. There are two versions of 30 and

35 items, the latter being the most currently in use, and was employed in this study.



This tool explores five cognitive areas: Orientation, Fixation, Concentration and

Calculation, Memory, and Language.

− And the WAIS-III subscales (Wechsler, 2004):

1) Digit Span. It is an original WAIS-III subtest that assesses a person’s ability to

remember information immediately after oral presentation (immediate auditory

memory), and is widely used as a tool to detect malingering, and as an index of

deception (Berry & Schipper, 2008; Jasinski, Berry, Shandera, & Clark, 2011).

2) Faces I and II. Designed to obtain information on the ability to recall visual

information immediate (phase-I) and delayed (phase-II). The average reliability

coefficient for the age groups (16 to 89 years) was .74 in both the first and

second phase (Wechsler, 2004).

3) Verbal Paired Associates I and II. The objective of these subtests is to assess a

person's ability to recall items presented verbally immediate (phase I) or delayed

(phase II). The reliability coefficients (Cronbach's α) were .93 (phase I) and .83

(phase II) when the average coefficients were determined at different ages

(Wechsler, 2004).

4) Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates. This subtest seeks to assess the ability

to recall the information presented after a 25 to 35-minute time interval. It is an

extension of the previous test of Verbal Paired Associates. Using the same

stimuli of 24 paired words, the subject has to re-read a list and recall using a

(yes/no) format the items on the first list.

5) Family Pictures I and II. This test aims to assess the ability to remember,

immediate (Phase I) or delayed (phase II), visual-spatial memory. The reliability

(Cronbach's α) for this test was .81, for immediate, and .84 for the delayed

memory (Wechsler, 2004).

Procedure and design

A quasi-experimental design was used in this study, it is “quasi-experimental” in

that participants had not been randomly selected and assigned to groups i.e., participants

had been previously selected and assigned to groups, and "descriptive" in that it

compares the specificity and diagnostic accuracy of each test in detecting malingering.



All participants responded voluntarily. The normal and MCI groups were

instructed to reply to the test following the guidelines (standard rules), on sincerity and

honesty established in the manuals.

The fact that informed malingers were given specific malingering instructions to

avoid random responses as they are strong evidence of malingering since feigners of

disability often act on the false belief that they must obtain fewer than 50% correct

answers in order to prove their disability (García et al., 2004). Patients with memory

loss are expected to achieve a 50% success rate, but with each test the malinger is

repeatedly faced with the same dilemma i.e., if they try to feign a disability, they run the

risk of failing too many responses since patients who feign erroneously believe that the

correct score should fall below chance performance. Subjects answering significantly

below chance performance are considered to be malingering or exaggerating.

The informed malingers were given malingering instructions, shown examples

of the most common forms of deceit, and asked to further develop their own particular

strategy of deception. The following are the specific instructions: "Imagine you could

claim a large sum of money, or obtain substantial benefits if you could convince us that

you have memory loss, and that it affects your work or daily life. Most people use the

strategy of random answers, others try to answer correctly to everything, and others

recall only the first words, pictures or given phrases. You must choose your own

strategy to really convince us that your memory fails, okay? Bellow I will show you a

series of drawings or figures ..." (continue with the general instructions of the test).

The implications and personal consequences that may arise from the

interpretation of psychological tests in forensic settings underscore the need to assess

test accuracy and diagnostic discriminating power: a) for the diagnostic accuracy of

each test the AUC analysis must exceed the minimum value of .90 (excellent accuracy);

b) the minimum value of the diagnostic discrimination test must exceed 90% sensitivity

and specificity. However, other authors (Burgueño, García-Bastos, & González-

Buitrago, 1995) have proposed 80%.

Results

One-way ANOVAs performed for the group factor (normal, malingerers, and

MCIs) on the memory impairment measures revealed significant differences in all

measures (see Table 1). Post hoc analyses with Bonferroni correction (see Table 2)

showed that: a) all of the tests analysed in this study were able to statistically



discriminate between malingers and normal individuals with no memory impairment.

Remarkably, the Family Pictures test and TOMM obtained a high score; b) TOMM and

the Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates test failed to statistically discriminate

between normal subjects with no memory impairment and the MCI group; c) only

TOMM, the Digit Span, and Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates significantly

discriminated between malingers and the MCI group; and d) only the Digit Span test

statistically discriminated the three groups, with a medium effect size, d = .64 and d =

.62, comparing the scores for the MCI group with normal subjects and malingers, and a

large effect size, d = 1.18, between normal subjects and malingers.

Table 1. ANOVAs for Factor Group (normal, malingerers, and MCIs).

Variables F p MN MM MMCI

TOMM-R 125.76 .000 49.89 30.88 46.78

Digit Span 88.96 .000 15.96 6.14 10.95

Faces-II 68.88 .000 39.56 28.19 30.51

VPA-II 100.77 .000 7.07 2.31 2.68

VPA.Rec 100.20 .000 23.93 16.79 22.59

F.Pictures-II 89.19 .000 9.56 3.45 6.05

Note. df(2, 153); MN = mean of the normal group; MM = mean of the malingerer group; MMCI= mean of the Mild Cognitive Impairment group; Digit Span = Digit Span, WMS-III Subtest; Faces-II = WMS-III Subtest; VPA-II = Verbal Paired Associates-II, WMS-III Subtest; VPA.Rec. = Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates, WMS-III Subtest; F. Pictures-II = Family Pictures II, WMS-III Subtest.

Table 2. Mean Difference (I-J) and Effect Size (d).

TOMM-R Digit Span Faces-II VPA-II VPA.Rec. F. Pictures-II Groups

MD d MD d MD d MD d MD d MD d

Malingerers/Normal -19.01* 1.33 -9.83* 1.18 -11.37* 1.00 -4.76* 1.28 -7.14* 1.16 -22.36* 1.04

Normal/MCI 3.11 .41 5.01* .64 9.05* .89 4.39* 1.15 1.34 .48 28,51* 1.19

Malingerers/MCI -15.90* .92 -4.81* .62 -2.32 .21 -.37 .08 -5.79* .80 -6.16 .31

Note. * Bonferroni Significant Difference (BSD); MD = Mean difference (I-J); MCI = Mild Cognitive Impairment; Digit Span = Digit Span, WMS-III Subtest; Faces-II = WMS-III Subtest; VPA-II = Verbal Paired Associates-II, WMS-III Subtest; VPA.Rec. = Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates, WMS-III Subtest; F. Pictures-II = Family Pictures II, WMS-III Subtest.

On the whole, the analysis of the correlations (see Table 3) between tests

revealed all of the correlations were significant, ps < .001, and positive, ranging from



.83 (TOMM-Retention and Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates) to .46

(Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates and Family Pictures-II); that is, the explained

variance ranging from 21.16 to 68.72% (a large effect size).

Table 3. Correlation Matrix.

Test TOMM-R Digit

Span Faces-II VPA-II VPA. Rec. F. Pictures-II

TOMM-R 1 .683* .634* .581* .829* .430*

Digit Span .683* 1 .679* .664* .667* .617*

Faces-II .634* .679* 1 .678* .683* .752*

VPA-II .581* .664* .678* 1 .637* .766*

VPA. Rec .829* .667* .683* .637* 1 .460*

F. Pictures-II .430* .617* .752* .766* .460* 1

Note. * p < .001 (two tailed); TOMM-R = TOMM Retention subtest; Digit Span = Digit Span, WMS-III subtest; Faces-II = Faces, WMS-III subtest; VPA-II = Verbal Paired Associates-II, WMS-III subtest; VPA.Rec. = Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates, WMS-III subtest; F. Pictures-II = Family Pictures II, WMS-III subtest.

Sensitivity and specificity

The key property of a clinical diagnostic test is accuracy, defined as the ability to

properly classify individuals into clinically relevant subgroups. In its simplest form, it is

the ability to distinguish between two states of health (healthy and sick). The accuracy

of a diagnostic test is measured in terms of sensitivity and specificity as determined by

the cut-off values above or below which the test is positive.

As cut-offs vary according to healthy and sick populations, a more

comprehensive method for evaluating the full range of test cut-off scores is by using of

a ROC curve, which is a fundamental and standardized tool for the evaluation of

diagnostic tests. The ROC curve is a graph showing the sensitivity/specificity pairs

resulting from the continuous variation in the cut-off points for the entire range of

observed results. The vertical axis represents the sensitivity or true positive fraction, and

the X axis represents the specificity or false positive fraction. The results of the ROC

curve analyses were compared to ascertain which memory tests discriminated malingers

from non-malingers with the greatest diagnostic accuracy. Table 4 shows the

comparison of the ROC cut-off, sensitivity, specificity and AUC for each of the groups

under study.



Table 4. Comparative Analysis between Groups: Cut-Off, Sensitivity, Specificity and

Area Under the Curve (AUC).

Malingers /Normal Malingers/MCI Normal/ MCI

Tests Cut-off

Sensib.

(%)

Especif.

(%)

AUC

(ROC)

Cut-

off

Sens.

(%)

Specif.

(%)

AUC

(ROC)

Cut-

off

Sens.

(%)

Specif.

(%)

AUC

(ROC)

TOMM-R ≤ 48 96.55 98.2 .981* ≤ 42 89.66 87.80 .917* ≤ 49 46.34 91.23 .704*

Digit Span ≤ 11 89.66 85.96 .949* ≤ 6 63.79 100.00 .826* ≤ 11 70.73 85.96 .814*

Faces-II ≤ 36 94.83 77.19 .910* ≤ 28 55.71 65.85 .628 ≤ 36 90.24 77.19 .886*

VPA-II ≤ 4 87.93 87.72 .933* ≤ 2 65.52 51.22 .548 ≤ 5 90.24 84.21 .936*

VPA. Rec. ≤ 23 91.32 94.74 .953* ≤ 21 82.76 87.80 .871* ≤ 23 58.54 94.74 .771*

F. Pictures-II ≤ 27 84.48 91.23 .913* ≤ 16 72.41 68.29 .715* ≤ 28 95.12 89.47 .939*

Note. * p < .05; **p < .01; AUC = Area Under the Curve; MCI = Mild Cognitive Impairment; TOMM-R = TOMM Retention subtest; Digit Span = Digit Span, WMS-III subtest; Faces-II = Faces, WMS-III subtest; VPA-II = Verbal Paired Associates-II, WMS-III subtest; VPA.Rec. = Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates, WMS-III subtest; F. Pictures-II = Family Pictures II, WMS-III subtest.

As for which of the tests can discriminate malingerers from individuals with no

memory deficits who answered honestly, our results showed that each and every one of

the 6 memory tests used in this study were found to be significant at different levels,

both in their differences in their mean scores and in their diagnostic accuracy (AUC),

with Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates exhibiting the highest diagnostic accuracy

(AUC = .981 and AUC = .953, respectively). In terms of sensitivity (probability of

detecting malingering) and specificity (probability of detecting non-malingering), only

the TOMM and the Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates proved valid for forensic

applications.

Despite of the statistical significance, both in term of the mean differences

(Table 2) and the diagnostic accuracy (AUC), the Digit Span, Faces-II, Verbal Paired

Associates, and Family pictures -II (Table 4) entailed a greater risk of wrong or false

diagnosis in comparison to the other tests.

Figure 1 shows the different paths of the ROC curve, and the cut-off points for

malingerers and non- malingerers in each test.



Figure 1. Comparison of Malingerers and Normal in Test Performance.

0 20 40 60 80 1000

20

40

60

80

100

100-Specificity

Sen

sitiv

ity

Tomm-RWMS.DigitSpanWMS.Faces-IIWM.F.Picture-IIWM.VPA-IIWMS.VPA.Rec

Note. TOMM-R = TOMM, Retention subtest; WMS. Digit Span = Digit Span, WMS-III subtest; WMS. Faces-II = Faces, WMS-III subtest; WMS.F. Pictures-II = Family Pictures II, WMS-III subtest; WMS.VPA-II = Verbal Paired Associates-II, WMS-III subtest; WMS.VPA.Rec. = Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates, WMS-III subtest.

Table 3 shows that TOMM, Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates, the Digit

Span and Family Pictures-II tests statistically discriminated malingers from the MCI

group. However, Faces-II and Verbal Paired Associates-II tests were not able to

discriminate both of these groups. Figure 2 shows the path of each of the curves for the

different tests at various cut-off points.



Figure 2. Comparison of Malingerers and MCIs in Test Performance.

0 20 40 60 80 1000

20

40

60

80

100

100-Specificity

Sen

sitiv

ity


Note. TOMM-R = TOMM, Retention subtest of Memory Malingering (TOMM) test; WMS. Digit Span = Digit Span, Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-III) subtest; WMS.Faces-II = Faces, Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-III) subtest; WMS.F.Pictures-II = Family Pictures II, Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-III) subtest; WMS.VPA-II = Verbal Paired Associates-II, Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-III) subtest; WMS.VPA.Rec. = Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates, Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-III) subtest.

On the whole, the comparison of the area under the ROC curve between normal

and MCI groups (Table 4) in the different tests revealed diagnostic accuracy was good,

the Family Pictures-II and Verbal Paired Associates obtained the highest values (AUC =

.939 and AUC = .936, respectively), with Family Pictures-II showing greatest

sensitivity and specificity. The sensitivity and specificity of the other tests was poor and

increased the risk of false diagnosis with the TOMM test showing the lowest sensitivity

(Figure 3).



Figure 3. Comparison of MCIs and Normal in Test Performance.

0 20 40 60 80 100

0

20

40

60

80

100

100-Specificity

Sen

sitiv

ity


Note. TOMM-R = TOMM, Retention subtest; WMS.Digit Span = Digit Span, WMS-III subtest; WMS.Faces-II= Faces, WMS-III subtest; WMS.F.Pictures-II = Family Pictures-II, WMS-III subtest; WMS.VPA-II = Verbal Paired Associates-II, WMS-III subtest; WMS.VPA.Rec. = Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates, WMS-III subtest.

Of all the test, the TOMM and the Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates in

the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-III) had the greatest predictive power in

discriminate sincere subjects from malingers. The TOMM showed good diagnostic

accuracy and discrimination power between the normal group (M = 49.89, 95% CI

[49.80, 49.99]) and malingerers (M = 30.88, 95% CI [28.23, 33.53] as illustrated by the

ROC curve with good sensitivity and specificity above 96% with a cut-off value ≤ 48.

The Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates in the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-III)

also showed good diagnostic accuracy and discrimination power between the normal

group (M = 23.93, 95% CI [23.85, 24.01]) and malingerers (M = 16.79, 95% CI [18.08,

22.58] as illustrated by the ROC curve with good sensitivity and specificity above 91%

with a cut-off value ≤ 23.

Langeluddecke and Lucas (2003) comparison on the WMS-III of 25 claimants

with mild brain damage involved in litigation and 50 other individuals with severe brain



damage but no involvement in litigation showed that two subtests of the WMS-III i.e.,

the Auditory Recognition Delayed (80% sensitivity and specificity of 91.8%), and the

list of Words-II (81% sensitivity and specificity of 95.6%) were significant

discriminators. Faces-I and -II subtests showed good specificity (96% and 98%,

respectively), but low sensitivity (32% and 28%, respectively). Hacker and Jones (2009)

study of 27 individuals with traumatic brain injury, 30 normal and 30 malingerers using

the Auditory Recognition Delayed of Verbal Paired Associates subtest of the Wechsler

Memory Scale (WMS-III) reported low levels of sensitivity (40-73%) and high

specificity (95-100%). Vilar-López et al´s. (2007) study on 35 Spanish psychology

undergraduates considered normal (n = 14) and a group with post-concussion syndrome

(in litigation or not) (n = 12) showed that, in comparison to other techniques, the

effectiveness of TOMM test was similar with a cut-off point of 45 in the second part of

the test (not the retention test). Our results for the TOMM test and Verbal Paired

Associates (recognition) were consistent with their findings: a) both tests obtained the

highest values with honest subjects (normal group) being significantly different from

the informed malingerers group), b) both tests have shown that the MCI group obtained

higher scores than the group of informed malingerers, and c) malingers obtained the

lowest scores.

Discussion

Forensic experts are often under intense pressure from the courts to submit

expert evaluations and reports under tight deadlines. This underscores the need for

designing a simple but accurate and reliable fast screening psychometric instrument for

detecting the malingering of memory impairment. The total implementation time for the

combined WSM and TOMM tests was 35-40 minutes, including the time interval

specified between tests. Care was taken in applying the different parts of the tests, and

in observing the 15-minute waiting period between the administration of TOMM trials

1and 2 and the “Retention” test (trial 3) as it functions as a distraction. During this time

interval, the first subtest of the WSM i.e., the Verbal Paired Associates I was

administered prior to proceeding to the “TOMM-R (trial 3) followed by the Verbal

Paired Associates II. Although the tests are simple, there is no reason to believe they are

less accurate and reliable than the application of a battery of complex memory tests that

reiterate information obtained in each of the tests.



In the present study, the test of memory malingering (TOMM) and 5 of the 11

subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-III) were used to design the fast

screening scale. Bearing in mind that some of the participants had cognitive

impairments, it was vital to save time and energy, prevent fatigue, and to ensure the

participant did not have the opportunity to reflect on their responses to the tests.

A key limitation of studies assessing memory deficits is the small population

size for patients with amnesia or malingering. One option is to assign normal subjects

with no memory disorder who are instructed to feign to an experimental group (Jelicic,

Ceunen, Peters, & Merckelbach, 2011; Powell, Gfeller, Hendricks, & Sharlan, 2004).

Notwithstanding, the assumption that the behaviour of informed malingerers is

comparable to the behaviour of real malingerers who really feign the core symptoms of

a disorder is highly controversial given that the motivations of these population types

are clearly different. In this study the responses to different memory tests applied to a

MCI group diagnosed through the Mini-Mental State Examination (Folstein et al., 1975)

were analyzed with a 24-29 cut-off for the Spanish version (Lobo et al., 1979).

It is worth noting that the Delayed Auditory Recognition of paired words

(auditory memory), a subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale, in combination with the

TOMM (visual memory) accurately discriminated sincere subjects from malingerers.

However, in this study the cut-off point (≤ 48) for the TOMM test was higher than the

cut-off points reported by other authors using the same test (Powell et al., 2004;

Teichner & Wagner, 2004; Vilar-López et al., 2007, 2008).

Though some authors have proposed the TOMM-R should be optional and need

be administered only if the Trial 2 cut-off score is below 45 given that the Retention test

scores are analogous to TOMM trial 2, and Trial 3 detects only a small number of

malingerers (Booksh, Aubert, & Andrews, 2007; Greve & Bianchini, 2006), we

consider this exclusion would undermine test reliability and validity, and would be

remiss in forensic contexts.

The main drawback underlying the predictive power of these tools is that they

depend entirely on varying cut-off criterion for each test. The path of the ROC curve for

each psychometric instrument allows for visual and statistical comparison, providing a

single measure for all cut-offs of diagnostic accuracy; notwithstanding, establishing the

appropriate cut-off point varies according to the circumstances. One option is to seek

the highest sensitivity when the disorder or illness is severe and manifest, when the

disease is treatable, or when the results of false positives do not entail psychological



trauma or financial loss. High specificity should be required for severe disorders or

diseases, difficult to treat or practically incurable illnesses, and when it is crucial for

medical or psychological reasons to detect non-existent ailments. Thus, a test with a

positive predictive power (PP+) should be used when false positives can have serious

repercussions. A higher overall cut-off value is desired when the disorder or disease is

severe but curable, or when both false positives and false negatives involve severe

trauma.

In general, we are aware of the difficulty in establishing commonly agreed

"optimal cut-offs" which in any case requires previously establishing the objectives of

diagnosis and cost/benefits entailed. But this depends mainly on the context, and in

many cases it is simply impossible to know the cost and potential benefits, economic or

otherwise. The best approach is to find a adequate balance between specificity and

sensitivity, being the most commonly used criteria in clinical and psychological

detection techniques.

As neither sensitivity nor specificity assess the probability of making a correct

diagnosis, two further indices were developed i.e., the positive predictive power (PP +),

and the negative predictive Power (PP-). Unfortunately, these indicators have the

drawback that they depend on the prevalence base rate (the total number of individuals

who are actually positive in the total population), and this value never depended on the

cut-off point in our test. Whereas sensitivity and specificity, and thus the ROC curve

and the positive and negative probability ratios are all independent of the prevalence of

a disease, the positive and negative predictive values are highly dependent on the

sample size.

Regardless of the controversy, we recommend that malingering should always

be diagnosed on the basis of several sources: autobiographical interview, clinical

evaluation, and quantitative analysis of the different techniques. Having a battery of

complex tests to detect malingering is impractical for judicial contexts as it is time

consuming and the results are reiterated in each test. In this study the results for the Test

of memory malingering (TOMM) and the Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates

(WMS-III) provided an accurate and fast screening method for the detection of

malingering.

A further limitation of this study was sample size i.e., locating and assessing real

malingerers is problematic since by definition they strive to conceal their deceit. Thus,

further studies are required on larger populations to ensure greater reliability and



generalization of the results, which may be crucial for determining personal outcomes in

judicial contexts. Moreover, no matter how well informed malingerers may be trained,

one should be cautious in extrapolating the results to individuals involved in litigation

and who stand to obtain or lose financial compensation or other benefits.

In short, in this study the Recognition of Verbal Paired Associates subtest and

the TOMM exhibited the greatest accuracy, and provide a fast, valid and reliable

screening method for detecting the malingering.

Acknowledgements

Support for this research was provided by a grant from the Autonomous Government of

Castilla y León (Spain) (SA051A08).

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Correspondence: Santiago Redondo Illescas, Passeig Vall d’Hebrón, 171 (Edifici Ponent), 6ª planta, 08035- Barcelona (Spain). E-mail: [email protected] ISSN 1889-1861 © The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context

THERAPEUTIC EFFECTS OF A COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOURAL TREATMENT WITH JUVENILE OFFENDERS

Santiago Redondo, Ana Martínez-Catena, and Antonio Andrés-Pueyo

Dept. of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment, University of Barcelona, Barcelona (Spain)

(Received 12 February 2012; revised 30 March 2012; accepted 1 April 2012)

Abstract

Several treatment evaluations have highlighted the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioural programmes with both youth and adult offenders. This paper describes the application and assessment of a cognitive-behavioural treatment (adapted to Spanish from Ross and Fabiano’s Reasoning & Rehabilitation Programme) with juvenile offenders serving community orders in an educational measure called in Spanish ‘libertad vigilada’ (similar to parole). The intervention comprised six different therapeutic components: self-control, cognitive restructuring, problem solving, social skills/assertiveness, values/empathy, and relapse prevention. Treatment effectiveness was tested using a quasi-experimental design involving two groups and pre/post evaluation. The results show that the programme was effective (with low to moderate effect sizes) in improving participants’ social skills and self-esteem, as well as in reducing their aggressiveness. However, the intervention had no positive influence on empathy, cognitive distortions or impulsiveness. These results are in line with those of many other correctional studies, in which the treatment applied had a significant but partial effect on participants. Keywords: juvenile offenders; correctional treatment; cognitive-behavioural programmes; Reasoning & Rehabilitation; effectiveness assessment.

Resumen

Diferentes estudios han puesto de manifiesto la eficacia de los programas cognitivo-conductuales aplicados como tratamiento en delincuentes adultos y jóvenes. Este trabajo describe la aplicación y evaluación de un tratamiento cognitivo-conductual (una adaptación del programa “Razonamiento y Rehabilitación” de Ross y Fabiano), aplicado a delincuentes juveniles que cumplen sus sanciones en condiciones de libertad vigilada y en contextos comunitarios. El programa de intervención incluía seis componentes terapéuticos: autocontrol, reestructuración cognitiva, resolución de problemas, habilidades sociales / asertividad, valores/empatía y la prevención de recaídas. La efectividad del tratamiento se evaluó mediante un diseño cuasi-experimental en dos grupos y se realizó una evaluación pre / post-tratamiento. Los resultados muestran que el programa fue efectivo (con una magnitud del tamaño del efecto entre baja y moderada) en la mejora de las habilidades sociales de los participantes y la autoestima, así como en la reducción de su agresividad. Sin embargo, la intervención no tuvo influencia positiva en la empatía, las distorsiones cognitivas y la impulsividad. Estos resultados están en línea con muchos otros estudios análogos, en los que el tratamiento aplicado tuvo un efecto significativo, aunque parcial, en los participantes. Palabras clave: delincuentes juveniles; tratamiento penitenciario; programas cognitivo-conductuales, Razonamiento y Rehabilitación, evaluación de la eficacia.

160 S. Redondo et al.


Introduction

Most current psychological treatments with youth and adult offenders are based

on the social learning theory of delinquent behaviour, coupled with a cognitive-

behavioural model (Andrews & Bonta, 2010; Hollin, 2006; McGuire, 2006; Moore,

2011; Thornberry, Lizotte, Krohn, Smith, & Porter, 2003). Social learning theory asserts

that antisocial behaviour is learned by means of the differential association with

offenders, the imitation of them, the acquisition of anti-social definitions or beliefs, and

the differential reinforcement of criminal values and acts (Akers, 2009; Yarbrough,

Jones, Sullivan, Sellers, & Cochran, 2011). In relation to this theory, the cognitive-

behavioural model of treatment usually involves a combined intervention that addresses

the thinking, emotions and social skills of juvenile offenders. It has been shown to be

the most effective approach in this field (Day, 2009; Echeburúa, Fernández-Montalvo,

& Amor, 2006; Lipsey, 2009; Piquero, Jennings, & Farrington, 2009; Redondo, 2008;

Ross & Fontao, 2010).

Currently the most widely-accepted theory of offender rehabilitation is the risk-

need-responsivity model (Andrews & Bonta, 2010), which distinguishes between static

and dynamic risk factors for crime. Static risk factors are all those criminogenic

influences that are related to an individual’s past experiences (for instance, having

suffered child abuse) and to his/her basic patterns of personality (such as a psychopathic

profile). Although they contribute to an increased risk of crime, static risk factors are

generally not modifiable. By contrast, dynamic factors are changeable variables. Some

of them such as antisocial cognitions, criminal routines, drug addictions and social skills

deficits, are typically connected with crime and can be modified by means of an

appropriate intervention (Ogloff, 2002; Ogloff & Davis, 2004). In Andrews and Bonta’s

model the dynamic factors mentioned are considered as criminogenic needs when

establishing the objectives of offender treatments (Andrews & Bonta, 2010; Hollin &

Palmer, 2006).

At present, one of the best-known programmes of offender intervention is the

Reasoning & Rehabilitation Programme (R&R) developed by Ross and Fabiano (1985).

This comprises different treatment techniques, each of which has previously been

shown to be effective in this field. The main purpose of the R&R programme is to

improve participants’ thinking skills, training them to be more reflexive (as opposed to

Therapeutic effects of CBT 161


reactive), open-minded, and capable of planning. In the intervention modeling, role-

playing, rehearsal, cognitive exercises and reinforcement strategies are used. The

original design of this programme included 38 two-hour sessions in groups of 6 to 12

participants (Porporino & Fabiano, 2000). Nevertheless, different versions of the R&R

programme have altered its format according to offence type and criminal severity of

participants (Hollin & Palmer, 2006). The main components of the programme include

interpersonal cognitive problem-solving skills, social skills, self-control, emotional

management, creative thinking, critical reasoning, values enhancement, and meta-

cognition (McGuire, 2006).

Several analyses of treatment programmes with adult and juvenile offenders in

different countries, including the first evaluation of the R&R programme from the

Pickering Experiment (Ross, Fabiano, & Ewles, 1988) have shown that the R&R

programme is effective in changing certain psychological variables related to crime

(social skills, assertiveness, cognitive skills and distortions, impulsivity and empathy),

and in decreasing violent behaviour and recidivism (Blud, Travers, Nugent, &

Thornton, 2003; Clarke, Simmonds, & Wydall, 2004; Friendship, Blud, Erikson,

Travers, & Thornnton, 2003; Hollin & Palmer, 2009; Kethineni & Braithwaite, 2010;

Martín, Hernández, Hernández-Fernaud, Arregui, & Hernández, 2010; Piquero et al.,

2009; Wilson, Bouffard, & Mackenzie, 2005). A specific meta-analysis of 19

applications of the R&R programme for reducing criminal recidivism reported a small

average effect size, r = .14, equivalent to a 14% reduction in recidivism in treated

groups compared with control groups. In that study effectiveness was obtained for both

high-risk and low-risk offenders and for both institutional and community applications

(Tong & Farrington, 2006). In a more general meta-analysis of 548 treatment

programmes including different counselling styles, restorative programmes, skills

building programmes and multiple coordinated services conducted with juvenile

offenders between 1958 and 2002, Lipsey (2009) found a small, ϕ = .062 (equivalent to

a decrease of 6%), average effect size in terms of recidivism reduction. Similarly,

Morales, Garrido, and Sánchez-Meca (2010) obtained an average small recidivism

reduction, r = .072, in a meta-analysis of 31 experimental or quasi-experimental studies

of treatments with serious juvenile offenders aged 12 to 21 years old. In this review

behavioural, cognitive, cognitive-behavioural, educational and non-behavioural

programmes were included. The highest effect size, r = .175, was obtained by cognitive-

behavioural programmes. A meta-analysis by Piquero et al. (2009) reviewed 34



programmes including strategies of social and cognitive skills, modelling, reinforcement

and relaxation training designed to improve self-control in boys and adolescents. These

programmes reduced previous problematic behaviours by between 13% and 33%.

Some of these meta-analyses of offenders’ rehabilitation included different

output measures of treatment effectiveness such as institutional, vocational or

psychological adjustment, and recidivism (for instance, Garret, 1985; Özabaci, 2011;

Redondo, Garrido, & Sánchez-Meca, 1997). In contrast, more recent meta-analyses

normally offer only results on recidivism (for instance, Lipsey, 2009; Morales et al.,

2010). In general, the effectiveness results for the short-term psychological or

behavioural output variables are higher than for the long-term measure of recidivism.

For example, in Redondo et al.’s (1997) meta-analysis of 57 European programmes the

average effect of treatments on short-term variables such as social skills was r = .20,

while the recidivism reduction was lower, r = .12.

According to the results of several meta-analyses (Hollin, 2006; Jolliffe &

Farrington, 2009; Lipsey, 2009; Morales et al., 2010; Redondo, Sánchez-Meca, &

Garrido, 1999, 2002) the average effectiveness of offender treatment can be improved if

programmes have the following characteristics: they have a sound theoretical basis and

are applied by trained therapists; they provide participants with training in pro-social

skills and habits; they restructure offenders’ thinking and values; they are of longer

duration and greater intensity; and they use relapse prevention and other specific

strategies to generalize social behaviour to the community context.

The Reasoning & Rehabilitation Programme (R&R), initially designed in

Canada (Ross & Fabiano, 1985), has been adapted in different countries and for several

distinct types of offenders and application settings. One of these adaptations is the

Prosocial Thinking Programme, adapted in Spain by Garrido (2005) for interventions

with juvenile offenders. This is a manual-based programme that includes components of

self-control, meta-cognition, interpersonal and emotional skills, critical reasoning and

values training (Redondo, 2008). Following this, a number of versions have been

generated in Spain for specific contexts. The objective of the present study was to

conduct a pilot evaluation of one of these R&R treatment versions, in this case, one

applied to youth offenders serving community orders.



Method

Participants

The sample comprised juvenile offenders from Barcelona (Spain), all of whom

were serving educational and probation sentences for property or violent crimes.

Initially, 33 participants (23 boys and 10 girls) aged 15 to 20 years old (M = 17.67; SD

= 1.42) were assessed, although due to programme drop-out the analysis presented here

is based on the final sample of 28 subjects. The participants were chronic property and

violent youth offenders living with their families or in governmental facilities. The

participants were selected according to their intervention needs and the following two

criteria: sufficient motivation for treatment and adaptability to the timing application of

the treatment programme. These criteria were evaluated in the context of the initial

interviews. The sample was divided into two study groups: 17 youths were assigned to

the treatment group and 11 to the control group. The two groups were matched in

relation to several sociodemographic and criminal features that were considered relevant

as risk factors (Ellis, Beaver, & Wright, 2009; Farrington, 2010; Loeber, Farrington,

Stouthamer-Loeber, & White, 2008; Lösel & Bender, 2003; Murray, Farrington, &

Eisner, 2009): age, sex, criminal records, offence type, and structure and characteristics

of the family. In order to guarantee that the two groups were broadly similar, statistical

tests were applied (see Table 1).

The treatment programme

The psychological programme tested here is a group-based cognitive-

behavioural treatment for juvenile offenders. The Prosocial Thinking Programme

(Garrido, 2005) is the Spanish adaptation of the Reasoning & Rehabilitation

Programme for youths (Ross & Fabiano, 1985). The treatment aims to help offenders

develop more adaptive and prosocial interactions and to reduce the participants’

probability of relapse as regards antisocial and aggressive behaviours. The programme

taps the following treatment domains:

Self-control aims to teach the participants different strategies of self-observation

and self-control (Hay, Meldrum, Forrest, & Ciaravolo, 2010; Ross & Fontao, 2008). To

this end, the participants were trained in functional analysis (i.e. in paying attention to

the background and consequences) of their cognitive, emotional and behavioural



responses. In this treatment component, special attention is paid to the emotion of anger.

Juveniles are taught to recognize cognitive and emotional precursors and the initial

stages of anger, as well as how to respond to them. Specifically, written exercises,

pooling of ideas, role-playing and the viewing of a movie are used. In the current

application, the juveniles watched the film Falling Down, in which the protagonist often

loses control.

Cognitive restructuring aims to teach the participants how to detect and modify

the cognitive distortions that frequently precede anger and trigger off violent behaviour

(McGuire, 2006). Here, juveniles are taught, through various examples and exercises,

about the cognitive biases most frequently observed among young people, and are

introduced to what might be more realistic and appropriate ways of thinking.

Social problem-solving trains the participants in the use of more effective

cognitive strategies with which to face and solve interpersonal problems and conflicts

(Biggam & Power, 2002; Calvete, 2007; D’Zurilla & Nezu, 1999; McMurran &

McGuire, 2005).

Social skills and assertiveness seeks to improve the participants’ basic social

skills and assertiveness in order to facilitate their interpersonal relationships, acceptance

of others, and achievement of rewards (Hollin & Palmer, 2001). They are trained

(especially by means of role playing) in verbal and non-verbal communication, in the

identification of factors that facilitate or hinder their interactions, and in how to

communicate assertively rather than through aggression or passivity.

Values and empathy addresses the participants’ moral development, or their lack

of positive beliefs and attitudes concerning values such as respect for life, integrity,

freedom and the rights of other people. Moral development has shown an inverse

correlation with the probability of recidivism (Van Vugt et al., 2011). The therapeutic

intervention is essentially based on the discussion of moral dilemmas (Palmer &

Begum, 2006).

Relapse prevention aims to help the participants to consolidate the personal

improvements made during treatment. To this end, the subjects are taught to identify

their own risk factors and those situations (i.e. the cognitive, physiological, behavioural

and environmental signals) that have frequently been precursors of their crimes. The

participants are also trained in appropriate strategies and coping styles in an attempt to

break the cycle of relapse into aggression and antisocial behaviour (Dowden,

Antonowicz, & Andrews, 2003; Marlatt & Donovan, 2005).



Overall, the programme encourages the youths to participate actively in the

group in order to exchange experiences, to facilitate positive modelling between one

another, and to foster the generalization of new behaviours that have been learned in the

treatment sessions. The programme implies a total treatment dosage of about 40 hours.

All the applications were carried out by skilled psychologists and supervision was also

provided: a senior psychologist directly participated in six sessions on the programme

(one for each intervention ingredient), and then gave feedback to the psychologists in

charge of the study.

Instruments

A semi-structured interview was used with each participant to collect data about

his/her personal and family circumstances and history of delinquent and violent

behaviour, in addition to the official records held by the Juvenile Justice System. In

relation to family circumstances, family composition, the socioeconomic and

educational level of the family members and their relationships were explored. In terms

of participants’ variables, the interview focused on their educational and vocational

levels, their interpersonal relationships, and their personal skills and social support.

The following self-report instruments were chosen to assess the psychological

adjustment and social skills variables, which served as indicators of treatment

effectiveness:

Empathy, measured by means of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis,

1983; adapted to Spanish by Mestre, Pérez-Delgado, Frías, & Samper, 1999); this is a

self-report questionnaire comprising 28 items on a 5-point Likert-type scale (range: 28-

140).

Social skills and assertiveness, evaluated through the Escala de Habilidades

Sociales [Social Skills Scale] (Gismero, 2000); this is a self-report scale comprising 33

items rated on a 4-point Likert scale (range: 33-132).

Cognitive style, assessed by means of the Attitude Toward Interpersonal Peer

Violence (Slaby, 1989; translated to Spanish using the back-translation method [Berry,

1980]); this scale includes 14 items that score between 1-4 points (range: 14-56).

Aggressiveness, measured with the Aggression Questionnaire-Refined version

(Bryant & Smith, 2001; Spanish adaptation by Gallardo-Pujol, Kramp, García-Forero,



Pérez-Ramirez, & Andrés-Pueyo, 2006). The Spanish version of this questionnaire

composed by 12 items rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale (range: 12-60).

Self-esteem, evaluated through the Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg,

1965; Spanish adaptation by Martín, Núñez, Navarro, & Grijalvo, 2007); it is a self-

report scale comprising 10 items answered on a 4-point scale (range: 10-40).

Impulsiveness, assessed by means of Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, BIS-10

(Barratt, 1985; adapted to Spanish by Luengo, Carrillo-de-la-Peña, & Otero, 1991).

BIS-10 is scale composed of 34 items rated on a 4-point a Likert self-report scale

(range: 34-136).

Procedure and Design

Only the treatment group subjects participated in the programme described

before, while the control subjects were taken from those on the waiting list for future

applications. Nevertheless, all the subjects (treatment and control) also received the

training and social assistance usually administered by the juvenile justice services.

The programme was assessed using a quasi-experimental design involving two

equivalent groups, treatment and control, and pre/post evaluation. The equivalence of

the groups was explored by means of Chi-square and Mann-Whitney U tests.

Treatment effectiveness was assessed on the basis of participants’ pre/post scores on the

six abovementioned indicators of therapeutic change (empathy, social skills, cognitive

style, aggressiveness, self-esteem and impulsiveness).

Data analysis

In terms of data analysis, the main statistical procedure used was mixed design

analysis of variance (ANOVA). As there are six dependent variables, six repeated

measures ANOVAs were performed, one for each of these variables. In each ANOVA

the within-subjects factor corresponds to the assessment time (pre/post) and the

between-subjects factor to the group (treatment/control). Taking into account that the

population size, as a clinical one, is not too much large, and that with the design of this

study, an alpha of .05 is associated with a beta of .721 (that is, the assumption of the

standard .05 alpha-level implies a risk about 1/4 to reject falsely the hypothesis of

interest), a compromise analysis was performed to estimate the correspondent alpha for

.05 with alpha/beta = 1. Results showed an alpha and beta = .136. Nevertheless, it does



not change results interpretation for the hypothesis of the interest of the study: time X

group interaction (see Table 3).

Results

Descriptive results

As the subjects were not randomly assigned to the groups, the first analysis

presented here aimed to check that the treatment and control groups were equivalent

(Table 1). To this end, various sociodemographic and criminal characteristics that are

often related to criminal risk were compared in the two groups. The only variable to

present a significant difference between the groups was the proportion of subjects

sentenced for a violent crime, which was higher in the treatment group. The treatment

group and the control group showed equivalent pre-treatment mean scores in all

domains except for social skills, where the treatment group scored significantly lower

than the control group. A Mann-Whitney U test was conducted to evaluate the

differences between control and pre-treatment groups. The results of the test were in the

expected direction and significant, z = -2.14, p < .05.

Table 1. Sociodemographic andCcriminal Descriptive Analysis of the Sample.

Sample descriptives Treatment

Group

Control

Group

χ2/U p

Sociodemographic

Sex (male) 70.6% 63.6% 0.15 1

Age 17.41 (1.42) 17.67 (1.32) 85.5 .276

Unemployed/ not studying 17.6% 27.3% 0.45 .647

Drug use 82.4% 100.0% 2.17 .258

Non-traditional family 41.2% 55.6% 0.49 .682

Number of siblings 3.18 (3.05) 2.33 (2.45) 108.00 .684

Dysfunctional family 29.4% 55.6% 1.70 .232

Low socioeconomic level 17.6% 22.2% 0.08 1

Criminal

Age of first offense 14.82 (1.02) 15.56 (0.73) 64.00 .293

Sentenced for a violent crime 76.5% 33.3% 4.63 .051

Offence committed in group 62.5% 33.3% 1.96 .234



Previous criminal records 41.2% 85.7% 3.96 .082

Recognition of responsibility for offence 25.0% 28.6% 0.03 1

Effectiveness results

The ANOVA results regarding the different criterion variables are shown in

tables 2 and 3. In Table 2, the main results of the analysis for the treatment and control

groups. In Table 3 shows the ANOVA outcome results related with the time and group

effects ant the i groups x time interaction effect..

Table 2. Mean and Standard Deviation for Outcome Variables for the Treatment and Control Groups.

Treatment Group (n = 17) Control Group (n = 11)

Pre Post Pre Post

Outcome Variables M(SD) M(SD) M(SD) M(SD)

Empathy 77.71(8.54) 76.41(12.29) 81.36(9.28) 77.82(8.62)

Social Skills 86.00(12.85) 93.12(14.19) 97.64(12.47) 94.82(15.08)

Cognitive Style 30.69(3.36) 29.38(3.93) 30.64(6.79) 30.45(7.16)

Aggressiveness 30.82(6.45) 20.00(5.81) 29.91(7.56) 32.64(6.38)

Self-Esteem 28.24(5.25) 29.41(4.47) 31.18(4.07) 29.27(5.10)

Impulsiveness 53.88(13.95) 50.29(19.04) 62.46(21.62) 59.82(10.11)

On the social skills measure there was a significant interaction between Group X

Time, F(1, 26) = 6.80, p < .05, with the partial eta squared statistic indicating a small-

to-medium effect size (ηP2 = .21). The results for the aggressiveness measure also

showed a significant interaction between the independent variables Group X Time, F(1,

26) = 7.42, p < .01, with the partial eta squared statistic again indicating a small-to-

medium effect size (ηP2 = .22). A significant effect for the Group X Time interaction

was likewise observed on the self-esteem measure, F(1, 26) = 4.22, p < .05, with the

partial eta squared statistic indicating a small effect size (ηP2 = .14). Finally, the results

for the three remaining variables (empathy, cognitive style and impulsiveness) showed

neither a main group effect nor a time effect nor a Group X Time interaction effect.



Table 3. Analysis of Variance of the Outcome Variables for the Treatment and Control Groups. Outcome Variables Effect F p ηηηηP

2* 1-β

Empathy

Group

Time

Group x Time

0.51

2.53

0.55

.483

.128

.471

.019

.116

Social Skills

Group

Time

Group x Time

1.83

1.28

6.81

.181

.274

.024

.212

.712

Cognitive Style Group

Time

Group x Time

0.08

0.97

0.55

.796

.332

.464

.025

.114

Aggressiveness

Group

Time

Group x Time

0.66

0.01

7.42

.425

.961

.016

. 228

.751

Self-Esteem

Group

Time

Group x Time

0.69

0.24

4.22

.415

.631

.055

.142

.517

Impulsiveness Group

Time

Group x Time

2.44

1.13

0.03

.132

.309

.875

.003

.054

Note. *ηP2 = Effect size: Eta partial square; df(1, 26).

Discussion

The main purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a Spanish

version of the R&R programme, applied to juvenile offenders serving community

orders. The results obtained show that the treatment partially improved some of the

psychological target variables. Specifically, the programme was effective (with low to

medium effect sizes) in increasing participants’ social skills and self-esteem, as well as

in reducing their aggressiveness.

Scores for social skills in the treatment group showed a positive ascending trend

of medium magnitude. Scores for aggressiveness in the treatment group showed a

positive decreasing trend of medium magnitude between the pre and post assessment

points, whereas aggressiveness scores increased in the control group. Finally, in relation



to self-esteem the ANOVA for the treatment group revealed a positive ascending pattern

(of low magnitude in this case), while scores in the control group fell.

These positive results in terms of short-term psychological and behavioural

variables are consistent with the general improvements reported for various juvenile

offender treatments (Garret, 1985; Lipsey, 2009; Morales et al., 2010; Redondo et al.,

1997) and specific R&R applications (Tong & Farrington, 2006). The literature suggests

that social skills, aggressiveness and self-esteem may be considered as dynamic risk

factors that can be influenced, to some extent, by treatment. The present results confirm

this. However, the applied intervention did not have a positive influence on empathy,

cognitive style or impulsiveness, which are also regarded as dynamic risk factors. Both

the treatment and the control group showed similar scores for these three variables on

the pre- and post-intervention measures, and the comparison of means showed no

statistically significant within-subjects differences.

Although the objectives of this intervention were also to improve empathy and

reduce impulsiveness, these variables are probably personal factors that are not

completely dynamic or susceptible to change in the treatment setting. More

disconcerting is that no significant change was observed in cognitive distortions, which

are clearly considered changeable dynamic factors. The reasons for this may be both

substantive and methodological. Firstly, the treatment application described had a

restricted intensity which probably limited its effects. Secondly, the small group sizes

may have made it difficult to detect statistical significant differences between the groups

given that the effects of treatment are probably low.

In addition to the abovementioned dynamic factors, most of the participants

(91%) exhibited another important dynamic risk factor, namely drug abuse, which was

not addressed by the treatment programme. It is possible, therefore, that this widespread

problem negatively interfered with the potential improvement in other therapeutic

targets such as anti-social cognitions, empathy or impulsivity. In addition, one can

speculate that other possible uncontrolled static risk factors (as erratic family education,

experienced victimization, risk personality traits, etc.) had a negative influence on the

participants, making it more difficult for them to benefit from treatment.

In summary, the cognitive-behavioural intervention applied here did

significantly improve some of the dynamic risk factors it targeted, although it failed to

achieve all the proposed aims. As the literature about correctional interventions has

shown, treatment efficacy increases when a programme has a sound theoretical basis



and is applied by well-trained therapists, when it teaches participants new pro-social

skills, thinking styles and values, when it has greater duration and intensity, and when it

applies relapse prevention. In principle, the programme described here meets all these

prior requirements, with the exception perhaps of its limited duration and intensity.

Indeed, it is likely that in the context of such a complex and multifactor problem as

delinquency, the intensity and duration of the applied intervention were insufficient to

produce more relevant changes in the participants.

From a methodological point of view the main limitations of this study concern

the small sample size, the fact that subjects were not randomly assigned to groups and

the measurement of treatment effectiveness exclusively by means of short-term and

self-report data. Although these problems are quite frequent in the field of offender

treatment, for both practical and ethical reasons, the small number of participants in the

two groups does constitute an important limitation, which probably reduces the

likelihood of obtaining statistically significant results. This aspect needs to be resolved

in future studies through the inclusion of more subjects in both groups. As regards the

evaluation of the effectiveness of the programme, we plan to assess recidivism among

participants over a longer follow-up period. Up to now only psychological measures of

treatment efficacy can be offered.

Another limitation has to do with the method of data analysis, since the literature

(Walker & Maddan, 2009) recommends using multivariate analysis of variance

(MANOVA). Although this approach was initially considered, the use of MANOVA

requires additional assumptions that need not be fulfilled in an ANOVA. Hence, the

statistical procedure chosen was another robust test, the bivariate analysis of variance

(ANOVA), which is also useful as regards the goals of this paper.

Finally, it must be acknowledged that even if some of these difficulties could

have been resolved, one would not expect a psychological treatment to produce a radical

transformation in participants’ behaviour. A more reasonable goal would be for

treatment, in conjunction with other environmental and social interventions, to produce

certain significant changes in the behaviours and values of participants. In this context,

and in line with the general results of the evaluative correctional literature, this

cognitive-behavioural programme has been partially but significantly effective in

improving specific psychological variables, namely social skills, self-esteem and

aggressiveness, all of which are relevant correlates of delinquent behaviour.



Acknowledgements

This work has been carried out within the framework of research project

SEJ2005-09170-C04-01, funded by Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, and

PSI2009-13265, supported by Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. The authors

would like to thank the Office for Juvenile Justice of the Justice Department of

Catalonia (Spain) for its cooperation and the facilities provided during this research.

The study benefitted from the contributions of María Teresa Martí, Joan Anton

Chaparro, Rosa M. Martínez, Claudia Campistol and Mónica Díaz. We would

especially like to thank Antoni Cano, María Álvarez and Mónica Antequera, the

psychologists who skilfully applied the programme.

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Correspondence: Antonio Herrera Enríquez. Departamento de Psicología Social. Universidad de Granada. Facultad de Psicología. E-mail: [email protected] ISSN 1889-1861 © The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context

IS MISS SYMPATHY A CREDIBLE DEFENDANT ALLEGING INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE IN A TRIAL FOR MURDER?

Antonio Herrera, Inmaculada Valor-Segura, and Francisca Expósito

Universidad de Granada (Spain)

(Received 3 May 2011; revised 11 April 2012; accepted 13 April 2012)

Abstract

Current research has postulated that judicial inferencing and judgement-making are subject to biased appraisals. This study assessed the factors reported in the literature associated to the appraisal of criminality in a mock case of a battered woman standing trial for murdering her husband, and who pleaded legitimate self-defence in response to an instance of intimate partner violence. A nationwide sample of 169 police officers from different cities in Spain freely volunteered to participate in the study. Using a mock trial design, the defendant´s prototypicality (prototypical vs. non-prototypical), and physical attractiveness (attractive vs. unattractive) were manipulated. Participants were required to assess the criminality (credibility, responsibility, and controllability) of a battered woman accused of murdering her husband, and who alleged legitimate self-defence in response to an incident of intimate partner violence. The results showed that a defendant perceived as the prototype of a battered woman was judged as having less or no control of the situation; physical attractiveness increased the perception of the defendant´s responsibility in committing the crime; and an interaction between prototypicality and attractiveness in assigning credibility to the defendant´s testimony. Moreover, hostile sexism mediated the relationship between the defendant´s prototypicality and controllability. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for judicial judgement making in cases of battered women who kill their aggressors. Keywords: intimate partner violence; criminality; prototypicality; attractiveness; sexism.

Resumen

La investigación ha puesto de manifiesto que el proceso de inferencia y toma de decisiones, es sensible a múltiples sesgos que pueden afectar tales juicios o valoraciones. La presente investigación trata de analizar algunos de los posibles factores que la literatura ha relacionado con la valoración de la criminalidad, en un caso en que se juzga a una mujer que ha matado a su marido y que alega, en su defensa, haber sido víctima de violencia de género. Participaron en el estudio 169 policías procedentes de distintas ciudades españolas, de manera voluntaria y anónima. Mediante un diseño de escenarios en el que se presentaba un caso judicial ficticio, se manipuló la prototipicidad de la acusada (prototípica vs. no prototípica) y su atractivo físico (atractiva vs. no atractiva). Los participantes tenían que valorar la criminalidad (credibilidad, responsabilidad y controlabilidad) de una mujer, que alegaba haber sido víctima de violencia de género, acusada de haber matado a su marido. Los resultados mostraron que cuando se presenta a la acusada como prototipo de mujer maltratada, se le atribuía un menor control de la situación, que el atractivo físico aumentaba la percepción de responsabilidad de la acusada en el delito cometido; y una interacción entre el atractivo físico y la prototipicidad en la evaluación de la credibilidad de la acusada. Asimismo, el sexismo hostil de los participantes actuaba como variable mediadora en la relación entre prototipicidad y la percepción de controlabilidad de la acusada. Estos resultados tienen implicaciones para la formación de juicios sobre víctimas de violencia de género que asesinen a su agresor y para la atención a las denunciantes de violencia de género que son discutidos. Palabras clave: violencia de género; criminalidad; prototipicidad; atractivo; sexismo.

180 A. Herrera et al.


Introduction

In everyday life, people continuously make judgments based on what is

purported to be unequivocal evidence in the belief that it is factual and valid. However,

every inference of reality or particular instance of it is partly conditioned by the

inferrer´s perception (Suárez, Pérez, Soto, Muñiz, & García-Cueto, 2011).

Several studies have consistently shown that jury decision-making is based on

exogenous extralegal criteria (Hammon, Berry, & Rodríguez, 2011). Some studies have

focused on judge and jury decision-making in order to examine the impact of physical

features (e.g. the defendant´s attractiveness) and cognitive attributes (prototypicality) on

the appraisal of criminality (the defendant´s credibility, responsibility, and

controllability) that drives the verdict and sentencing (Bollingmo, Wessel, Eilertsen, &

Magnussen, 2008; Efran, 1974; Leventhal & Krate, 1977).

The influence of physical attractiveness on the appraisal of criminality

The defendant´s or plaintiff´s physical attractiveness are among the most

frequently assessed variables in relation to interpersonal perceptions and decision-

making (Agthe, Spörrle, & Maner, 2011; Sheppard, Goffin, Lewis, & Olson, 2011).

The influence of physical attractiveness has been extensively examined in the

field of Social Psychology, and its effects have been reported in an array of contexts

(Lemay, Clark, & Greenberg, 2010; Moore, Filippou, & Perrett, 2011). Thus, attractive

people are often perceived as having positive personality features and attributes in

consonance with the implicit theory that “beauty is goodness” (Dion, Berscheid, &

Walster, 1972; Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani, & Longo, 1991). This cognitive bias is also

known as the halo effect (Thorndike, 1920), whereby a subjective perception of a single

positive trait of a person may be extended or carried-over from one desirable trait to

another leading to a biased positive global assessment of that person. This author was

the first to empirically research this common error in reasoning. Similarly, Asch (1946)

proposed that attractiveness was a central trait in interpersonal perception that prompted

a chain reaction whereby a person was perceived to have other positive and desirable

traits. Likewise, Moore et al. (2011) found that people with physically attractive facial

features were perceived to have additional positive personal qualities such as

intelligence.

Prototypicality and attractiveness 181


The halo effect is intertwined with implicit personality theory (Kelly, 1955) that

claim the first features we perceive become the working framework for the perception

of further future characteristics and attitudes. Hence, the halo effect embodies the

widely held belief that physically attractive individuals are more sociable, friendly,

warm, competent and intelligent than unattractive individuals (Feingold, 1992; Langlois

et al., 2000). Likewise, Fiore, Taylor, Mendelsohn, and Hearst (2008) found that in an

internet dating scenario, individuals with facially attractive photographs were perceived

more favourably than unattractive people. Similar results have been reported in studies

on social networking sites (Brand, Bonatsos, D’Orazio, & DeShong 2012; Guéguen,

Lourel, Charron, Fischer-Lokou, & Lamy, 2009).

In the occupational field, Sheppard et al. (2011) found a relation between target

attractiveness and the accuracy of trait judgments within a mock job interview.

Generally, attractive targets were rated more positively and more accurately, calling into

question the assumption that biases are responsible for the more positive ratings that

attractive individuals receive. Implications for practice and for future research are

discussed.

As for the legal scenario, physical attractiveness has been observed to produce a

lenity bias effect i.e., the tendency to perceive and treat an attractive person in a

benevolent or indulgent way (Griffin & Langlois, 2006). Furthermore, a study of mock

jurors who appraised the criminality of attractive and unattractive defendants found that

jurors tended to find unattractive defendants more guilty than attractive ones (Patry,

2008). This finding corroborates the halo effect and personality theory (Kelly, 1955)

that sustain our initial perception of features influences the perception of later ones.

Influence of prototypicality on the appraisal of criminality

According to prototype theory (Rosch, 1975), the more features and attributes an

item has in common with a prototype, the more the item is judged to be prototypical of

a category. Russell and Melillo (2006) have applied prototype theory to the forensic

contexts by examining how the defendant´s prototypical attributes (i.e., the degree to

which an individual fits the prototype of a battered woman) influenced jury verdicts.

The characteristics used to define the defendant´s prototypicality or non-prototypicality

were physical characteristics such as physical age or demeanour; social characteristics

as social network, number of children, employment status, or dependency on husband’s

income; behavioural characteristics as withdrawn, timid, and justifying her husband´s



aggressive behaviour; psychological characteristics such as feeling guilty, confused,

frightened, and so forth. The results of this study corroborate the prototype effect on

jury verdicts i.e., an attractive/non-prototypical battered woman who dared to challenge

her husband tended to be convicted of manslaughter. In comparison, a passive

prototypical battered woman who was afraid of challenging her husband tended to be

found not guilty on the grounds of legitimate self-defence.

Expósito and Herrera (2009) found that batterers were attributed more typically

masculine characteristics than victims, and victims were attributed more typically

feminine characteristics. Consequently, victims of gender violence are portrayed by

typically feminine characteristics, to such an extent that the legal definition itself is

almost identical to the prototypical standards defining battered women (Walker, 2009).

Terrance, Plumm, and Thomas´ (2011) study on the relationship between the

victim´s gender and perceptions of gender violence showed that when the gender of the

victim fitted the prototype of a victim of gender violence i.e., a woman, they were more

positively perceived than male victims. Moreover, the further the defendant accused of

killing her husband moved away from jurors' beliefs of what a battered woman should

be, the harsher their verdicts became (Terrance & Matheson, 2003).

The analysis of the psychosocial factors (beliefs, mental schemata, stereotypes)

involved in decision-making has revealed difference in the way juries evaluated

“typical” victims of battery in contrast to “atypical” victims. Thus, juror´s

preconceptions regarding the behaviour considered to be “normal” in cases of intimate

partner violence influenced the verdict i.e., they conferred greater credibility to a

“typical” victim´s testimony than to the testimony of an “atypical” victim (Bollingmo et

al., 2008; Klippenstine & Schuller, 2012).

Furthermore, beliefs and attitudes towards gender violence are variables that

have been found to influence judgement making and mediate the response to incidents

of intimate partner violence (Gracia, García, & Lila, 2009). In addition, Valor-Segura,

Expósito, and Moya (2008) have observed that traditional attitudes to gender were

linked to a greater tendency to blame the victims of gender violence.

Ferrer, Bosch, Ramis, Torres, and Navarro (2006) analysis of the beliefs and

attitudes of students (both boys and girls), and young males who had received no

training or coaching regarding gender violence found that the latter held attitudes and

beliefs that were more tolerant of gender violence.



One of the variables undeniably influencing the response to intimate partner

violence is ideology concerning gender and gender roles i.e., attitudes towards the roles

and responsibilities regarded to be appropriate for men and women, and beliefs about

the relationship between both (Moya, 2003, p. 9). Recent theories have reconceptualised

the traditional view of sexism that reinforces traditional gender roles with the notion of

ambivalent sexism that has two interrelated sub-components: hostile sexism and

benevolent sexism that also serve to propagate patriarchal dominance and social

structures (Expósito, Moya, & Glick, 1998; Glick & Fiske, 1996). Expósito, Herrera,

Moya, and Glick (2010) found that benevolently sexist women may embrace traditional

gender roles in part to avoid antagonizing their intimate male partners, which ultimately

perpetuates the male-dominant status quo. Moreover, gender violence was associated

more with sexist descriptions of men than with non-sexist descriptions of men. The

ideological variable that best predicted the tendency to blame the victims of gender

violence was hostile sexism (Cohn, Dupuis, & Brown, 2009; Durán, Moya, Mejías, &

Viki, 2010; Valor-Segura, Expósito, & Moya, 2011).

Bearing in mind the findings of current research, a field study was carried out to

assess the effect of the defendant´s prototypicality and attractiveness, and the mediating

effects of ideological variables (sexist beliefs) on the appraisal of criminality in a mock

trial of a female defendant accused of killing her husband, who pleaded legitimate-self

defence in response to her aggressor. Succinctly, the following hypotheses were

assessed:

a) A defendant attractiveness effect was expected on the appraisal of criminality

i.e., attractive victims would be perceived as more credible, less responsible,

and less in control of the situation than unattractive victims.

b) A defendant prototypicality effect was expected on the appraisal of criminality

i.e., a prototypical battered woman would be perceived as more credible, less

responsible, and less in control of the situation than a defendant who did not fit

the standard prototype of a battered woman.

c) A hostile sexism effect was expected to mediate the relationship between the

defendant´s prototypicality and the control of the situation.



Method

Participants

The sample consisted of 169 police officers (153 men and 16 women) from

different police stations nationwide, age range 21 to 60 years, mean age 33.35 years

(SEM = .72).

The police officers participating in this study belonged to the Spanish National

or Local Police Force. A total of 42.6% of the police officers were stationed in Seville,

29.6% in Santiago de Compostela, 13% in Malaga, 10% in Almeria, and 4.7% in

Madrid.

Procedure and experimental design

The sample was obtained through incidental sampling of police stations in the

Spanish cities of Seville, Santiago de Compostela, Malaga, Almeria, and Madrid.

Participants freely volunteered and were assured their data would remain anonymous

and confidential. Participants were randomly assigned (i.e., were rotated in all four

experimental conditions), and a total of 169 questionnaires were administered in

alternate order i.e., almost 50% of the participants (n = 85) were first administered the

written description of a trial followed by the appraisal of the defendant´s criminality

before undergoing ideological assessment. Alternatively, the remaining sample

underwent ideological assessment prior to the written description of a trial followed by

the appraisal of the defendant´s criminality. Of the 169 participants, 34 completed the

non-prototypical-unattractive condition, 43 the non-prototypical-attractive condition, 43

the prototypical-unattractive condition, and 49 the prototypical-attractive condition

questionnaires.

Two independent variables were manipulated while participants read the written

recreation of a simulated trial of a battered woman who had murdered her husband, and

pleaded legitimate self-defence in response to her aggressor. Participants were asked to

perform the role of the jury, read the case, and complete the questionnaire.

A 2 (defendant attractiveness: attractive vs. unattractive) X 2 (defendant

prototypicality: prototypical vs. non-prototypical) full factorial design was carried out to

assess the effects on the evaluation of criminality (credibility, responsibility, and

controllability). In addition, the mediating effect of hostile sexism on the relationship



between prototypicality and control of the situation was assessed. The design sensitivity

analysis of the sample of 169 police officers revealed the probability of detecting (1-β)

significant differences (α < .05) for a medium effect size was 99.99%.

Material and measures

A written recreation of a mock trial of a battered woman who had killed her

husband, and pleaded legitimate self-defence in response to her aggressor was

manipulated by the following experimental conditions: a) prototypicality (defendant is

described as a prototype of a battered woman vs. the defendant is described as a non-

prototype of a battered woman); and b) physical attractiveness (the defendant is

described as an attractive woman vs. the defendant being described as an unattractive

woman).

The descriptions of the defendant as prototypical or non-prototypical of a battered

woman were based on the characteristics outlined in the “battered woman syndrome”

(Walker, 2009). The prototypical battered woman was described as follows:

María is a 36-year old housewife with two children (6 and 3-year old) who has

been married for 10 years. During the trial, María is described as wearing sun glasses

that hide her face, poor personal appearance and dress, and is timid in answering to the

judge´s or lawyer´s questions.

The non-prototypical battered woman was described as follows:

María is a financial consultant of a leading company; she has no children, and

has been married for ten years. During the trial, María is described as a well-dressed

fashion conscious woman, calm and resolute in her interactions with the judge and

lawyers.

The physical attractiveness variable was defined using the facial features

described in the literature for defining an attractive woman i.e., large eyes, small chin

and nose, prominent cheeks and thick lips (Cunningham, 1986; Cunningham, Roberts,

Barbee, Druen, & Wu, 1995; Johnston & Franklin, 1993).

The “attractive” battered woman was described as follows:

María is an attractive woman with thick lips, smooth harmonious facial features,

straight blonde hair, and a slender and elegant appearance.

The “unattractive” battered woman was described as follows:

María is an unattractive woman with thin lips, stern and jarring facial features,

dark bundled hair, and is neither slender nor elegant in appearance.



In addition, the following information was given to all of the experimental

conditions:

María is a woman on trial for stabbing her husband to death. At her trial, María

pleaded legitimate self-defence claiming she had feared her husband would kill her

during a violent domestic argument. María can hardly give details on how the events

happened, she appeared confused and her testimony did not appear to cohere with the

admissible evidence (her husband was found dead on his bed with several stab wounds

to the back, and there were no signs of a struggle). In her version of the events, she

claimed that during her history of intimate partner violence, she had always felt she was

incapable of standing up to her husband. She said she couldn´t understand how she

could have killed him, she couldn´t remember anything about what followed the

argument with her husband, and she only remembered seeing him lying on their blood

stained bed before she decided to phone the police. Her defence lawyer entered a not

guilty plea on the grounds that she had acted in legitimate self-defence in response to a

history of continuous abuse.

Participants were evaluated using the following measures:

− Sociodemographic variables: gender, age, academic and employment status,

religious and political affiliation, sentimental affairs or relationship with their

partner.

− Criminality was assessed on the basis of: a) the defendant´s credibility (How

credible is María´s testimony?) with respondents using a 7-point Likert type scale

where (1= Totally unbelievable, 7= Totally believable); b) the defendant´s

responsibility (To what extent was María responsible for the episodes of battery and

to what extent was she to blame for this situation?) was measured on a 7-point

Likert type scale where (1 = Totally responsible for the episodes of battery, 7 = No

responsibility for the episodes of battery); and c) control of the situation (To what

extent was María in control of the situation and events for which she was committed

for trial?) as measured on a 7-point Likert type scale where (1 = Had no control of

the situation, 7 = Was fully in control of the situation).

− Two further items were introduced as manipulation checks: a) Defendant´s

attractiveness (Do you think the defendant is physically attractive?) dichotomous

(Yes/No) response format; and b) Battered Woman Prototypicality (To what extent

does María fit the prototype of a battered woman?) as measured on a 7-point Likert



type scale where (1 = Doesn´t fit the prototype of a battered woman at all, 7 =

Completely fits the prototype of a battered woman).

− The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (Glick & Fiske, 1996; Spanish version by

Expósito, Moya, & Glick, 1998) consists of 22 items on a 6-point Likert type scale

where (0 = Totally disagree, 5 = Totally agree). The inventory measures two

subcomponents of sexism: hostile sexism and benevolent sexism, each consisting of

11 items. The coefficient alpha for the entire scale was .91, for the hostile sexism

subscale .92, and for the benevolent sexism subscale .86; the results were similar to

those obtained in other studies e.g., Glick, Sakalli-Ugurlu, Ferreira, and Aguiar-de-

Souza (2002) who reported .83 for the hostile subscale and .83 for the benevolent

subscale.

Results

Preliminary analysis

Initial statistical analysis revealed that the order of presentation of the

information had no effect on the results i.e., no significant differences were observed

among variables: a) defendant´s credibility, F(1, 167) = 0.82, ns; b) defendant´s

responsibility, F(1, 167) = 2.53, ns; and c) defendant´s control of the situation, F(1,

168) = 3.09, ns.

Moreover, the results corroborated the adequacy of the experimental

manipulations regarding the defendant´s attractiveness (Do you think the defendant is

physically attractive?) i.e., the participants who read the scenario describing the

defendant as an attractive woman identified her correctly, χ2(1, N = 84) = 23.05, p <

.001; and the participants who read the scenario describing the defendant as an

unattractive woman identified her correctly, χ2(1, N = 85) = 51.86, p < .001.

As for the defendant being the prototype of a battered woman (To what extent

did María fit the prototype of a battered woman?), the manipulation was successful,

F(1, 167) = 46.33, p < .001, ηp2 = .21, 1- β = .99. Thus, participants tended to consider

the defendant fitted the prototype of a battered woman when she was prototypical rather

than a non-prototypical of a battered woman (Ms 5.05 vs. 3.30 for a prototypical and

non-prototypical battered woman, respectively).



Effect of the defendant´s prototypicality and attractiveness on the appraisal of

criminality (credibility, responsibility, and contr ollability)

In order to assess the effect of prototypicality and attractiveness on the appraisal

of the defendant´s criminality, ANOVAs with a full factorial design were undertaken

with factors the defendant´s prototypicality and attractiveness, and dependent variables:

the defendant´s credibility, responsibility, and control of the situation. The results

showed a principal effect of the defendant´s attractiveness on the responsibility for the

situation and events, F(1, 165) = 4.75, p < .05, ηp2= .03; 1- β = .58. Thus, greater

responsibility for the situation and events was attributed to attractive defendants (M =

5.42, SD = 1.87), than to unattractive defendants (M = 5.99, SD = 1.43). In addition, the

results revealed a principal effect of prototypicality on control of the situation, F(1, 165)

= 8.08, p < .01, ηp2 = .05, 1- β = .81. Thus, a defendant described as prototypical of a

battered woman was judged to have less control of the situation (M = 3.26, SD = 1.72)

than a non-prototypical battered woman (M = 4.05, SD = 1.85). Moreover, the results

confirmed an interaction between prototypicality and attractiveness on the defendant´s

credibility, F(1, 165) = 4.08, p < .05, ηp2 = .02; 1- β = .52 (see Figure 1). Thus, attractive

prototypical defendants predicted greater credibility than attractive non-prototypical

defendants (4.18 vs. 3.30, respectively). In comparison, unattractive non-prototypical

defendants were assigned less credibility than attractive non-prototypical defendants (M

= 3.85 vs. M = 3.72, respectively). The other remaining effects were not significant, Fs

< 2, ns.

Figure 1. Interaction between Prototypicality and Attractiveness on the Defendant´s Credibility.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Prototypical Non-Prototypical

Def

enda

nt´s

cr

edib

ility

Attractive Unattractive



Hostile sexism as a mediator between prototypicality and control of the situation

The mediating role of hostile sexism on the defendant´s prototypicality and

controllability of the situation was assessed following the recommendations of Baron

and Kenny (1986), who defined three conditions necessary for mediation. First, the

independent variable (prototypicality) must influence the mediating variable (hostile

sexism). Second, the mediating variable must be related to the dependent variable

(controllability). Third, there should be a significant relationship between the

independent and dependent variable; after it has been introduced, the mediating variable

loses partially or totally its effect. Regression analysis was performed to assess these

conditions. Figure 2 shows that the variable prototypicality was significantly negatively

related to control of the situation (ß = -.21, p = .006). Thus, prototypical defendants

were judged to be less in control of the situation. Moreover, an independent regression

analysis found a significant negative relationship between prototypicality and hostile

sexism (ß = -.17, p < .05), and between hostile sexism and control of the situation (ß =

.29, p = .001). Furthermore, in the third stage of regression analysis, prototypicality was

observed to partially lose its effect on controllability of the situation when the hostile

sexism variable (ß = -.21, p = .012) was introduced. The Sobel Test (Sobel, 1982) that

was carried out to determine the significance of the fall in the prototype effect on the

dependent variable found a significant indirect prototype effect on controllability of the

situation through hostile sexism (Z = -1.99, p < .05). Hence, the statistical analysis

underscored that hostile sexism partially mediated the relation between the defendant´s

prototypicality and controllability.

Figure 2. The Mediating Role of Hostile Sexism on the Defendant´S Prototypicality and Controllability.

Hostile Sexism

β = -.17* β = .29*** (β = .25**)

Prototype Controllability

β = -.21** (β = -.21*)

Note. * p ≤ .05; ** p ≤.01; *** p ≤.001; the β score after introducing the independent

variable and the mediating variable at the same time appears between brackets.



Discussion

Contrary to the hypothesis that attractive women defendants accused of

murdering their husbands would receive a more benevolent appraisal of criminality, the

results showed unattractive women defendants were attributed less criminal

responsibility. Consequently, the stereotype that attractiveness diminishes criminal

responsibility is unfounded in cases of battered women who murder their husbands. In

this study, the opposite effect was observed i.e., in this evaluation context the effect was

also found but inversely with the opposite sign. A plausible explanation is that the

attractiveness of a battered woman accused of murdering her husband is inconsistent

with the prototype of a battered woman: young, battered, physically weak and frail

woman (Walker, 2009) i.e., physically unattractive. Likewise, research on the influence

of prototypes or stereotypes on the appraisal of gender violence by judges and juries

(e.g., Terrance & Matheson, 2003), has shown that the further the defendant moved

away from jurors' beliefs of what a battered woman should be, the harsher their verdicts

became. The findings of this study have shown that the physical attractiveness of a

battered woman hindered rather than advanced a plea of legitimate self-defence i.e.,

physical attractive battered women were attributed greater responsibility for the

episodes of intimate partner violence.

As for the effect of prototypicality on the appraisal of criminality, the data

showed it predicted controllability i.e., atypical defendants were attributed greater

control of the situation. A possible explanation may lie in heuristic reasoning involving

the tendency to use shortcuts i.e., speedy and cost-effective cognitive processing in

judgement making (Fariña, Arce, & Novo, 2002). A good example is the heuristics of

“counterfactual thinking” (Roese & Olson, 1997), in this study this reasoning shortcut

was grounded on the assumption that a defendant who failed to fit the prototype of a

battered woman (i.e., a well dressed, attractive woman who was calm and resolute) must

have had some control of the situation, which undermined alternative hypotheses such

as she had acted in legitimate self-defence. These findings and interpretation have been

systematically reported in the literature i.e., people who behave atypically and violate

the expectations of others are perceived as having greater intentionality as their

behaviour is judged be the result of their own free will (Jones & Davis, 1965; Lurigio,

Carroll, & Stalans, 1994; Russel & Melillo, 2006).



According to the hypothesis of this study, a principal effect was expected of both

the defendant´s prototypicality and attractiveness on the appraisal of criminality i.e., a

physically attractive prototypical defendant would be judged to be more credible, less

responsible, and less in control of the situation. The results partially substantiated the

hypothesis in the appraisal of credibility in terms of the interaction between the

defendant´s prototypicality and attractiveness i.e., greater credibility was attributed to

attractive prototypical defendants than to unattractive non-prototypical defendants.

Thus, the results highlight that the stereotype “what is beautiful is good” is only

applicable to a prototypical battered woman defendant on trial for murdering her

husband (Dion et al., 1972; Eagly et al., 1991).

Furthermore, in line with the initial hypothesis of this study, the relationship

between prototypicality and control of the situation was partially mediated by a hostile

sexism effect i.e., high hostile sexism scores mediated the relationship between the

prototype of a battered woman and control of the situation.

These results underscore the need for training related to the handling of domestic

violence complaints by law enforcement officers that challenges dominant ideologies

about gender, gender roles, and gender violence, particularly, since the police is the first

law enforcement agency to respond to allegations of intimate partner violence. The

results of this study highlight that the judgement making of law enforcement officers in

cases of battery was conditioned by variables such as physical attractiveness or the

prototype of a battered woman. Two fundamental due process requirements of criminal

law are the presumption of innocence, and the battered woman´s right to a fair hearing

without the risk of revictimization (i.e., to doubt the battered woman’s allegation and

motives rather than pursue the aggressor) that contributes to the high prevalence of

unreported cases of domestic violence commonly referred to as “silent” cases (Chu &

Sun, 2010; Ministerio de Sanidad, Servicios Sociales e Igualdad, 2012). In the absence

of any legally admissible evidence, assumptions that battered women accused of

murdering their husbands are responsible for and in control of the situation and events

demoralizes and deters them from reporting their aggressors (Arce, Fariña, Carballal, &

Novo, 2009; Chu & Sun, 2010).



Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science with the

R&D project “Ideología sexista y differencias de poder en el origen y mantenimiento

del acoso sexual” (Ref. PSI2011-29720).

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The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context

____________________________________________________________

CONTENTS

Articles

Serial effects of evidence on legal decision-making

Raluca Enescu and André Kuhn 99

Family and socio-demographic risk factors for psychopathy

among prison inmates

Cirilo H. García, José Moral, Martha Frías, Juan A. Valdivia

and Héctor L. Díaz 119

In search of a fast screening method for detecting the malingering

of cognitive impairment

Guadalupe Sánchez, Fernando Jiménez, Amada Ampudia and

Vicente Merino 135

Therapeutic effects of a cognitive-behavioural treatment with

juvenile offenders

Santiago Redondo, Ana Martínez-Catena and Antonio Andrés-Pueyo 159

Is miss sympathy a credible defendant alleging intimate partner

violence in a trial for murder?

Antonio Herrera, Inmaculada Valor-Segura and Francisca Expósito 179

Volume 4 Number 2 July 2012

Documents

The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context 2012