Contextual Bias in Verbal Credibility Assessment: A Preregistered Direct Replication of the Criteria‐Based Content Analysis Condition in Bogaard Et al. (2014)

ABSTRACT Bogaard et al. (2014) found that contextual information biases the content‐scoring of victim statements with Criteria‐Based Content Analysis (CBCA). Later studies did not find such contextual bias, raising doubt on the original finding. In this preregistered direct replication ( n = 105), student participants scored four statements on the CBCA in a context of credibility‐enhancing (e.g., prior abuse allegations) or credibility‐reducing (e.g., motive to lie) information. Statements with credibility‐enhancing information received higher CBCA scores than statements with credibility‐reducing information ( d = 0.33; BF + 0 = 39.38), evidencing that CBCA scoring is prone to contextual bias, in a lay sample. Exploratory analyses suggest the effect is strongest for sexual abuse cases, and for the criteria Logical Structure, Amount of Detail, and Crime Characteristics. Follow‐up research should examine the effectiveness of debiasing strategies to mitigate the impact of contextual information and should ideally sample expert raters.