IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/empleg/v21y2024i1p4-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consent searches and underestimation of compliance: Robustness to type of search, consequences of search, and demographic sample

Author

Listed:
  • Roseanna Sommers
  • Vanessa K. Bohns

Abstract

Most police searches today are authorized by citizens' consent, rather than probable cause or reasonable suspicion. The main constitutional limitation on so‐called “consent searches” is the voluntariness test: whether a reasonable person would have felt free to refuse the officer's request to conduct the search. We investigate whether this legal inquiry is subject to a systematic bias whereby uninvolved decision‐makers overstate the voluntariness of consent and underestimate the psychological pressure individuals feel to comply. We find evidence for a robust bias extending to requests, tasks, and populations that have not been examined previously. Across three pre‐registered experiments, we approached participants (“Experiencers”) with intrusive search requests and measured their behavioral compliance and self‐reported feelings of psychological freedom. Another group of participants (“Forecasters”) reported whether they would comply if hypothetically placed in the same situation. Study 1 investigated participants' willingness to allow experimenters access to their unlocked personal smartphones in order to read through the search histories on their web browsers—a private sphere where many individuals feel they have something to hide. Results revealed that whereas 27% of Forecasters reported they would permit such a search, 92% of Experiencers complied when asked. Study 2 replicated this underestimation‐of‐compliance effect when individuals were asked to permit a search of their purses, backpacks, and other bags—traditional searches not eligible for the heightened legal protection extended to digital devices. Study 3 replicated the gap between Forecasters' projections and Experiencers' behavior in a more representative sample, and found it persists even when participants' predictions are incentivized monetarily.

Suggested Citation

  • Roseanna Sommers & Vanessa K. Bohns, 2024. "Consent searches and underestimation of compliance: Robustness to type of search, consequences of search, and demographic sample," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(1), pages 4-34, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:empleg:v:21:y:2024:i:1:p:4-34
    DOI: 10.1111/jels.12375
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12375
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jels.12375?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Devah Pager, 2003. "The mark of a criminal record," Natural Field Experiments 00319, The Field Experiments Website.
    2. Devah Pager & Bruce Western & Naomi Sugie, 2009. "Sequencing Disadvantage: Barriers to Employment Facing Young Black and White Men with Criminal Records," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 623(1), pages 195-213, May.
    3. Joseph Henrich & Steve J. Heine & Ara Norenzayan, 2010. "The Weirdest People in the World?," RatSWD Working Papers 139, German Data Forum (RatSWD).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Keith Finlay & Michael Mueller‐Smith & Brittany Street, 2023. "Criminal Justice Involvement, Self‐Employment, and Barriers in Recent Public Policy," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(1), pages 11-34, January.
    2. Anke Ramakers, 2022. "Secrecy as best policy? Stigma management and employment outcomes after release from prison," The British Journal of Criminology, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, vol. 62(2), pages 501-518.
    3. Sibilla Di Guida & Ido Erev & Davide Marchiori, 2014. "Cross Cultural Differences in Decisions from Experience: Evidence from Denmark, Israel and Taiwain," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2014-16, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    4. Hind Dib‐slamani & Gilles Grolleau & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2021. "Is theft considered less severe when the victim is a foreign company?," Post-Print hal-03340844, HAL.
    5. Allison Dwyer Emory, 2019. "Unintended Consequences: Protective State Policies and the Employment of Fathers with Criminal Records," Working Papers wp19-04-ff, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    6. Shi, Yun & Cui, Xiangyu & Zhou, Xunyu, 2020. "Beta and Coskewness Pricing: Perspective from Probability Weighting," SocArXiv 5rqhv, Center for Open Science.
    7. Kyriaki Remoundou & Drichoutis Andreas & Phoebe Koundouri, 2010. "Warm glow in charitable auctions: Are the WEIRDos driving the results?," DEOS Working Papers 1028, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    8. Stephen L. Cheung & Agnieszka Tymula & Xueting Wang, 2022. "Present bias for monetary and dietary rewards," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(4), pages 1202-1233, September.
    9. Steven Raphael, 2014. "The New Scarlet Letter? Negotiating the U.S. Labor Market with a Criminal Record," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number nsc, November.
    10. Button, Patrick & Walker, Brigham, 2020. "Employment discrimination against Indigenous Peoples in the United States: Evidence from a field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    11. Plante, Charles & Lassoued, Rim & Phillips, Peter W.B., 2017. "The Social Determinants of Cognitive Bias: The Effects of Low Capability on Decision Making in a Framing Experiment," SocArXiv u62cx, Center for Open Science.
    12. John A. List, 2024. "Optimally generate policy-based evidence before scaling," Nature, Nature, vol. 626(7999), pages 491-499, February.
    13. Omar Al-Ubaydli & John A. List, 2019. "How natural field experiments have enhanced our understanding of unemployment," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 3(1), pages 33-39, January.
    14. Nicolas Jacquemet & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2014. "What drives failure to maximize payoffs in the lab? A test of the inequality aversion hypothesis," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 18(4), pages 243-264, December.
    15. Dai, Zhixin & Zheng, Jiwei & Zizzo, Daniel John, 2024. "Theories of reasoning and focal point play with a matched non-student sample," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    16. Jenny C Su & Chi-Yue Chiu & Wei-Fang Lin & Shigehiro Oishi, 2016. "Social Monitoring Matters for Deterring Social Deviance in Stable but Not Mobile Socio-Ecological Contexts," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-13, November.
    17. Goran Calic & Moren Lévesque & Anton Shevchenko, 2024. "On why women-owned businesses take more time to secure microloans," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 917-938, October.
    18. Bastien Michel & Camille Hémet, 2022. "Custodial versus non-custodial sentences: Long-run evidence from an anticipated reform," PSE Working Papers halshs-03899897, HAL.
    19. Sirola, Nina, 2023. "Going beyond the call of duty under conditions of economic threat: Integrating life history and temporal dilemma perspectives," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    20. Joshua Conrad Jackson & Marieke van Egmond & Virginia K Choi & Carol R Ember & Jamin Halberstadt & Jovana Balanovic & Inger N Basker & Klaus Boehnke & Noemi Buki & Ronald Fischer & Marta Fulop & Ashle, 2019. "Ecological and cultural factors underlying the global distribution of prejudice," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(9), pages 1-17, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:empleg:v:21:y:2024:i:1:p:4-34. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1740-1461 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.