The effects of essentialist thinking toward biosocial risk factors for criminality and types of offending on lay punishment support

The effects of a defendant's childhood physical abuse on lay support for sentencing: The moderating role of essentialism

Research suggests that a defendant's history of experiencing childhood abuse, and its effects on their life and later decision-making, may impact public support for a defendant's sentencing, particularly mitigation. However, no existing research has examined how and why sentencing support may vary based on the time period when the abuse occurs during a defendant's childhood. This experiment, using a sample of the U.S. public (N = 400), examines how the age at which a defendant's childhood physical abuse occurs affects lay support for the goals of their sentencing. We hypothesized that participants with higher levels of social and biological trait essentialism would moderate their increased support for more punitive sentencing goals-particularly when a defendant was abused earlier, rather than later, in childhood. Results suggest that social essentialism is associated with increased support for restoration and rehabilitation toward defendants with histories of childhood physical abuse, potentially indicating that the public views the effects of child abuse as more of a social, versus biological, process which may affect support for utilitarian punishment goals.

Bio-behavioral scientific evidence alters judges' sentencing decision-making: A quantitative analysis

The present study surveyed judges to examine how they consider and apply scientific information during sentencing determinations. Judges in criminal courts are increasingly asked to assess and make decisions based on evidence surrounding psychiatric disorders, with unclear results on sentencing outcomes. We qualitatively interviewed 34 judges who have presided over criminal cases in 16 different states and also administered vignette surveys during the interviews. We asked them to make sentencing decisions for hypothetical defendants in cases presenting evidence of either no psychiatric disorder, an organic brain disorder, or past trauma, as well as to rate the importance of different goals of sentencing for each case. Results indicated that the case presenting no evidence of a mental health condition received significantly more severe sentences as compared to either psychiatric condition. Judges' ratings of sentencing goals showed that the importance of retribution was a significant mediator of this relationship. Trauma was not deemed to be as mitigating as an organic brain disorder. These results provide unique insights into how judges assess cases and consider sentencing outcomes when presented with scientific information to explicate defendants' behavior. We propose ways forward that may help better integrate scientific understandings of behavior into criminal justice decision-making.

Social essentialism in the United States and China: How social and cognitive factors predict within- and cross-cultural variation in essentialist thinking

People intuitively view some social groups (such as Black people, Muslims, and women) as having biological underpinnings and discrete boundaries. Essentialist beliefs about social groups shape how people view themselves and others, leading to a number of negative social consequences. Whereas previous research has demonstrated variations in social essentialism within some Western societies, less is known about how social essentialism manifests in East Asian cultures that have well-documented differences in social values and cognitive styles from Western cultures. The current research investigated cultural variations in social essentialist thinking in the United States and China to reveal how cultural ideologies and social belief systems shape people's basic representations of the social world. Analyses revealed several cultural and social correlates of social essentialism both between and within the cultures and demonstrated the mediating role of collectivistic values in predicting cultural differences in essentialist beliefs about group coherence.

A jury of scientists: Formal education in biobehavioral sciences reduces the odds of punitive criminal sentencing

This study examines how formal education in biological and behavioral sciences may impact punishment intuitions (views on criminal sentencing, free will, responsibility, and dangerousness) in cases involving neurobiological evidence. In a survey experiment, we compared intuitions between biobehavioral science and non-science university graduates by presenting them with a baseline case without a neurobiological explanation for offending followed by one of two cases with a neurobiological explanation (described as either innate or acquired biological influences to offending). An ordinal logistic regression indicated that both science and non-science graduates selected significantly more severe punishments for the baseline case as compared to when an innate neurobiological explanation for offending was provided. However, across all cases, science graduates selected significantly less severe sentences than non-science graduates, and only science graduates' decisions were mediated by free will and responsibility attributions. Findings are discussed in relation to scientific understandings of behavior, the impact of science education on attitudes towards punishment, and potential criminal-legal implications.

Losing the lottery of life: Examining intuitions of desert toward the socially and genetically "unlucky" in criminal punishment contexts

This research presents three experiments that examine how natural "luck" (social and genetic luck) may affect lay intuitions toward desert-based criminal punishment. Study 1 examined if intuitions surrounding desert-based rewards in relation to good qualities/advantages ascribed to natural luck would extend to desert-based punishments in relation to bad qualities/disadvantages ascribed to natural luck. Study 2 examined how both social and genetic luck affect support for desert-based punishment across different criminal offenses and tests the relevance of immanent justice reasoning to such support. Study 3 examined whether findings in the prior studies are specific to desert-based punishment and immanent justice reasoning, or if natural luck elicits broader punishment judgments and types of justice reasoning. Results showed that known intuitions surrounding desert-based rewards do extend to desert-based punishments in instances of natural luck. Immanent justice reasoning was strongly associated with support for desert-based punishment in instances of both social and genetic luck. However, genetic luck, as compared to social luck, significantly increased support for desert-based punishment, with imminent justice reasoning mediating this increased support. Implications are discussed in relation to capital sentencing and better understanding lay intuitions toward the punishment of criminal offenders who may have qualities ascribed to the "natural lottery."

"Internally Wicked": Investigating How and Why Essentialism Influences Punitiveness and Moral Condemnation

Kant argued that individuals should be punished "proportional to their internal wickedness," and recent work has demonstrated that essentialism-the notion that observable characteristics reflect internal, biological, unchanging "essences"-influences moral judgment. However, these efforts have yielded conflicting results: essentialism sometimes increases and sometimes decreases moral condemnation. To resolve these discrepancies, we investigated the mechanisms by which essentialism influences moral judgment, focusing on perceptions of actors' control over their behavior, the target of essentialism (particular behaviors vs. actors' character), and the component of essentialism (biology vs. immutability). Participants punished people described as having a criminal essence more than those with a non-criminal essence or no essence. Probing potential mechanisms underlying this effect, we found a mediating role for perceptions of control and weak influences of essentialism focus (behavior vs. character) and component of essentialism (biology vs. immutability). These results extend prior work on essentialism and moral cognition, demonstrating a causal link between perceptions of "internal wickedness" and moral judgment. Our findings also resolve discrepancies in past work on the influence of essentialism on moral judgment, highlighting the role that perceptions of actors' control over their behavior play in moral condemnation.

The importance of forensic evidence for decisions on criminal guilt

Recent studies have found that the general public perceives forensic evidence to be relatively inaccurate and to involve high levels of human judgement. This study examines how important the general public finds forensic evidence by comparing decisions on guilt and punishment in criminal cases that involve forensic versus eyewitness testimony evidence and examining whether a CSI effect exists. Specifically, this experimental survey study utilized a 2 (crime type: murder or rape) × 4 (evidence type: DNA, fingerprint, victim eyewitness testimony, or bystander eyewitness testimony) - 1 (no victim testimony for murder scenario) design, yielding seven vignettes scenarios to which participants were randomly assigned. Results indicate that forensic evidence was associated with more guilty verdicts and higher confidence in a guilty verdict. Forensic evidence did not change the expected sentence length and did not generally affect the ideal sentence length. However, for rape, respondents believed that the defendant should receive a longer sentence when forensic evidence was presented but forensic evidence did not alter likely sentence that respondents expected the defendant to receive. The results of this study did not support a CSI effect. Overall, this study suggests that forensic evidence - particularly DNA - has a stronger influence during the verdict stage than the sentencing stage.

The potential influence of criminological rationales in considering childhood abuse as mitigating to sentencing

BACKGROUND

U.S. courts currently show no coherent approach with regard to how evidence of childhood abuse is considered in sentencing. Existing state and federal caselaw suggests that courts rarely place significant consideration on evidence of childhood abuse during sentencing, but the reasons why offenders who have been subjected to childhood abuse rarely receive mitigated or alternative sentences remain unknown. Yet literature has suggested it might be because no convincing rationales have been yet developed for the court in contending that penalties of offenders who were subjected to childhood abuse should be mitigated.

OBJECTIVE

This research examines if and how criminological theoretical perspectives linking childhood abuse and later offending (Social Control Theory, Social Learning Theory, General Strain Theory) are persuasive in arguing childhood abuse (neglect, witnessing trauma, sexual abuse, physical abuse) as mitigating to criminal sentencing.

PARTICIPANTS

A national sample of U.S. adults (N = 521).

METHODS

A multi-factorial, vignette-based experiment was conducted, utilizing OLS and mediation analyses.

RESULTS

Evidence on childhood abuse, and particularly sexual abuse, reduced support for incapacitation (B = -0.13, p ≤ 0.05) and increased support for rehabilitation (B = 0.16, p ≤ 0.01). Social Control Theory was particularly persuasive in arguing childhood abuse as mitigating to prison time and in relation to support for rehabilitative sentencing (mediated by beliefs regarding what the theory conveys about future dangerousness and reduced responsibility).

CONCLUSIONS

Criminological theories appear to be persuasive rationales for arguing childhood abuse as mitigating to sentencing contexts involving incapacitation and rehabilitation. Implications for sentencing guidelines and systems are discussed.