The Influence of Criminal Facial Stereotypes on Juridic Judgments
Abstract
In order to further research into the influence of facial stereotypes on juridic judgments, we investigated the influence of face/offence congruency on such judgments, taking into account the strength of the case against the defendant and the maturity and attractiveness attributes of the defendant’s face. Each participant (N = 169) read a fictitious case file that: (1) established the defendant’s guilt with either a high degree of ambiguity or with a low degree of ambiguity; (2) included a photo of the defendant that was congruent with the offence or not congruent with the offence. Participants were asked to evaluate the defendant’s guilt (in a dichotomous manner and on a continuous scale), to state their degree of confidence in their decision, to recommend a sentence, and to rate the attractiveness and maturity of the defendant’s face. The results show that participants’ judgments were affected by face/offence congruency and that this influence was not dependent on the ambiguity of the case or on the maturity or attractiveness of the face.
References
1979). Sex stereotypes and implicit personality theory: Toward a cognitive-social psychological conceptualization. Sex Roles, 5, 219–248.
(1982). Reducing the biasing effect of perpetrator attractiveness in jury simulation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8, 286–292.
(1990). Taking people at face value: Evidence for the kernel of truth hypothesis. Social Cognition, 8, 343–361.
(1985). Some components and consequences of baby-face. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 312–323.
(1988). What’s in a face? Facial maturity and the attribution of legal responsibility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 14, 23–33.
(1987). Social stereotypes and information processing strategies: The impact of task complexity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 871–880.
(1998). Facial appearance and criminality. In , Psychology and law: Truthfulness accuracy and plausibility (pp. 59–76). New York: McGraw-Hill.
(1994). Histoire du visage – Exprimer ou taire ses émotions. [
(History of faces – Display or mask ones emotions ]. Paris: Payot et Rivages.1998). La catégorisation des personnes. [
(The categorisation of people ]. Grenoble: PUG..1972). What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 285–290.
(1991). What is beautiful is good, but...: A meta-analytic review of research on the physical attractiveness stereotype. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 109–128.
(2003). Believing is seeing: The effects of racial labels and implicit beliefs on face perception. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 360–370.
(1974). The effect of physical appearance on the judgment of guilt, interpersonal attraction, and severity of recommended punishment in a simulated jury task. Journal of Research in Personality, 8, 45–54.
(1976). Measuring facial movement. Environmental Psychology and Non Verbal Communication, 1, 56–75.
(1992). Good-looking people are not what we think. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 304–341.
(1999). Rage and reason: The psychology of the intuitive prosecutor. European Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 781–795.
(1994). Person perception through facial photographs: Effects of glasses, hair, and beard on judgments of occupation and personal qualities. European Journal of Social Psychology, 24, 693–705.
(1966). The American jury. Boston: Little Brown.
(1980). Reducing juror bias: An experimental approach. In , New approaches in psycholegal research (pp. 149–170). New-York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
(1980). Prior confessions and mock juror verdicts. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 10, 133–146.
(1981). Coerced confessions, judicial instruction, and mock juror verdicts. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 11, 489–506.
(1996). Bias in judgement: Comparing individuals and groups. Psychological Review, 103, 687–719.
(1993). Stereotypes and the construal of individuating information. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19, 90–99.
(2003). When do stereotypes come to mind and when do they color judgement? A goal-based theorical framework for stereotype activation and application. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 522–544.
(1992). Des visages, essais d’anthropologie. [
(About faces, essays of anthropology ]. Paris: Métailié.1977). Physical attractiveness and severity sentencing. Psychological Reports, 40, 315–318.
(1980). Sex stereotypes and social judgement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 821–831.
(1982). Social stereotypes and judgements of individuals. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 18, 23–42.
(1989). Do criminal stereotypes mediate juridic judgements? British Journal of Social Psychology, 28, 189–191.
(1994). The effects of physical attractiveness, race, socioeconomic status, and gender of defendants and victims on judgements of mock jurors: a meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24, 1315–1344.
(1984). L’épistémologie du sens commun – de la perception à la connaissance de l’autre. [
(The Epistemology of common sense – from perceiving to knowing another person ]. In S. Moscovici, Psychologie sociale (pp. 277–307). Paris: PUF.1998). Attitude change: Multiple roles for persuasion variables. In , The handbook of social psychology (pp. 323–390). New York: McGraw-Hill.
(1999). The elaboration likelihood model: Current status and controversies. In , Dual-process theories in social psychology (pp. 41–72). New York: Guilford.
(1951). Les variétés du tempérament, une psychologie des différences constitutionnelles. [
(The varieties of temperament, psychology of constitutional differences ]. Paris: PUF..1978). Effect of character attribution on photofit construction of a face. European Journal of Social Psychology, 8, 263–268.
(1973). Facial stereotypes of deviants and judgements of guilt or innocence. Social Forces, 51, 427–433.
(1975). Beautiful but dangerous: Effects of offender attractiveness and nature of the crime on juridic judgment. Journal of Personnality and Social Psychology, 31, 410–414.
(1980). Defendant’s attractiveness as a function in the outcome of criminal trials: An observational study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 10, 348–361.
(1985). Appearance and punishment: The attraction-leniency effect in the courtroom. The Journal of Social Psychology, 125, 373–378.
(1993). Stereotypes and recognition memory for faces and voices of good guys and bad guys. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 7, 419–431.
(1997). Reading faces. Boulder, CO: Westview.
(1991). The impact of litigants’ baby-facedness and attractiveness on adjudications in small claims courts. Law and Human Behavior, 15, 603–623.
(1998). Bright, bad and baby-faced boys: Appearance stereotypes do not always yield self-fulfilling prophecy effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 1300–1320.
(1997). Accurate social perception at zero acquaintance: The affordances of a gibsonian approach. Personality and Social Psychology, 1, 204–223.
(