Abstract
The psychological study of alibis is in its nascent phase, and the empirical literature on alibis is correspondingly inchoate. This chapter reviews the current state of the literature on the psychology of alibis. First, we discuss the process of alibi generation and argue that there are three main obstacles that prevent innocent suspects from generating accurate and believable alibis: They often lack a memory of the critical event, they rely heavily on schema-based responding, and they lack the ability to produce corroborating evidence. Based on the extant literature, we propose the schema disconfirmation model as a theoretical framework in which to understand the process of alibi generation. Next, we discuss the process of alibi evaluation and delineate the factors that make alibis more or less believable. To reconcile seemingly conflicting findings, we suggest theoretical refinements to the alibi skepticism hypothesis, which claims that evaluators are particularly skeptical of alibi claims. Finally, we propose directions for future research with the aim of (a) advancing our theoretical understanding of the alibi generation and evaluation processes, and (b) encouraging researchers to adopt a system variables approach to maximize the impact alibi research can have on the collection and treatment of alibi evidence.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Persad’s conviction was later vacated and the charges dismissed.
References
Allison, M., & Brimacombe, C. A. (2010). Alibi believability: The effect of prior convictions and judicial instructions. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40, 1054–1084. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2010.00610.x.
Allison, M., Jung, S., Sweeney, L., & Culhane, S. E. (2014). The impact of illegal alibi activities, corroborator involvement and corroborator certainty on mock juror perceptions. Psychiatry, Psychology, and Law, 21, 191–204. https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2013.803275.
Allison, M., Mathews, K. R., & Michael, S. W. (2012). Alibi believability: The impact of salacious alibi activities. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 40, 605–612. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2012.40.4.605.
Baddeley, A. (1992). What is autobiographical memory? In M. A. Conway, D. C. Rubin, H. Spinnler, & W. A. Wagenaar (Eds.), Theoretical perspectives on autobiographical memory (pp. 13–29). Netherlands: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7967-4_2.
Barclay, C. R. (1986). Schematization of autobiographical memory. In D. C. Rubin (Ed.), Autobiographical memory (pp. 82–99). New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press.
Bond, C. F., Jr., & DePaulo, B. M. (2006). Accuracy of deception judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 214–234. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr1003_2a.
Burke, T. M., & Turtle, J. W. (2003). Alibi evidence in criminal investigations and trials: Psychological and legal factors. Canadian Journal of Police and Security Services, 1, 286–294.
Burke, T. M., Turtle, J. W., & Olson, E. A. (2007). Alibis in criminal investigations and trials. In M. P. Toglia, J. D. Read, D. F. Ross, & R. C. L. Lindsay (Eds.), The handbook of eyewitness psychology, Vol. I: Memory for events (pp. 157–174). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
Charman, S. D., Carbone, J., Kekesie, S., & Villalba, D. (2015). Evidence evaluation and evidence integration in legal decision-making: Order of evidence presentation as a moderator of context effects. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 30, 214–225. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3181.
Charman, S. D., Kavetski, M., & Hirn Mueller, D. (2017). Cognitive bias in the legal system: Police officers evaluate ambiguous evidence in a belief-consistent manner. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6, 193–202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.02.001.
Charman, S. D., Reyes, A., Villalba, D. K., & Evans, J. R. (2017). The (un)reliability of alibi corroborators: Failure to recognize faces of briefly encountered strangers puts innocent suspects at risk. Behavioral Sciences & The Law, 35, 18–36. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2264.
Connolly, D. A., Price, H. L., & Gordon, H. M. (2010). Judicial decision-making in timely and delayed prosecutions of child sexual abuse in Canada: A study of honesty and cognitive ability in assessments of credibility. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 16, 177–199. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019050.
Crozier, W. E., Strange, D., & Loftus, E. F. (2017). Memory errors in alibi generation: How an alibi can turn against us. Behavioral Sciences & The Law, 35, 6–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2273.
Culhane, S. E., & Hosch, H. M. (2004). An alibi witness’ influence on mock jurors’ verdicts. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 34, 1604–1616. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02789.x.
Culhane, S. E., & Hosch, H. M. (2012). Changed alibis: Current law enforcement, future law enforcement, and layperson reactions. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 39, 958–977. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854812438185.
Culhane, S. E., Hosch, H. M., & Kehn, A. (2008). Alibi generation: Data from U.S. Hispanics and U.S. Non-Hispanic whites. Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, 6, 177–199. https://doi.org/10.1080/15377930802243395.
Culhane, S. E., Kehn, A., Horgan, A. J., Meissner, C. A., Hosch, H. M., & Wodahl, E. J. (2013). Generation and detection of true and false alibi statements. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 20, 619–638. https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2012.729018.
Dahl, L. C., Brimacombe, C. A. E., & Lindsay, D. S. (2009). Investigating investigators: How presentation order influences participant-investigators’ interpretations of eyewitness identification and alibi evidence. Law and Human Behavior, 33, 368–380. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-008-9151-y.
Dahl, L. C., & Price, H. L. (2012). “He couldn’t have done it, he was with me!”: The impact of alibi witness age and relationship. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26, 475–481. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.2821.
Dysart, J. E., & Strange, D. (2012). Beliefs about alibis and alibi investigations: A survey of law enforcement. Psychology, Crime & Law, 18, 11–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/1068316x.2011.562867.
Eacott, M. J. (1999). Memory for the events of early childhood. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 46–48. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00011.
Eastwood, J., Snook, B., & Au, D. (2016). Safety in numbers: A policy-capturing study of the alibi assessment process. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 30, 260–269. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3200.
Ebbinghaus, E. (1885/1913). Memory: A study in experimental psychology. New York: Columbia University Press.
Fawcett, H. (2016). The effect of evidence timing and witness motivation upon juror evaluations of alibi witnesses and defendants. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 23, 575–587. https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2015.1081317.
Friedman, W. J. (1993). Memory for the time of past events. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 44–66. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.113.1.44.
Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., & Savitsky, K. (2000). The spotlight effect in social judgment: An egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one’s own actions and appearance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 211–222. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.2.211.
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics, volume 3: Speech Acts (pp. 43–58). New York: Academic Press.
Hosch, H. M., Culhane, S. E., Jolly, K. W., Chavez, R. M., & Shaw, L. H. (2011). Effects of an alibi witness’s relationship to the defendant on mock jurors’ judgments. Law and Human Behavior, 35, 127–142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-010-9225-5.
Hyman, I. E., & Loftus, E. F. (1998). Errors in autobiographical memory. Clinical Psychology Review, 18, 933–947. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0272-7358(98)00041-5.
Jung, S., Allison, M., & Bohn, L. (2013). Legal decision-making on crimes involving an alibi. Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 9, 45–58. https://doi.org/10.1037/t04698-000.
Kassin, S. M., Meissner, C. A., & Norwick, R. J. (2005). “I’d know a false confession if i saw one”: A comparative study of college students and police investigators. Law and Human Behavior, 29, 211–227. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-005-2416-9.
Koriat, A., & Goldsmith, M. (1996). Monitoring and control processes in the strategic regulation of memory accuracy. Psychological Review, 103, 490–517. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.103.3.490.
Krall, E. A., & Dwyer, J. T. (1987). Validity of a food frequency questionnaire and a food diary in a short-term recall situations. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 73, 1374–1377.
Leins, D. A., & Charman, S. D. (2016). Schema reliance and innocent alibi generation. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 21, 111–126. https://doi.org/10.1111/lcrp.12035.
Lindsay, R. C. L., Lim, R., Marando, L., & Cully, D. (1986). Mock-juror evaluations of eyewitness testimony: A test of metamemory hypotheses. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 16, 447–459. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1986.tb01151.x.
Lindsay, R. C. L., Wells, G. L., & O’Connor, F. J. (1989). Mock-juror belief of accurate and inaccurate eyewitnesses: A replication and extension. Law and Human Behavior, 13, 333–339. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01067033.
Maeder, E. M., & Dempsey, J. L. (2013). A likely story? The influence of type of alibi and defendant gender on juror decision-making. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 20, 543–552. https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2012.727066.
Malloy, L. C., Shulman, E. P., & Cauffman, E. (2014). Interrogations, confessions, and guilty pleas among serious adolescent offenders. Law and Human Behavior, 38, 181–193. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000065.
Marion, S. B., & Burke, T. M. (2013). False alibi corroboration: Witnesses lie for suspects who seem innocent, whether they like them or not. Law and Human Behavior, 37, 136–143. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000021.
Marion, S. B., & Burke, T. M. (2017). Altruistic lying in an alibi corroboration context: The effects of liking, compliance, and relationship between suspects and witnesses. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 35, 37–59. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2269.
Masip, J., & Herrero, C. (2013). ‘What would you say if you were guilty?’ Suspects’ strategies during a hypothetical behavior analysis interview concerning a serious crime. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 27, 60–70. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.2872.
Mazzoni, G., & Kirsch, I. (2002). Autobiographical memories and beliefs: A preliminary metacognitive model. In T. J. Perfect & B. L. Schwartz (Eds.), Applied metacognition (pp. 121–146). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
McAllister, H. A., & Bregman, N. J. (1989). Juror underutilization of eyewitness nonidentifications: A test of the disconfirmed expectancy hypotheses. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 15, 447–459. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1989.tb01218.x.
Memon, A., Meissner, C. A., & Fraser, J. (2010). The cognitive interview: A meta-analytic review and study space analysis of the past 25 years. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 16, 340–372. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020518.
Mosser, A. E., & Evans, J. R. (n.d.). From the police station to the hospital bed: Using the Cognitive Interview to enhance epidemiologic interviewing. In Evidence Based Investigative Interviewing (in press).
Mohr, C. D., Brannan, D., Wendt, S., Jacobs, L., Wright, R., & Wang, M. (2013). Daily mood-drinking slopes as predictors: A new take on drinking motives and related outcomes. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 27, 944–955. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032633.
Nahari, G., & Vrij, A. (2014). Can I borrow your alibi? The applicability of the verifiability approach to the case of an alibi witness. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 3, 89–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2014.04.005.
Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2, 175–220. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175.
Nieuwkamp, R., Horselenberg, R., & van Koppen, P. J. (2016). A lie and a mistress: On increasing the believability of your alibi. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 23, 733–745. https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2016.1142934.
Nunez, N., Kehn, A., & Wright, D. B. (2011). When children are witnesses: The effects of context, age and gender on adults’ perceptions of cognitive ability and honesty. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25, 460–468. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1713.
Olson, E. A. (2013). “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?” Expectations influence recall and belief of alibi information. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43, 1238–1247. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12086.
Olson, E. A., & Charman, S. D. (2012). ‘But can you prove it?’ - examining the quality of innocent suspects’ alibis. Psychology, Crime, and Law, 18, 453–471. https://doi.org/10.1080/1068316X.2010.505567.
Olson, E. A., & Wells, G. L. (2004). What makes a good alibi? A proposed taxonomy. Law and Human Behavior, 28, 157–176. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:LAHU.0000022320.47112.d3.
Olson, E. A., & Wells, G. L. (2012). The alibi-generation effect: Alibi-generation experience influences alibi evaluation. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 17, 151–164. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8333.2010.02003.x.
Pozzulo, J. D., Pettalia, J. L., Dempsey, J. L., & Gooden, A. (2015). Juvenile offenders on trial: Does alibi corroboration evidence and defendant age interact to influence jurors’ perceptions and verdicts? Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 22, 224–234. https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2014.937518.
Price, H. L., & Dahl, L. C. (2014). Order and strength matter for evaluation of alibi and eyewitness evidence. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 28, 143–150. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.2983.
Price, H. L., & Dahl, L. C. (2017). Investigator sensitivity to alibi witness inconsistency after a long delay. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 35, 60–74. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2276.
Ross, D. F., Jurden, F. H., Lindsay, R. C. L., & Keeney, J. M. (2003). Replications and limitations of a two factor model of child witness credibility. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33, 418–430. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2003.tb01903.x.
Rubin, D. C. (Ed.). (1996). Remembering our past: Studies in autobiographical memory. New York: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511527913.
Sakrisvold, M. L., Granhag, P. A., & Mac Giolla, E. (2017). Partners under pressure: Examining the consistency of true and false alibi statements. Behavioral Sciences & The Law, 35, 75–90. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2275.
Sargent, M. J., & Bradfield, A. L. (2004). Race and information processing in criminal trials: Does the defendant’s race affect how the facts are evaluated? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 995–1008. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167204265741.
Sommers, S. R., & Douglass, A. B. (2007). Context matters: Alibi strength varies according to evaluator perspective. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 12, 41–54. https://doi.org/10.1348/135532506X114301.
Strange, D., Dysart, J., & Loftus, E. F. (2014). Why errors in alibis are not necessarily evidence of guilt. Zeitschrift Fur Psychologie, 222, 82–89. https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000169.
Strömwall, L. A., Granhag, P. A., & Jonsson, A. C. (2003). Deception among pairs: “Let’s say we had lunch and hope they will swallow it!” - deception among pairs. Psychology, Crime, and Law, 9, 109–124. https://doi.org/10.1080/1068316031000116238.
Vredeveldt, A., van Koppen, P. J., & Granhag, P. A. (2014). The inconsistent suspect: A systematic review of different types of consistency in truth tellers and liars. In R. H. C. Bull (Ed.), Investigative interviewing (pp. 183–207). New York: Springer.
Wagenaar, W. A. (1988). People and places in my memory: A study on cue specificity and retrieval from autobiographical memory. In M. M. Gruneberg, P. E. Morris, & R. N. Sykes (Eds.), Practical aspects of memory: Current research and issues (Vol. 1, pp. 228–233). New York, NY: Wiley.
Wells, G. L. (1978). Applied eyewitness-testimony research: System variables and estimator variables. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1546–1557. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.36.12.1546.
Wells, G. L., Small, M., Penrod, S., Malpass, R. S., Fulero, S. M., & Brimacombe, C. A. E. (1998). Eyewitness identification procedures: Recommendations for lineups and photospreads. Law and Human Behavior, 22, 603–647. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025750605807.
Willard, J., Guyll, M., Madon, S., & Allen, J. E. (2017). Relationship closeness and self-reported willingness to falsely take the blame. Behavioral Sciences & The Law, 34, 767–783. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2270.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Charman, S., Matuku, K., Mosser, A. (2019). The Psychology of Alibis. In: Bornstein, B., Miller, M. (eds) Advances in Psychology and Law. Advances in Psychology and Law, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11042-0_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11042-0_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-11041-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-11042-0
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)