Castellow
- Created by: Steff06
- Created on: 06-05-16 17:30
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- Castellow
- Aim:
- To test the hypothesis that an attractive defendant is less likely to be seen as guilty.
- When the victim is attractive, the defendant is more likely to be found guilty.
- To look for any gender differences in jury verdicts depending on attractiveness
- Methodology:
- Laboratory experiment. Using the mock-trial format. Independent measures design.
- Participants:
- 71 male and 74 female students who participated for extra credit in their introductory psychology classes at East Carolina University.
- Procedure:
- Participants were told they would be reading a sexual harassment case and would have to answer questions on it.
- With the case were photographs of the victim and defendant previously categorised as attractive or unattractive by a panel on a scale of 1-9 with 1 being very unattractive and 9 being very attractive.
- Dependent variable measured by answer to the question : 'Do you think Mr Radford is guilty of sexual harassment.' Near the end of the case booklet they were given, asked to rate defendant and victim on 11 bipolar scales such as dull-exciting, nervous-calm, warm-cold.
- Results:
- Analysis of ratings showed physically attractive defendants and victims were rated positively on other personality variables too.
- Attractive defendant = 56% guilty verdict compared to 76% for unattractive defendant.
- Attractive victim = 77% guilty verdict compared to 55% for unattractive victim.
- No significant gender differences found and both sexes were equally influenced by appearance.
- Conclusions:
- When applied in the courtroom, appearance does seem to have a powerful effect. This finding has been supported by a lot of other research.
- A defendant would be well advised to make the best of their appearance when appearing in court.
- When applied in the courtroom, appearance does seem to have a powerful effect. This finding has been supported by a lot of other research.
- Aim:
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