Sarah Kruger

Doctoral student
Headshot of Sarah Moody
she, her, hers

Summary

My research interests are primarily in legal decision-making as it pertains to criminal courts. I am interested in how factors such as eyewitness (mis)identification, jury decision-making, and plea bargaining result in rightful or wrongful convictions. Additionally, I am interested in the repercussions of those outcomes, such as imprisonment, exoneration and reintegration.

Education

  • M.A. in Interdisciplinary Social Psychology from the University of Nevada, Reno
  • B.A. in Psychology and Spanish from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Recent publications

  • Yang, Y., Moody, S. A., Cabell, J. J., &Madon, S. (in press). Why suspects confess: The power of outcome certainty. Law and Human Behavior. doi:10.1037/lhb0000350
  • Singer, J., Cummings, C., Moody, S. A., & Benuto, L. T. (2019). Reducing burnout, vicarious trauma, and secondary traumatic stress through investigating purpose in life in social workers.Journal of Social Work.Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/1468017319853057
  • Cummings, C., Singer, J., Moody, S. A., & Benuto, L. T. (2019). Coping and work-related stress reactions in protective services workers. The British Journal of Social Work. Advance online publication. doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcz082
  • Yang, Y., Smalarz, L., Moody, S. A., Cabell, J. J ., & Copp, C. J. (2019). An expected cost model of eyewitness identification. Law and Human Behavior, 43 , 205-219. doi:10.1037/lhb0000331

Recent conference presentations

  • Edwards, C. P., Merlino, M. L., Dahir, V. B., Hammond, D. L., Schaar-Buis, D., Moody, S. A., … Villalobos, J. G. (2019, August). Cognitive human factors and feature salience in forensic handwriting examination: Results from qualitative interviews. Poster presentation at the Annual Conference of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners, Cary, NC.
  • Moody, S. A., Cabell, J. J., & Yang, Y. (2019, April). The ecological validity of eyewitness research: Comparing field- and lab-based identifications. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Psychological Association, Pasadena, CA.
  • Yang, Y., Smalarz, L., Moody, S. A., Cabell, J., & Copp, C. (2019, March). An expected cost model of eyewitness identification. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychology-Law Society, Portland, OR.
  • Moody, S. A., Cabell, J., & Yang, Y. (2019, March). Eyewitness similarity judgments and their relationship to confidence and accuracy. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychology-Law Society, Portland, OR.
  • Cabell, J. J., Moody, S. A., & Yang, Y. (2019, March). They’re probably guilty: The power of expectations over truth. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychology-Law Society, Portland, OR.