Arthur carried out an experiment to investigate the effect of a defendant's physical attractiveness on mock jurors' perception of guilt. He selected his participants from visitors who were available in a public library on a Saturday morning.
He gave two separate groups of participants a court case transcript to read, each accompanied by a photograph of the defendant:
Arthur then asked all participants to rate how likely it was that the defendant committed the crime. This was measured on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 represented 'definitely innocent' and 10 represented 'definitely guilty'.
Identify the sampling technique used by Arthur and explain one limitation of using this technique in this study.
Identify the independent variable (IV) and the dependent variable (DV) in this study.
Practise Edexcel A Level Psychology Content with exam-style questions for A Level Psychology. 1,059 questions covering Biological explanations of crime, Social explanations of crime, Cognitive and ethical interview techniques, Psychological formulation of offending, Cognitive-behavioural treatment for offenders, Biological treatment for offenders, Factors influencing eye-witness testimony, Factors influencing jury decision-making, Individual differences, and Developmental psychology, matched to the Edexcel A Level Psychology (9PS0) specification and written in Paper 1, Paper 2 and Paper 3 style. Every question includes a full worked solution and mark scheme, so you can see where marks are awarded rather than just whether you got the answer right.
