Leading questions are a type of misleading information.
It is a question that implies something has happened when it did not.
It is a question that implies something has happened when it did not.
Loftus & Palmer (1974)
Loftus & Palmer aimed to investigate the effect of a leading question about a car accident on recall of speed and damage caused
Experiment 1: 45 students were shown clips of traffic accidents and asked a series of questions including the leading question and asked to recall speed.
Experiment 2: 150 students shown more footage, asked some questions and asked to recall damage
Experiment 1: 45 students were shown clips of traffic accidents and asked a series of questions including the leading question and asked to recall speed.
Experiment 2: 150 students shown more footage, asked some questions and asked to recall damage
Strength: Cause & effect can be establishedAs a laboratory experiment was conducted the only variable to change is the verb in the critical question.
The method allows control and therefore the IV is responsible for the change to the DV (estimate in speed). Strength: Supporting evidence for the studyLoftus & Zanni (1975) Showed ppts a brief film clip of a car accident then asked a series of questions.
Half were asked: "Did you see a broken headlight?" (7%) and the other half were asked "Did you see the broken headlight?" (17%). However there was no broken headlight in the film. |
Weakness: Lacks external validityLab experiments may not represent real life as it was conducted in a controlled environment. the findings cannot be generalised to other settings.
In addition to this all the participants were students, therefore the study has low population validity, the findings cannot be generalised to other groups of people. Weakness: Lacks internal validityPeople may not take the experiment seriously and/or they are not emotionally aroused in a way that they would be in a real accident.
The study lacks mundane realism as the task was simulated and not representative of real life eyewitness testimony. |