ABSTRACT

The current study examined how the context of the crime and the ethnic affiliations of the suspects and participants influenced credibility assessments with respect to in- and out-group suspects. The 200 participants, half Israeli-Jewish and half Israeli-Arab, assessed the credibility of an alibi statement provided be either an Israeli-Jewish or an Israeli-Arab suspect accused of vandalism in either an ethnic-based or neutral-based context. The results indicate that the context of the crime moderated the effect of intergroup bias on credibility assessment among Israeli-Arab participants (out-group members). Under both crime contexts, Israeli-Jewish suspects were perceived as less credible than Israeli-Arab suspects. However, for Israeli-Arab, the effect of intergroup bias was stronger in the ethnic-based context than in the neutral-based context. Overall, the results suggest that Israeli-Arab group might have felt threatened by the ethnic-based context, which could have increased the group bias in their judgments, as compared to the Israeli-Jewish group.

摘要

目前的研究检查了犯罪背景以及嫌疑人和参与者的种族归属如何影响对内和外群体嫌疑人的可信度评估。200 名参与者（一半是以色列犹太人，一半是以色列阿拉伯人）评估了一份不在场证明的可信度，该声明提供的是以色列犹太人或以色列阿拉伯嫌疑人，在基于种族或基于中立的背景下被指控破坏公物。结果表明，犯罪背景缓和了群体间偏见对以色列-阿拉伯参与者（外群体成员）可信度评估的影响。在这两种犯罪背景下，以色列-犹太人嫌疑人被认为不如以色列-阿拉伯嫌疑人可信。然而，对于以色列-阿拉伯人，群体间偏见的影响在基于种族的背景下比在基于中立的背景下更强。