Criminal psychology-topic 4.

Criminal psychology.

Psychology and the courtroom.

Background.

Stewart- created a hyothesis that as the attractiveness of the defendent decreases, the severity of the punishment deceases. He observed public trials, sitting in the gallery and watching the trials. He observed 60, there was a team of eight observers, each trial had two observers. Rated the defendents on; physical attractiveness, neatness, cleanness, and quality of dress. He did find that the less attractive the defendents were, the more severe the punishent would be.

Sigall and Ostrove- asked 120 people to suggest a jail sentence for burgulary or fraud. He showed them a photo of an attractive suspect and unattractive suspect. He found that people gave longer sentences for the unattractive person for burgulary, but longer sentences for the attractive person for fraud.

Pfeifer and Ogloff- found white university students were more likely to rate black defendents as more likely to be guilty, than white victims. Evidence shows black people are also much more likely to recieve harsher sentences, when being sentenced to the same crime as whites. Furthermore, if an individual murders a white victim they are much more likely to recieve the death penalty than if they murder a black victim. O.J simpson- white people saw him as guilty, where as blacks saw it as police misconduct.

Lakoff- effect of using hedges while speaking (i think etc)/ making it sound like you are asking a question. Using this type of language was associated with being less intelligent, less competent, less likeable, and less believable.

Mahoney and Dixon- defendents with a brummie (birmingham) accent were percieved as being more guily that offenders without.

Research-Dixon and Mahoney.

Aim- test the idea that brummie accented suspects would produce stronger attributions of guilt than standard accent.They also wanted to test the effect of race/ type of crime.

Method- investigated brummie/non-brummie/black/white/blue collar (armed robbery)/white collar (cheque fraud). Took…