A Lie and a Mistress: On Increasing the Believability of Your Alibi

Abstract

The present study was designed to assess whether or not the presentation method and the salaciousness of an alibi affect its evaluation. Community participants (n = 150) were asked to evaluate the salacious or non-salacious alibi of a crime suspect. The alibi was either presented immediately after arrest by the suspect or was changed after the initial alibi turned out to be incorrect. The incorrect alibi was due to either a misrecollection or a deliberate lie. We found that when the initial alibi was changed into a salacious one, the believability increased. This effect was larger when the initial alibi was a lie than when it was a misrecollection. The results of the present study demonstrate that, contrary to common belief, a changed salacious alibi can lead to an increase in alibi believability.

Keywords:

• alibi believability
• changed alibis
• salaciousness

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Lien Lanclus for her help in collecting the data.

Notes

1. The ease with which the alibi could be fabricated was answered by 39 out of the 50 participants who read the alibi immediately; therefore the degrees of freedom differ from those in the previous analysis.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research [NWO 404-10-349].