Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 2015, 56, 99–104
DOI: 10.1111/sjop.12176
Personality and Social Psychology The emotional male victim: Effects of presentation mode on judged credibility € SARA LANDSTROM, KARL ASK and CHARLOTTE SOMMAR Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Landstr€om, S., Ask, K. & Sommar, C. (2015). The emotional male victim: Effects of presentation mode on judged credibility. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 56, 99–104. The emotional victim effect (EVE, i.e., that the emotionality of a victim’s demeanor affects perceived credibility) is a robust research finding for female victims of rape but much less explored for other types of victims and crimes. In this article, we investigate the EVE with a male assault complainant. In addition, we vary the presentation mode via which the complainant is shown to the assessors. A sample of law students (N = 81) participated in an experiment where they viewed and assessed credibility of a male complainant who appeared either live or on video. The complainant behaved either in an emotional or a neutral manner. Result showed that the presentation mode but not the EVE affected the assessors’ credibility assessments: The complainant was perceived as more truthful when communicating live, as opposed to via video. Practical implications, as well as the generality of the EVE, are discussed. Key words: Emotions, presentation mode, credibility, crime victim, gender, male victim. Sara Landstr€om, Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, P.O. Box 500, SE 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden. Tel: +46 – 31 786 4291; e-mail:
[email protected]
INTRODUCTION Victims who display negative emotions (e.g., agitation, sadness, despair) when testifying tend to be perceived as more credible than victims who behave in a more neutral or controlled manner (Ask & Landstr€om, 2010; Kaufmann, Drevland, Wessel, Overskeid & Magnussen, 2003). This emotional victim effect (EVE) has been repeatedly shown in experimental research for female rape victims. However, the inquiry of whether or not the EVE pertains to male crime victims has thus far been neglected. Previous research has shown that gendered emotion norms guide peoples’ perceptions of others. Typically, people expect women to be more emotional than men, with the exception of anger and pride, which men are expected to experience and express to a greater extent (Plant, Hyde, Keltner & Devine, 2000). Thus, there is reason to believe that the EVE could in fact affect assessments of male and female complainants differently. Studies on the EVE have often presented participants with videotaped versions of the complainant’s testimony (e.g. Ask & Landstr€om, 2010; Kaufmann et al., 2003; Winkel & Koppelaar, 1991). However, legal decision makers are often faced with both live and videotaped testimonial evidence, and research has shown that the presentation mode via which a testimony is presented often affect observers’ credibility assessments: testimonies presented live are perceived as more credible (Landstr€ om, Granhag & Hartwig, 2005, 2007). For this reason, the present study investigates the EVE with both live and videotaped versions of a male complainant’s testimony.
Effects of emotional victims According to functional accounts of emotions, displayed feelings serve as important social signals (Keltner & Haidt, 1999; Van © 2014 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Kleef, 2009). People make inferences about others’ characteristics such as traits (Hareli, Shomrat & Hess, 2009), competence (Tiedens, 2001), status (Tiedens, Ellsworth & Mesquita, 2000), and intentions (Fridlund, 1992) based on the type and intensity of expressed emotions. In the legal domain, the effects of emotional displays have primarily been investigated in relation to judgments of crime victim credibility (Ask & Landstr€ om, 2010; Bollingmo, Wessel, Eilertsen & Magnussen, 2008; Bollingmo, Wessel, Sandvold, Eilertsen & Magnussen, 2009; Hackett, Day & Mohr, 2008; Kaufmann, et al., 2003; Rose, Nadler & Clark, 2006). This research has consistently shown that victims who express strong negative emotions when talking about their victimization are perceived as more credible than victims who display little or no emotions (e.g., Kaufmann et al., 2003). This effect is troublesome, given that there is considerable variation in how people respond to and cope with negative events (Krohne, 2003; Watson & Clark, 1984) and the fact that research has documented a wide range of psychological reactions among crime victims (Frieze, Hymer & Greenberg, 1987). Hence, there appears to be no single emotional response that is indicative of the type and severity of a criminal event. Moreover, victims may choose to regulate their emotional expressions for purely selfpresentational purposes (Winkel & Koppelaar, 1991), further illustrating the inappropriateness of using emotional expressiveness as a sign of credibility. The EVE has been demonstrated among observers from different legally relevant populations, including police officers (Bollingmo et al., 2008), police trainees (Ask & Landstr€ om, 2010), and jurors (Golding, Fryman, Marsil & Yozwiak, 2003). Interestingly, however, Wessel, Drevland, Eilertsen and Magnussen (2006) found that professional judges were not influenced by the victim’s emotional display. Most studies on the EVE have been conducted with adult female rape victims as the
100 S. Landstr€om et al. targets of judgments. Recent experimental research, however, has been conducted with child victims of sexual abuse (Cooper, 2011; Golding et al., 2003), maltreatment (Wessel, Magnussen & Melinder, 2013), and harassment (Landstr€om, Ask, Sommar & Willen, 2013). In line with the studies conducted with female crime victims, moderately tearful child victims are perceived as more credible than calm (Cooper, 2011; Golding et al., 2003; Wessel et al., 2013; Landstr€om et al., 2013), hysterically crying (Golding et al., 2003), and happy or angry victims (Wessel et al., 2013), regardless of victim gender (Cooper, 2011; Landstr€om et al., 2013). Thus, previous studies have exclusively been limited to studying perceptions of female and child crime victims, and have failed to investigate whether similar effects would be observed for male victims. The closest approximations have been studies on the effects of the emotional expressions of male defendants on guilt judgments (Heath, 2009; Wessel, Bollingmo, Sønsteby, Nielsen, Eilertsen & Magnussen, 2012), and the effects of male victims’ emotions on judgments of crime severity (Tsoudis & Smith-Lovin, 1998). The extent to which the EVE generalizes to perceived credibility of male victims is, however, of great practical relevance; in fact, men are more frequently victims of crime than women (Irlander & Hvitfeldt, 2012). On theoretical grounds, one might predict that the EVE would be less pronounced for male as opposed to female victims. There are widespread gender-related stereotypes regarding emotional behavior, and women are typically expected to experience and express stronger emotions than men both in everyday settings (Plant et al., 2000; Timmers, Fischer & Manstead, 2003) and as a result of criminal victimization (Wrede & Ask, in press). Negative feelings may, thus, not be expected to the same extent from male victims, and their perceived credibility may suffer less from the absence of strong emotions. On the other hand, for similar reasons, an even stronger effect may be equally plausible. That is, because male expressions of strong feelings are considered atypical, and because people perceive atypical behaviors as particularly informative (Jones & Davis, 1965; Skowronski & Carlston, 1989), the occurrence of such expressions may be perceived as an indication that something truly disturbing must have happened. A third possibility is that the EVE typically observed for female victims is reversed when the victim is a man. The reverse EVE prediction rests on the finding that people are perceived as less credible when their behavior violates observers’ normative expectations (Bond, Omar, Pitre, Lashley, Skaggs & Kirk, 1992; Levine, Anders, Banas et al., 2000). Hence, because men are expected to be relatively unemotional, strong emotional displays by male victims may be considered “strange” and lead to decrements in perceived credibility. The present study was designed to address these ambiguities concerning the applicability of the EVE to male crime victims.
Effects of presentation modes In addition to the victim’s emotional display, the presentation mode via which the victim is giving her or his statement before the court (e.g., live, video, videoconference), has also been shown to influence people’s credibility judgments (Landstr€om, 2008). By and large, victims and witnesses testifying live (children © 2014 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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as well as adults) are generally more positively evaluated and perceived as more convincing and honest than those testifying via videotape or videoconference (Goodman, Myers, Qin et al., 2006; Goodman, Tobey, Batterman-Faunce et al., 1998; Landstr€ om & Granhag, 2010; Landstr€ om et al., 2005, 2007; however, see Taylor & Joudo, 2005, for an exception). One frequently suggested explanation for the finding that live statements are more readily believed than pre-recorded video statements is the vividness effect (Bell & Loftus, 1985; Nisbett & Ross, 1980). According to this account, evidence that is emotionally interesting, concrete and imageryprovoking, or temporally or spatially proximate, can be considered vivid (Nisbett & Ross, 1980). Hence, as live testimonies are spatially and temporally more immediate than videotaped testimonies they are likely to be experienced as more vivid. Furthermore, vivid testimonies tend to attract more attention, are assessed as more credible, and are better remembered than pallid testimonies (Bell & Loftus, 1985). Vivid, imagery-provoking evidence has also been found to be more difficult for jurors to disregard when deemed inadmissible as evidence (Edwards & Bryan, 1997). In line with this, legal professionals have expressed concern that the video presentation mode decreases the perceived credibility of the victim (Landstr€ om, Willen & Bylander, 2012). However, the use of video recorded interrogations as evidence is becoming more frequent and legislature in several countries has come to recommend or even require video recording of all or some types of interrogations (Landstr€ om et al., 2012; Sullivan, 2010). In Sweden, for example, all testimonies in the district courts are video recorded in order to serve as evidence in the appellate courts (The Swedish Code of Judicial Procedure, 1942: Chapter 6. 6§; Chapter 35. 13§). From the perspective of the victim, this development may be beneficial, specifically since videoconference and video recordings offer flexibility not easily met with the traditional in-court routine. Moreover, many victims may experience an immense anxiety having to appear in court with the accused. Research has shown that the traditional in-court routine can be traumatizing, especially for children who tend to show more pretrial anxiety and are less relaxed during trial when testifying in court, than children who testify out of court (e.g., Goodman et al., 1992, 1998). Thus, on the one hand, the use of video recordings and videoconferences may decrease the perceived credibility of victims. On the other hand, it may increase the victims’ well-being.
Present research Commonly, researchers have failed to address both presentation mode and the EVE. One exception is a study by Heath, Grannemann and Peacock (2004, Exp.1), who investigated the interaction of a female defendant’s level of emotion and presentation mode (audiotape vs. videotape) and found that an absence of displayed emotions led to higher ratings of level of guilt, and lower credibility ratings. Presentation mode did not influence credibility assessments and sentencing, but ratings of defendant honesty were higher in the audio condition. In the present study, we set out to investigate the effects of displayed emotion and those of presentation modes with a male assault complainant. As reviewed above, much research on presentation mode has focused on children (e.g., Landstr€ om et al., 2007; Landstr€ om &
Presentation mode and displayed emotions 101
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Granhag, 2010; Goodman et al., 1998) and non-emotional adults (Landstr€om et al., 2005). The aim of the present study is to investigate if (and how) the EVE, in conjunction with the two different modes of presentation (live vs. video) affects credibility judgments of a male assault complainant. Previous research has found that legal expertise (Wessel et al., 2006) but not legal training (Landstr€om et al., 2013) may protect against the EVE in credibility judgments. In the present study we recruited participants among law students, rather than from a general student or community population in order to investigate this matter further. In Sweden (and other Scandinavian countries), professional judges serve together with lay judges in both lower and appellate courts (Stridbeck & Granhag, 2010). All participants in this research had studied criminal law and, hence, were familiar with the credibility criteria recommended by the Swedish Supreme Court (NJA, 2010; Schelin, 2007) and applied by lower and appellate courts. As reviewed above, previous research suggests a number of different possibilities as to how a male complainant would be perceived and assessed if showing emotions while disclosing the abuse. We therefore made the novel proposition that the complainant would be perceived as more credible when behaving in an emotional (i.e., showing distress) rather than in a controlled manner (Hypothesis 1). We also predicted that the complainant would be perceived as more credible when his statement was presented live than when presented on videotape (Hypothesis 2). The present study also set out to explore the previously uncharted interaction between the EVE and the presentation mode on the participants’ credibility judgments.
METHOD Participants Law students (N = 81, 26 men and 54 women; 1 person did not indicate gender), with ages ranging from 18–30 years (Mage = 22.21, SD = 2.45) participated in the study. The students were recruited at a major Swedish University and were all paid a cinema ticket (approximate value € 10).
Materials and procedure The participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions defined by a 2 (Complainant Demeanor: emotional vs. neutral) 9 2 (Presentation Mode: live vs. video) factorial design. The stimuli material consisted of a complainant’s statement that was presented to the participants either live or on videotape. The videotaped material shown to the participants depicted the complainant, a 27-year-old experienced male actor unknown to the general public, sitting at a table, shot at eye-level from a distance of approximately 2 m with focus on his face and upper body. In the interviews, the complainant’s demeanor was manipulated so that in the ‘emotional version’ he displayed negative emotions. For example, the complainant looked down, hesitated, sighed and had a trembling voice when disclosing delicate parts of the situation. In the ‘neutral’ version, the complainant narrated the event in a factual manner spoke with a steady voice and showed little sign of emotion. In difference to the ‘typical’ rape victim reactions often used in EVE research (e.g., Ask & Landstr€ om, 2010; Kaufman et al., 2003), we adopted the more “subtle” emotional display used in a recent study by Landstr€om and colleagues (2013). Hence, although the man showed clear signs of distress, he remained in control of the situation and he did not cry. For logistical reasons, we were unable to present the identical testimonies live and on video. That is, as we only had a few hours at our disposal for collecting all the data the material had to be ready. In order to reduce possible effects of this limitation, the actor © 2014 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
selected for the task had previous experience from both theatres (live) and movies (video) and rehearsed the statement extensively to ensure equivalence (in verbal as well as non-verbal behavior) of the live and video versions. To ensure high perceived realism, the final versions of the man’s emotional and neutral testimonies were selected by the principal researchers after careful consideration. The verbal content of the statement was identical in all versions. In short, the complainant reported that he had been sitting with friends in a park when a gang had approached them. The gang had acted in a provocative way, and when the complainant got up to walk away, the gang approached him. When the complainant asked them to leave, the leader, who said he had a knife, threatened him. Without further provocations from the complainant, the leader had struck him over the head with an empty wine bottle. When realizing that he was bleeding, the complainant had walked away from the scene to lie down on the ground. Someone had shouted out that the police were on their way, and the gang had run away. Subsequently, the police and ambulance had arrived and the complainant was taken to a nearby hospital. To ensure perceived realism, the verbal statement was based on an interview with a real life assault male victim.
Dependent measures Participants were asked to rate whether or not they believed that the complainant had been assaulted (dichotomous yes/no judgment) and how confident they were in that judgment, with a scale ranging from 50% (completely unsure) to 100% (completely sure). By combining each participant’s dichotomous judgment and confidence rating, a measure of certainty ranging from 0% to 100% was obtained. For participants who believed that the complainant had been abused, the certainty score was their original confidence rating. For participants who did not believe that the complainant had been abused, the certainty score was obtained by subtracting the confidence estimate from 100%. Participants were also asked to rate how credible they perceived the complainant to be on a seven-point scale (1 = not at all, 7 = very much). The measurements of certainty and credibility were transformed into standardized z-values to form an index measure of veracity (Pearsons’s r = .75, p < .001, Cronbach’s alpha = .86). To check whether the manipulation of complainant behavior had been successful, participants were asked to rate the extent to which the complainant displayed feelings of discomfort, agitation, fear, sadness, despair, anger, and disgust during the statement. These ratings were made on a seven-point scale (1 = not at all, 7 = very much). To investigate case realism, the participants were asked to assess to what extent they believe that the complainant testimony was plausible and self-experienced on seven-point scales (1 = not at all, 7 = very much). Procedure. The participants attended the experimental session in a lecture hall in groups of 18 to 21 persons. To increase case realism, the participants received, upon arrival, verbal instructions that they were to observe a testimony from a male physical assault complainant who had volunteered to participate in a research study about the psychological aspects of evidence evaluation. Before watching the testimony, they were given written background information, stating that police had been called to the crime scene and that the complainant had been found with a head injury. It also stated that the complainant later had identified a suspect of the assault, but that he had claimed not to have been the assailant. Finally, the participants were informed that the investigation had been closed, due to lack of other evidence than the suspect’s and the complainant’s somewhat contradicting testimonies. Thus, the participants learned that their task was to assess the complainant’s credibility (not to determent guilt).
RESULTS Manipulation check To test the effectiveness of the complainant demeanor manipulation, a 2 (Complainant Demeanor: emotional vs. neutral) 9 2
102 S. Landstr€om et al. (Presentation Mode: live vs. video) MANOVA was conducted. As intended, there was a significant multivariate effect of Complainant Demeanor, Wilks’ k = 0.50, F(9, 69) = 1.81, p < .001, g2p = .51. The main effect of presentation mode was not significant, neither was the interaction effect between Complainant Demeanor and Presentation Mode. Univariate analyses showed that the complainant in the emotional condition, compared to the neutral condition, was perceived to display significantly more discomfort (M = 5.26 vs. M = 3.21), agitation (M = 4.12 vs. M = 2.28), fear (M = 4.36 vs. M = 2.69), sadness (M = 5.24 vs. M = 3.50), despair (M = 4.33 vs. M = 2.18), anger (M = 2.57 vs. M = 1.85) and disgust (M = 2.60 vs. M = 1.82), all ps < .005. Hence, the manipulation of Complainant Demeanor was successful. The participants (both live and video) did rate the complainant’s testimony as plausible (Live: M = 6.12, SD = 0.80; Video: M = 5.51, SD = 0.82) and self-experienced (Live: M = 6.24, SD = 1.65; Video: M = 6.18, SD = 1.16) to a high degree, suggesting that the testimony was considered to be authentic. Preliminary analyses showed that none of dependent measures differed significantly as a function of participant gender (p > .05).
Veracity judgments A 2 (Complainant Demeanor: emotional vs. neutral) 9 2 (Presentation Mode: live vs. video) ANOVA with veracity as dependent variable revealed that the main effect of Complainant Demeanor was not significant, F(1,77) = .00, p = .988, g2p < .01, this finding failing to support Hypothesis 1. However, a main effect of Presentation Mode, F(1,77) = 4.92, p = .03, g2p = .06, was found and showed, in line with Hypothesis 2, that the complainant was perceived as more credible in the live versions (Mz = 0.22, SD = 0.87) than in the video versions (Mz = –0.24, SD = 0.95). The Complainant Demeanor 9 Presentation Mode interaction was not significant, F(1,77) = 1.70, p = .196, g2p = .02.
DISCUSSION In contrast to previous research with female rape complainants as the targets of judgments, we failed to find support for the EVE with a male physical assault complainant. The present study did, however, lend further support to the presentation mode effect: the complainant’s statement was assessed as more credible when presented live than when presented via video. In line with previous research (Landstr€om et al., 2005, 2007), and in line with the vividness effect (Nisbett & Ross, 1980), we found that the live presentation mode resulted in higher credibility ratings than did the video mode. The results indicate, once again, that witnesses testifying via videotape are at a disadvantage compared to those testifying live. Importantly, this finding was replicated even though our study differed from previous studies (e.g., Landstr€om et al., 2005, 2007). The presentation mode effect generalizes beyond any specific legal setting and has proven to be robust. The effect has been shown with adults (Landstr€om et al., 2005) and children (Goodman et al., 1998, 2006; Orcutt, Goodman, Tobey, Batterman-Faunce & Thomas, 2001; Landstr€om et al., 2007; Landstr€om & Granhag 2010; Ross, Hopkins, Hanson, Lindsay, Hazan & Eslinger, 1994; © 2014 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Tobey, Goodman, Batterman-Faunce, Orcutt & Sachsenmaier, 1995), with witnesses (Landstr€ om et al., 2005, 2007) and complainants (Goodman et al., 1998, 2006; Orcutt et al., 2001; Landstr€ om et al., 2007; Landstr€ om & Granhag 2010; Ross et al., 1994; Tobey et al., 1995), as well as with different types of events: car crash (Landstr€ om et al., 2005), interaction with a stranger (Landstr€ om et al., 2007; Landstr€ om & Granhag, 2010), inappropriate touching (Goodman et al., 1998, 2006; Orcutt et al., 2001; Tobey et al., 1995), sexual assault (Ross et al., 1994) and assault as in the present study. This is of great practical importance since courts globally use both live and videotaped testimonial evidence. Moreover, although men are more likely than women to be the victims of assault (with the exception of sexual assault; Irlander & Hvitfeldt, 2012), research focusing on male victims and perceived credibility of men is scarce. Future research should therefore pay additional attention to male victims and possible gender differences in terms of other extra-legal factors that tend to affect credibility assessments (e.g., ethnicity; Lindholm, 2008). The fact that we did not find support for the EVE calls for an explanation. It may be, as we suggested previously, that male crime victims are less likely than female victims to be disadvantaged by a lack of displayed emotions. That is, because men are expected to express less emotion in general, and particularly the types of emotions that signal vulnerability and lack of control (e.g., sadness, fear; Plant et al., 2000; Timmers et al., 2003; Wrede & Ask, in press), our participants may not have considered the controlled emotional demeanor to violate their expectations and thus to be a sign of low credibility. Moreover, according to participants’ ratings, sadness and discomfort were the specific emotions displayed most prominently in the emotional version of the victim’s statement. As these feelings are stereotypically associated with women (e.g., Wrede & Ask, in press), it could be that they exert a weaker or more negative influence on judgments of male as opposed to female victims. In business settings, for instance, Brescoll and Uhlmann (2008) found that people conferred lower status on male professionals who displayed sadness rather than anger, whereas the opposite was observed for female professionals. More recently, however, Wrede, Ask and Str€ omwall (in press) showed that male crime victims who expressed sadness were viewed more positively and were perceived to be in greater need for social support than male victims who expressed anger. Although the judgments studied by Wrede et al. are not equivalent to credibility judgments, the general argument that male victims’ expressions of sadness are ineffective or have negative consequences appears to lack support. The above interpretations warrant further testing, but at this stage our findings suggest that the EVE may primarily occur with female (e.g., Ask & Landstr€ om, 2010) and child victims (e.g., Landstr€ om et al., 2013). Apart from the use of a male crime victim, however, our study differed from previous research in another important regard that may have contributed to the null findings regarding the EVE. Whereas previous studies have focused almost exclusively on victims of sexual crimes (but see Landstr€ om et al., 2013; Wessel et al., 2013; for recent exceptions), our complainant had allegedly been exposed to a non-sexual physical assault.
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It may be that people believe sexual crimes to be particularly emotional events, and that such beliefs are necessary to induce the EVE. In contrast, non-sexual crimes may not be associated with such beliefs, and the lack of emotional expressions may therefore not arouse suspicion. In addition, the observers in the present study only assessed one single individual. Our lack of support for the EVE may lie in the appearance and behavior of this particular target. Taken together, these alternative accounts highlight the need for future research on the generalizability of the EVE. Our study shows that the EVE may not be applicable to all types of crimes and all types of victims. Future studies should also investigate any interactive effects of emotional demeanor and presentation mode on judgments of female victims.
Practical applications The current research showed no support for an emotional victim effect with a male assault complainant. In light of the robustness of this effect with female rape victims, this is a noteworthy finding to explore further. It could be that the EVE is a phenomenon which is limited to groups who are typically expected to display emotions, for example, women and children, or one that is limited to a specific class of crimes (e.g., sexual crimes). Either way, knowledge about the generality and boundary conditions of the EVE should inform recommendations to legal practitioners on how to deal with the effect. We did, however, find support for the effect of presentation mode on credibility ratings. Our finding suggests that male assault victims are considered less credible if their statement is presented on video, as opposed to live. This is troublesome as it has real-life implications in light of the increased use of visual technology in the legal arena. Specifically, video recorded police interrogations are used as evidence in lower courts and video recorded court hearings serve as evidence in court of appeals (Landstr€om et al., 2012; Sullivan, 2010). Thus, the technology that is thought to assist and protect victims and witnesses may in fact jeopardize legal security. In order to reduce the effects of presentation mode on legal security, future research should explore the mediators of the presentation mode effect, as well as possible remedies for it. This research was supported financially by a grant from the Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority given to the first author. Thanks are due to Jonas Eskilsson, who acted as complainant in this study.
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