Rights statement: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: O'Connell, F, Cherryman, J, Warmelink, L. Mock juror's perceptions of a child witness passing or failing a truth and lies discussion or promising to tell the truth. Appl Cognit Psychol. 2019; 285-292. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3612 which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/acp.3612 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
Accepted author manuscript, 339 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
| <mark>Journal publication date</mark> | 1/01/2020 |
|---|---|
| <mark>Journal</mark> | Applied Cognitive Psychology |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Pages (from-to) | 285-292 |
| Publication Status | Published |
| Early online date | 28/10/19 |
| <mark>Original language</mark> | English |
This study examined the effect of a child passing or failing the UK truth and lies discussion (TLD) compared with the Canadian promise to tell the truth on mock jurors' decisions regarding witness credibility and truthfulness and defendant guilt. Ninety-two participants read a vignette that described a child witnessing his father physically attacking his mother. The vignette was manipulated for witness age (age 4 years and age 8 years) and TLD performance/promise. Supporting the hypotheses, participants rated the witness's credibility and truthfulness significantly higher after a witness passed a TLD and after promising to tell the truth. The age of the child witness did not significantly affect jurors' decision making. The results are discussed in relation to arguments regarding the abolition of the UK's TLD in favour of introducing a promise to tell the truth.