PERCEPTUAL-DISTORTIONS IN CROSS-CULTURAL INTERROGATIONS - THE IMPACT OF SKIN COLOR, ACCENT, SPEECH STYLE, AND SPOKEN FLUENCY ON IMPRESSION-FORMATION

Dutch police officers often assess Surinamer citizens more negatively than Dutch citizens. The principle of correspondence offers a possible explanation. According to this principle, a lack of correspondence be tween White police officers and Surinamer citizens results in a negati ve assessment of the Surinamer citizens. In this study, the influence of differences in skin color, accent, speech style, and (spoken) fluen cy on police officers' impression formation was examined. Results reve aled a negative influence of Surinamer speech style and fluency on imp ression formation. However, Black skin color and Surinamer accent resu lted in an unexpected positive assessment. It is concluded that the im portance of nonverbal behaviors in the formation of negative impressio ns is substantial.