The effect of authority on eyewitness reports across cultures

The culture in which individuals have been socialized impacts behavior and psychological processes. In an experiment (N = 115), we examined whether mock-eyewitness reports provided by individuals from Ghana (high Power Distance culture) and the Netherlands (low Power Distance culture) are affected by reporting context (authority figure vs. peer). Low PD culture witnesses reported more details to police than to a peer. Overall, witnesses from a low PD culture provided more details than those from a high PD culture, irrespective of reporting context. Our findings suggest that reporting to an authority figure may affect eyewitness reports due to cultural background.