Exploring the role of emotional demeanor in a preliminary investigation context: expectation violations & gender

ABSTRACT

In a criminal investigation, displaying an unexpected emotional demeanor could trigger suspicion or perceptions of involvement. Across two studies, mock investigators read a case summary of a preliminary investigation where emotional demeanor (expected/unexpected) and gender of a person of interest (POI) in the investigation (man/woman) were systematically varied. In the second study, a cognitive busyness manipulation was included. In Study 1 (n = 420), an unexpected emotional demeanor led to lower ratings of appropriateness, negative affect display, credibility, and inflated perceptions of suspicion. These results were replicated in Study 2. In Study 2 (n = 396), results showed both main and interaction effects for both emotional demeanor and gender on judgments of several relevant evaluations including suspicion, involvement, and credibility, evidencing the influence of emotional demeanor at a very early stage of investigation, particularly for females. Cognitive busyness did not affect any evaluations of the case or POI.

KEYWORDS:

• Police
• preliminary investigation
• emotional demeanor
• investigative
• expectations

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badge for Open Materials. The materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/23faw/.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data is available on request from the authors. Survey materials can be found at the following link: https://osf.io/23faw/?view_only = 29414ac8889347c2890a78a9832aea87

Notes

1 α = .84.

2 α = .91.

3 Likability: α = .86, trustworthiness: α = .92, knowledgeable: α = .83.

4 The breakdown of the three-way interaction revealed the following: when participants were kept cognitively busy, the two-way interaction of gender and demeanor was significant, F (1,372) = 8.20, p = .004, ηp2 = .022. The male POI with the expected demeanor was rated as more believable than the male POI with an unexpected demeanor; ratings of the female POI did not differ as a function of her demeanor. In contrast, when participants were not kept cognitively busy, the two-way gender by demeanor interaction was again significant F (1,372) = 9.78, p = .002, ηp2 = .026, but with a different pattern of means. It was now the female POI with the expected, as opposed to unexpected, demeanor who was rated as more believable; ratings of the male POI did not differ as a function of his demeanor.