How discrete emotions affect misinformation reported in eyewitness testimonies
Eyewitness testimonies are significantly important in the forensic and legal domain; however, the emphasis on discrete emotions on the amount of misinformation reported by eyewitnesses remains relatively niche, warranting further scrutiny. The emotion fear in particular, has received scant att...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2020
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17147/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17147/1/614-2251-1-PB.pdf |
| Summary: | Eyewitness testimonies are significantly important in the forensic and legal domain; however,
the emphasis on discrete emotions on the amount of misinformation reported by eyewitnesses
remains relatively niche, warranting further scrutiny. The emotion fear in particular, has
received scant attention and The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), has several
limitations in capturing self-reports of discrete emotions. Therefore, this study aimed to
investigate the effect of discrete emotions on the amount of misinformation reported. One
hundred and eighty-eight undergraduate students were recruited and assigned to either the
happy, sad, fearful or neutral condition. Participant’s responses were recorded on the Discrete
Emotions Questionnaire (DEQ) before and after the emotion induction, and subsequently
presented with a misinformation paradigm. Generally, it was proposed that; participants in the
fearful condition would report the most amount of misinformation, followed by the neutral, sad
and happy conditions, and participants across all conditions would report more misinformation
on peripheral compared to central details. Experimental data analysis revealed there was no
significant effect of discrete emotions on amount of misinformation reported. Hence, none of
the hypotheses were supported. Despite these findings, this study captures the interesting facets
of discrete emotions and provides a compelling forefront for future research. |
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