Exploring cultural differences in eyewitness accounts using a self-administered reporting technique

ABSTRACT

In a globalised world, investigators often interact with witnesses from diverse cultural backgrounds. To date, there is a wealth of research on the use of evidence-based practices to facilitate recall and reporting in information elicitation contexts. However, research has been primarily conducted with participants from western (and typically individualistic) cultural contexts, ignoring the potential effects of cultural communication norms on memory reporting among other factors. We compared reports provided by two samples that contrast on the individualist-collectivist dimension (UK vs Lebanon). Participants (N = 118) witnessed a staged crime event and provided an account (in their native language) using a self-administered Timeline Technique or a Free Recall format, before responding to cued recall questions. As in previous research, UK participants reported more correct information when using the Timeline Technique compared to free recall. Contrary to hypotheses, participants in Lebanon provided a similar amount of information across reporting format conditions. Overall, Lebanese participants provided fewer correct details both in spontaneous self-administered reporting formats and in cued recall, compared to their UK counterparts. These findings have implications for information-gathering practices in cross-cultural interactions and highlight the (potential) need to modify existing techniques for different cultural contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Culture
• interviewing
• self-administered interview
• timeline technique
• cross-cultural communication
• eyewitness memory

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Hofstede’s individualism-collectivism index estimates the extent to which countries are individualistic and collectivistic in orientation. See https://www.hofstede-insights.com/product/compare-countries/

2 This was mistakenly reported as a one-way ANOVA with four groups in the pre-registration. The appropriate test (which is reported later) is a two-way ANOVA. The estimated sample size is the same for both tests so the result of the power analysis calculation remains valid for our tests and hypotheses.

3 Vertical individualism refers to individualistic cultures where hierarchy is emphasised in social relationships; horizontal individualism refers to individualistic cultures where equality is emphasised in social relationships; vertical collectivism refers to collectivistic cultures where hierarchy is emphasized in social relationship; and horizontal collectivism refers to collectivistic cultures where equality is emphasized in social relationships (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998).

4 It is important to note that the Lebanese participants in our study were young, educated urban dwellers. Anakwah et al. (2020a) found that young, educated, urban participants from Ghana scored higher on horizontal individualism than participants from the Netherlands. Similarly, the Lebanese participants in this study scored higher on horizontal individualism than the UK participants. It is, therefore, important to acknowledge the differences in self-construal that can occur within a culture. For example, Kitayama et al. (2006) found that Japanese individuals from Hokkaido had a more independent social orientation than those from the mainland. Some researchers have also noted that self-construal scales often fail to show predicted cultural differences (Harb & Smith, 2008; Vignoles et al., 2016).

5 We would like to thank three international investigators for a very useful discussion of this interesting perspective.

Additional information

Funding

This first author’s work in writing this article was part funded by the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats [ESRC Award: ES/N009614/1].