G. Daniel Lassiter

Education

Ph.D. (1984) University of Virginia

Research

Research Areas

• Social Judgment & Behavioral Decision Making

Specializations

• Social Psychology
• Judgment and Decision Making
• Legal Psychology

Dr. Lassiter is not accepting new graduate students.

Research Interests

G. Daniel Lassiter is professor of psychology at Ohio University and a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association, the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the American Psychology-Law Society, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. He earned a Ph.D. in 1984 from the University of Virginia and held positions at Northwestern University and the University of Florida before assuming his current position in 1987. For more than 30 years, he has conducted research on perceptual mechanisms in social judgment and decision making. His systematic investigations of the way observers perceptually organize continuous streams of behavior into discrete, discriminable, describable actions has provided fundamental insights regarding the nature and comprehension of social action and interaction.

A related, but more applied, program of scholarship aimed at examining the effect of presentation format on how mock jurors evaluate confession evidence has influenced national policy in New Zealand as well as legislation in North Carolina regarding the video recording of police interrogations. Both lines of Dr. Lassiter’s research have been supported by funds from the National Science Foundation and together have resulted in more than 75 scientific publications. In 2009, Dr. Lassiter received a Certificate of Appreciation from the Royal Police Cadet Academy in Thailand “in recognition of dedication, excellence, and remarkable efforts, exemplary commitment and for bringing value and knowledge to the field of Police Psychology.” In 2010, Dr. Lassiter was the recipient of the American Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy. The award citation reads in part that Dr Lassiter's "scholarship on bias and accuracy in evaluations of videotaped confessions serves as an elegant and inspirational model for bridging the gap between basic theory and real-world applicability. He has marshalled an impressive array of empirical facts so compelling, policymakers cannot fail to heed their import."

Most recently, his 2010 co-edited volume, Police interrogations and false confessions: Current research, practice, and policy recommendations, was recipient of both the 2010 Outstanding Book in Law and Psychology given by the American Psychology-Law Society and the 2010 PROSE Award in Psychology given by the Association of American Publishers in recognition of the very best in professional and scholarly publishing.

Publications

Books

Balcetis, E., & Lassiter, G. D. (Eds.). (2010). Social psychology of visual perception. New York: Psychology Press.

Lassiter, G. D., & Meissner, C. A. (Eds.). (2010). Police interrogations and false confessions: Current research, practice, and policy recommendations. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Lassiter, G. D. (Ed.). (2004). Interrogations, confessions, and entrapment. New York: Kluwer Academic.

Articles

Lassiter, G. D. (2010). Psychological science and sound public policy: Video recording custodial interrogations. American Psychologist, 65, 768-779.

Lassiter, G. D. (2010). Videotaped interrogations and confessions: What’s obvious in hindsight may not be in foresight. Law and Human Behavior, 34, 41-42.

Ratcliff, J.J., Lassiter, G. D., Jager, V. M., Lindberg, M. J., Elek, J. K., & Hasinski, A. E. (2010). The hidden consequences of racial salience in videotaped interrogations and confessions. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 16, 200-218.

Lassiter, G. D., Lindberg, M. J., Gonzalez-Vallejo, C., Bellezza, F. S., & Phillips, N. D. (2009). The deliberation-without-attention effect: Evidence for an artifactual interpretation. Psychological Science, 20, 671-675.

Snyder, C. J., Lassiter, G. D., Lindberg, M. J., & Pinegar, S. K. (2009). Videotaped interrogations and confessions: Does a dual-camera approach yield unbiased and accurate evaluations? Behavioral Sciences & the Law (special issue on “The age of innocence: Miscarriages of justice in the 21st Century”), 27, 451-466.

Gonzalez-Vallejo, C., Lassiter, G. D., Bellezza, F. S., & Lindberg, M. J. (2008). “Save angels perhaps”: A critical examination of unconscious thought theory and the deliberation-without-attention effect. Review of General Psychology, 12, 282-296.

Ware, L. J., Lassiter, G. D., Patterson, S. M., & Ransom, M. R. (2008). Camera perspective bias in videotaped confessions: Evidence that visual attention is a mediator. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 14, 192-200.

Lassiter, G. D., Clark, J. K., Munhall, P. J., & Lindberg, M. J. (2008). And I thought I was bad! The idiot effect in social judgment. Social Cognition, 26, 347-356.

Ratcliff, J. J., & Lassiter, G. D. (2007). On the induction and consequences of variation in behavior perception. Current Psychology, 26, 16-36.

Lassiter, G. D., Diamond, S. S., Schmidt, H. C., & Elek, J. K. (2007). Evaluating videotaped confessions: Expertise provides no defense against the camera perspective effect. Psychological Science, 18, 224-226.

Ratcliff, J. J., Lassiter, G. D., Schmidt, H. C., & Snyder, C. J. (2006). Camera perspective bias in videotaped confessions: Experimental evidence of its perceptual basis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 12, 197-206.

Chapters

Lassiter, G. D., Lindberg, M. J., Pinegar, S. K., & Ware, L. J. (2011). Understanding the false-confession phenomenon. In S. Diamond (Ed.), Compelling confessions: The politics of personal disclosure (pp. 110-129). Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson Press.

Lassiter, G. D., Lindberg, M. J., Ratcliff, J. J., & Ware, L. J., & Geers, A. L. (2010). Top-down influences on the perception of ongoing behavior. In E. Balcetis & G. D. Lassiter (Eds.), The social psychology of visual perception (pp. 225-251). New York: Psychology Press.

Lassiter, G. D., Ware, L. J., & Lindberg, M. J., & Ratcliff, J. J. (2010). Videotaping custodial interrogations: Toward a scientifically based policy. In G. D. Lassiter & C. A. Meissner (Eds.), Police interrogations and false confessions: Current research, practice, and policy recommendations (pp. 143-160). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Lassiter, G. D., Geers, A. L., Munhall, P. J., Handley, I. M., & Beers, M. J. (2001). Videotaped confessions: Is guilt in the eye of the camera? In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, (Vol. 33, pp. 189-254). New York: Academic Press.

Courses Taught

Graduate

• Experimental Social Psychology
• Social Perception and Cognition

Undergraduate

• Social Psychology
• Social Psychology of Justice

Recent Grants

Video-recorded interrogations: Beyond camera perspective. National Science Foundation, Sept. 1, 2012–Aug. 31, 2014, $189,797.

Video-recorded interrogations: Beyond camera perspective. Ohio Board of Regents Research Challenge Award, March 2012–February 2013, $ 5,000.

International Travel Fund Award, Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, 2010, $327.80.

Ohio University Conference on Interrogations and Confessions. The Science Directorate of the American Psychological Association, August 2006-December 2007, $33,000. (Includes matching funds and in-kind support from Ohio University.)

Bias and accuracy in the evaluation of videotaped confessions. National Science Foundation, March 1, 2005-Feb. 28, 2008, $194,040.

Bias and accuracy in the evaluation of videotaped confessions. Ohio Board of Regents Research Challenge Award, March 2003-February 2004, $ 6,000.

Generalizability and mediation of the videotaped-confession bias. National Science Foundation. July 1996-June 1999, $180,343. (Includes $10,440 in cost-sharing provided by Ohio University.)

Generalizability and mediation of the videotaped-confession bias. Ohio Board of Regents Research Challenge Award, December 1993-August 1995, $11,750.

Causes and effects of variation in behavior perception. National Science Foundation, August 1989-January 1992, $106,740.

Causes and effects of variation in behavior perception. Ohio Board of Regents Research Challenge Award, August 1988-July 1989, $15,000.

Behavior perception and causal attribution. Ohio University Research Committee, July 1988-June 1989, $4,385.

Affiliations

• American Psychological Association (Fellow)
• Association for Psychological Science (Fellow)
• Society of Experimental Social Psychology (Fellow)
• Society for Personality and Social Psychology (Fellow)
• American Psychology - Law Society (Fellow)
• Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (Fellow)