Evaluating the validity of Dixon et al (2002) Accents on Guilt? (15 points) Dixon et al's (2002) research has low external validity as the study findings cannot be generalized across populations, times and settings as ecological validity is low as the research findings cannot be generalized across contexts of real life. Ecological validity is low as the study uses a mock jury to decide whether the suspect was guilty or not and further controls for extraneous variables as this is a controlled condition, however in the real world it is not possible to control for these variables. However, because ppts were able to deliberate in groups rather than making decisions alone, this is true to life with juries, so ecological validity is increased. But it would have had higher ecological validity if they had observed real-life juries and drawn conclusions about the study, however, that still wouldn't make it true to life since their decision has no real-life consequences and therefore they don't have the seriousness to the situation. Also due to low external validity, attributions of blame are generally made in a much richer evidentiary context than that provided by the study, so it is likely that the strength of the evidence will moderate any effect of emphasis on legal decision making. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay Population validity was also low as the sample included all White undergraduate psychology students, with an average age of 25.2 years, of which 24 were male and 95 were female. Although this sample is large, it is not representative of the UK, as the number of women is almost 4 times higher than that of men and also they were all students, so they only represent the student population and also being so young, the possibility of already being on duty jury service will be low and so we have never experienced this before. Also, as they excluded people from Birmingham, it is unrealistic as you would tend to be in court in your own county, for example a Brummie convict would be followed to Birmingham County, Crown or Magistrate Court by a typically Brummie jury, so therefore the accent would not be considered if they sound similar, however it could be important if you were tested in a different area, for example London. Alongside this one of the IVs was the color of the suspect, and since all the ppts were white it is more likely that they would have convicted the black man more than the white man by chance as this links to Pfeifer and Ogloff (1991) who showed white students rated black defendants more likely to be guilty than white defendants as many studies have indicated racial bias in juries, such as the OJ Simpson trial which showed that whites believed he was guilty due to the weight of evidence against him, compared to the black jury that interpreted the evidence in terms of police misconduct. So we should have an equal jury in terms of gender and the area the suspect is from, also the jury should represent the black-white ratio in the area where the court is located, so the sample would be representative. However, although both the ecological criterion and population validity are low, as seen above the concurrent validity is high since the study refers to previous studies and can be compared and show the same results as other psychologists. Since the color and accent of the 3 IVs have already been tested and furthermore, when the ppts have completed the scales of.