A field study on cultural differences in South African eyewitness reports

As part of the ERC project on Eyewitness Memory in Cross-Cultural Contexts, Laura Weiss, Werner Nell, Thembelihle Lobi, Colin Tredoux and Annelies Vredeveldt investigate how cultural backgrounds influence real-life eyewitness interview in South Africa.

In their newly published article, the authors present a thematic analysis of 103 video-recorded interviews conducted by South African police. They identify six key cultural differences in how witnesses recall and report crimes:

  1. the level of detail in reports,
  2. confidence in memory,
  3. use of culturally specific language and euphemisms,
  4. assertiveness,
  5. justification of victimhood, and
  6. descriptions of perpetrators.

These findings are discussed in relation to broader cultural dimensions such as collectivism and power distance, offering valuable insights for both researchers and practitioners working in multicultural investigative contexts.

The article is published open-access in Journal of Criminal Psychology and can be found here.