Cross‐Racial/Ethnic Eyewitness Identification: A Field Study¹

Abstract

Using a method similar to that of Brigham, Maass, Snyder, and Spaudling (1982), 86 adult convenience store clerks were asked to identify 3 confederate/customers, one Anglo‐American, one black‐American, and one Mexican‐American who had visited their stores 2 hours earlier. Wilcoxon matched pairs signed‐rank test showed that clerks were superior at identifying customers of their own racial or ethnic group, Z = 2.84, p < .002. For clerks who made an identification, the correlation between the recognition accuracy and confidence in their identification was not significant, r pbis (56)= .05. The results of this field study paralleled those found in most laboratory experiments of cross‐racial/ethnic identification and demonstrated that Mexican‐Americans are subject to the own/other groups identification accuracy phenomenon as well.