Reaching a verdict - witness appeal

Castellow - attractivenss of the defendant

• test the effect of the attractiveness of a defendant on guilty verdicts
• 71 male and 74 female students from East Carolina Uni
• lab experiment
• details of a sexual harrassment case
• photographs of defendant and victim were attached which had been previously catergorised as attractive/unattractive by a panel on a scale of 1 - 9.
• key question analysed: do you think Mr Radford is guilty of sexual harassment?
• towards end of study, participants aked to rate the defendant and victim pictures on 11 bipolar scales such as dull - exciting, nervous - calm, warm - cold.
• combination of attractive victim and unattractive denfendant created the highest % of guilty verdicts
• lowest % of guilty verdicts when defendant was attractive and victim unattractive
• both male and female participants rated the physically attractive denfendants positively on the additional bipolar scales showing the halo effect
• no significant difference found between genders of the mock jurors, both genders were equally affected by physical appearance

Penrod and Cutler…