Judgments of sex trafficked women: The role of emotions.

This study examined how incidental emotions influence decisions to arrest or release sex trafficking survivors. Community members (N = 984) completed an autobiographical memory task invoking disgust, sympathy, or no emotion and read case facts from United States v. Bell (2014) varying whether the survivor had a prior history of sex work and whether she came from a vulnerable or nonvulnerable background. Participants in the vulnerable condition believed that the survivor was less able to resist the trafficker's proposal. Furthermore, women but not men made to feel disgust believed that she should have resisted. Regarding arresting the survivor for prostitution versus releasing her for services, invoking either incidental disgust or sympathy, but especially disgust, triggered feelings of disgust, which in turn predicted an arrest decision. Finally, our data supported a moderated mediation model in which the belief that the survivor should have been able to resist the trafficker predicted a greater probability of an arrest judgment. Furthermore, participants in the vulnerable condition believed that the survivor had less ability to resist, and they disfavored her arrest. However, this was only true when we invoked no emotion. When we invoked disgust, vulnerability ceased to have this moderation effect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Stereotypes and emotions as moderators of risk and race in judgments about juvenile probationers.

Little research has explored the psychological mechanisms underlying racial disparities in the juvenile justice system. In Phase 1, of our mock officer paradigm, participants completed a stereotype content model survey comparing ratings of warmth and competence between juvenile delinquents and other social categories. In Phase 2, participants reviewed a predisposition investigation and made predictions about offender dangerousness and adherence to probation. Randomly assigned to experience fear, anger, or a neutral emotion, participants reviewed either a Black or White juvenile with no risk information versus low-, moderate-, or high-risk information. Participants stereotyped juvenile delinquents as low in warmth and competence and found those individuals extreme on these dimensions more dangerous. However, in some situations, stereotypical warmth interacted with emotions, risk, and race to exert a protective influence; in other situations, it was neutral, and in still others it was detrimental to the youth. For example, fearful participants provided lower dangerousness ratings to a White, high-risk offender as stereotypic warmth increased but this protective effect disappeared for high-risk Black offenders. Furthermore, irrespective of race, increases in warmth predicted higher dangerousness for low- and moderate-risk youth supporting the activation of a less "cold" stereotype that makes youthful offenders appear more dangerous. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The public's judgment of sex trafficked women: Blaming the victim?

A victim-centered approach to fighting sex trafficking can result in apprehension and prosecution of traffickers and offer needed services to survivors. However, law enforcement officers frequently arrest sex-trafficking survivors for prostitution in accordance with state law. This study examined the psychology of public reactions and judgments of sex-trafficking survivors demonstrating the importance of situational factors, cognitive stereotypes, and moral emotions. Using Stereotype Content Modeling to measure the stereotypes that 762 community members held about prostitutes, we found shared stereotypes that were low in competence (i.e., capable and skilled) and warmth (i.e., good-natured and friendly). These participants later read modified case facts from United States v. Bell (United States v. Bell, 761 F.3d (8th Cir. 2014)) that varied survivor history of prostitution, vulnerability, and prostitution as a subsequent livelihood. Participants who stereotyped prostitutes as low in warmth and competence were the ones most certain police should arrest the survivor. Moral emotion analyses further showed that a survivor with no prior prostitution history and who came from a nonvulnerable background invoked disgust and contempt, which predicted a higher certainty of the arrest. Moral emotions fully mediated the relationship between the interacting case facts and arrest certainty for the trafficking survivor. Future directions and policy implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Public support for sentencing reform: A policy-capturing experiment.

While research has shown magnitude of harm drives punishment decisions for crimes resulting in a prison sentence, many states impose probation rather than incarceration. A two-session experiment investigated how punishment type influences sentence length decisions. In session 1,347 participants answered online questions about their support for punishment justifications (i.e., retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation). In session 2, the online participants read a randomly assigned scenario about a clerk who stole either a smaller or larger amount of money from his employer (magnitude of harm), which the employer was either likely or unlikely to detect (detection), and the clerk received either a term of prison or probation (type of punishment). Results revealed that magnitude of harm influenced punishment severity and sentence length judgments despite participants' self-reported support for retribution as a justification showing no influence. Punishment type also affected sentence length decisions. Furthermore, punishment severity judgments mediated the effect of the magnitude of harm on sentence length after controlling for punishment justifications but only in the probation condition, showing demand for harsher punishment was greater for probation. Thus, we concluded that the retribution motive is prevalent if offenders with a more severe crime receive probation rather than a prison sentence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The objective prong in sexual harassment: What is the standard?

In Title VII sexual harassment jurisprudence, U.S. courts use a 2-prong subjective-objective test to determine the viability of a sexual harassment claim: The complainant must show that the employer's conduct was unwelcome and sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment because of the complainant's sex from both the complainant's perspective (subjective prong) and a reasonable person's perspective (objective prong). This online study used a diverse national sample (361 MTurk Community Members) to investigate whether people apply the objective prong in a uniform manner, as the law assumes, or show predictable differences. Participants read a vignette about a female interviewee's allegations of sexual harassment following from severe, mild, or no sexual objectification by a male interviewer during a job interview. The interviewee claimed that she was either harassed or not by the interviewer during the interaction, as well as claiming to enjoy or reject sexualization. Participants made judgments about whether the interviewer's behavior was sexually harassing from the interviewee's and a reasonable person's perspective. Overall, participants' sex and enjoyment of sexualization moderated their judgments of sexual harassment when considering the situation from both points of view, demonstrating that there is no convergence on a unified standard for evaluating whether specific behavior is sexually harassing. Drawing comparisons to obscenity law, we argue that the use of data to form social fact evidence may help decision makers in hostile work environment cases to apply a more uniform understanding of what is hostile and abusive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

How old is old in allegations of age discrimination? The limitations of existing law.

Under Title VII, courts may give a mixed motive instruction allowing jurors to determine that defendants are liable for discrimination if an illegal factor (here: race, color, religion, sex, or national origin) contributed to an adverse decision. Recently, the Supreme Court held that to conclude that an employer discriminated against a worker because of age, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, unlike Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, requires "but for" causality, necessitating jurors to find that age was the determinative factor in an employer's adverse decision regarding that worker. Using a national online sample (N = 392) and 2 study phases, 1 to measure stereotypes, and a second to present experimental manipulations, this study tested whether older worker stereotypes as measured through the lens of the Stereotype Content Model, instruction type (but for vs. mixed motive causality), and plaintiff age influenced mock juror verdicts in an age discrimination case. Decision modeling in Phase 2 with 3 levels of case orientation (i.e., proplaintiff, prodefendant, and neutral) showed that participants relied on multiple factors when making a decision, as opposed to just 1, suggesting that mock jurors favor a mixed model approach to discrimination verdict decisions. In line with previous research, instruction effects showed that mock jurors found in favor of plaintiffs under mixed motive instructions but not under "but for" instructions especially for older plaintiffs (64- and 74-year-old as opposed to 44- and 54-year-old-plaintiffs). Most importantly, in accordance with the Stereotype Content Model theory, competence and warmth stereotypes moderated the instruction effects found for specific judgments. The results of this study show the importance of the type of legal causality required for age discrimination cases. (PsycINFO Database Record

Differences in the eyes of the beholders: The roles of subjective and objective judgments in sexual harassment claims.

In 2 studies, we found support for current sexual harassment jurisprudence. Currently, the courts use a 2-prong test to determine the viability of a sexual harassment claim: that the adverse treatment is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter conditions of employment based on a protected class from the perspective of the individual complainant (subjective prong) and from the perspective of a reasonable person (objective prong). In Experiment 1, trained male undergraduate research assistants administered sequential objectifying gazes and comments to undergraduate female research participants. We found that the pervasive objectification delivered by multiple men (compared with 1 man) did not elicit more negative emotion or harm the experiencers' task performance, although it did lead them to make increased judgments of sexual harassment. In Experiment 2, observers (who viewed a recording of an experiencer's interactions with the male research assistants) and predictors (who read a protocol describing the facts of the interaction) anticipated the female targets would experience negative emotions, show impaired performance, as well as find more evidence in the interaction of sexual harassment. Observers' judgments mirrored those of the experiencers' while predictors' judgments demonstrated affective forecasting errors. Predictors were more likely to anticipate more negative emotion, worse performance, and greater likelihood of sexual harassment. Overall, these studies demonstrate the impact and importance of considering perceptions of sexual harassment from multiple perspectives and viewpoints. (PsycINFO Database Record

How people evaluate others with social anxiety disorder: A comparison to depression and general mental illness stigma.

Despite the availability of effective interventions, most individuals with social anxiety disorder do not seek treatment. Given their fear of negative evaluation, socially anxious individuals might be especially susceptible to stigma concerns, a recognized barrier for mental health treatment. However, very little is known about the stigma specific to social anxiety disorder. In a design similar to Feldman and Crandall (2007), university undergraduate students read vignettes about target individuals with a generic mental illness label, major depressive disorder, and social anxiety disorder. Subjects rated each of 3 people in the vignettes on social distance and 17 dimensions including dangerousness, heritability and prevalence of the disorder, and gender ratio. Results indicated that being male and not having experience with mental health treatment was associated with somewhat greater preferred social distance. Multiple regression analyses revealed that being embarrassed by the disorder and dangerousness predicted social distance across all 3 vignettes. The vignette for social anxiety disorder had the most complex model and included work impairment, more common among women, and more avoidable. These results have implications for understanding the specific aspects of the stigma associated with social anxiety disorder. Public service messages to reduce stigma should focus on more accurate information about dangerousness and mental illness, given this is an established aspect of mental illness stigma. More nuanced messages about social anxiety might be best incorporated into the treatment referral process and as part of treatment.

What are we studying? Student jurors, community jurors, and construct validity.

Jury researchers have long been concerned about the generalizability of results from experiments that utilize undergraduate students as mock jurors. The current experiment examined the differences between 120 students (55 males and 65 females, mean age = 20 years) and 99 community members (49 males and 50 females, mean age = 42 years) in culpability evaluations for homicide and sexual assault cases. Explicit attitude measures served as indicators of bias for sexual assault, defendant, and homicide adjudication. Results revealed that student and community participants showed different biases on these general explicit attitude measures and these differences manifested in judgments of culpability (guilt likelihood, convincingness of state's arguments, convincingness of defendant's arguments, and the defendants' criminal intentions) in sexual assault and homicide case scenarios. The results also showed that student mock jurors were more lenient when assigning guilt in homicide cases than were community members. The implications for future mock jury research are discussed.

Mock jury research: where do we go from here?

This paper reviews the four types of validity that make up Cook and Campbell's traditional approach for social science research in general and psychological research in particular: internal validity, statistical conclusion validity, external validity, and construct validity. The most important generalizability threat to the validity of jury research is not likely a selection main effect (i.e., the effect of relying solely on undergraduate mock jurors) but is more likely the interaction of sample with construct validity factors. Researchers who try to capture the trial process with experimental paradigms may find that undergraduate mock jurors react differently to those efforts than do more representative community samples. We illustrate these issues with the seven papers that make up this volume, and conclude by endorsing Diamond's call for a two-stage research process in which findings with samples of convenience gradually add more realistic trial processes and representative samples to confirm the initial findings and increase the research program's credibility.

A testable theory of problem solving courts: Avoiding past empirical and legal failures.

Recent years have seen a proliferation of problem solving courts designed to rehabilitate certain classes of offenders and thereby resolve the underlying problems that led to their court involvement in the first place. Some commentators have reacted positively to these courts, considering them an extension of the philosophy and logic of Therapeutic Jurisprudence, but others show concern that the discourse surrounding these specialty courts has not examined their process or outcomes critically enough. This paper examines that criticism from historical and social scientific perspectives. The analysis culminates in a model that describes how offenders are likely to respond to the process as they engage in problem solving court programs and the ways in which those courts might impact subsequent offender conduct. This Therapeutic Jurisprudence model of problem solving courts draws heavily on social cognitive psychology and more specifically on theories of procedural justice, motivation, and anticipated emotion to offer an explanation of how offenders respond to these programs. We offer this model as a lens through which social scientists can begin to address the concern that there is not enough critical analysis of the process and outcome of these courts. Applying this model to specialty courts constitutes an important step in critically examining the contribution of problem solving courts.

Likelihood of using drug courts: predictions using procedural justice and the theory of planned behavior.

The current research compares two theoretical models borrowed from social psychology (theory of planned behavior and procedural justice) to predict intentions to make use of a drug court. Medicaid-eligible substance users answered a number of questions regarding their intentions to use a drug court in the future, including items from planned behavior and procedural justice scales. When procedural justice was considered alone, only trustworthiness predicted intention to use drug courts. When planned behavior was considered alone, only deliberative attitudes predicted the intention. After combining the two models, deliberative attitudes from the theory of planned behavior were the only significant predictor of likelihood to make use of a drug court. Recommendations for future study of this area center on conceptualization of procedural justice and the use of alternative samples.

Symbolic hate: intention to intimidate, political ideology, and group association.

In Virginia v. Black (123 S.Ct. 1536, 2003), the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did not bar statutes that prohibit cross burnings in which defendants acted with intention to intimidate others. Using a variety of symbols including cross burnings, swastikas, confederate flags, and skin fists, the current research tested how mock jurors used alternative actor intentions to judge culpability in symbolic hate speech cases. Only partially validating the Court's assumptions, participants rated guilt certainty highest when they believed the speakers conveyed direct threats, sometimes regardless of whether defendants intended to intimidate others. Further, results showed the level of perceived intimidation only partially mediated the relationship between type of fact pattern and guilt certainty ratings. While alternative intentions did produce different levels of intention to intimidate, path analysis showed that the participants' ratings of the defendant's intention to convey a direct threat influenced guilt certainty ratings in all cases. Perceived intimidation levels predicted culpability in only some of the cases and not for cross burning on private property.

Consumer credit card use: the roles of creditor disclosure and anticipated emotion.

In response to federal legislative reform aimed, in part, at reducing consumer bankruptcy filings, the authors conducted 2 experiments examining the role of affect in purchasing behavior. In Experiment 1, they examined consumer debtors, and in Experiment 2, they examined nondebtors. In both experiments, they investigated purchasing decisions made during a simulated online shopping trip, with some participants receiving standard disclosures of interest rates and money owed and with other participants receiving information under the new enhanced disclosure regulations. Results demonstrated support for the influence of anticipated affect in credit card use among both debtors and nondebtors and indicated that anticipated emotion may moderate the impact of the enhanced disclosure regulations.

Emotion and the law: a framework for inquiry.

This paper draws on research in social and cognitive psychology to show how theories of judgment and decision making that incorporate decision makers' affective responses apply to legal contexts. It takes 2 widely used models of decision making, the rational actor and lens models, and illustrates their utility for understanding legal judgments by using them to interpret research findings on juror decision making, people's obedience to the law (e.g., paying taxes), and eyewitness memory. The paper concludes with a discussion of the advantages of modifying existing approaches to information processing to include the influence of affect on how legal actors reach judgments about law and legal process.

Debtor education, financial literacy, and pending bankruptcy legislation.

This paper reports on an evaluation of a financial education-training program for residents of New York who had filed for bankruptcy. Over 400 individuals divided into three groups (trained debtors, untrained debtors, and non-debtors) completed identical questionnaires approximately three months apart. Trained debtors took the pretest before training and the post-test after training. Results revealed that trained debtors' financial knowledge increased after training compared with untrained and non-debtors. Trained debtors showed more negative attitudes towards unnecessary spending compared with the other two groups and reported less intention to buy than non-debtors reported. Self-reported behaviors showed significant changes in the desired direction for trained debtors' use of credit cards (i.e. number owned, purchases, and balance amount), paying bills, budgeting, and borrowing from predatory lenders. Implications for pending legislation are discussed.

The effects of prior workplace behavior on subsequent sexual harassment judgments.

A dual processing model of sexual harassment judgments predicted that the behavior of a complainant in a prior case would influence evaluations in an unrelated subsequent case. In the first of two experimental scenarios depicting social-sexual conduct at work, the female complainant's conduct was manipulated to be aggressive, submissive, ambiguous, or neutral. Half of the participants were asked to reflect upon the first scenario after reading it and before answering responsibility questions. The other half simply reviewed the scenario and answered the questions. When the complainant acted aggressively, her behavior in the first scenario caused men who reflected on the fact pattern to find less evidence of harassment. Most interestingly, an aggressive complainant observed in the first scenario caused participants (especially women) to rate lower the likelihood that a neutral complainant in a second independent case was the victim of gender discrimination. Across cases, men found less evidence of harassment than did women.

The fit and implementation of sexual harassment law to workplace evaluations.

Three studies used videotaped harassment complaints to examine the impact of legal standards on the evaluation of social-sexual conduct at work. Study 1 demonstrated that without legal instructions, college students' judgment strategies were highly variable. Study 2 compared 2 current legal standards, the "severity or pervasiveness test" and a proposed utilitarian alternative (i.e., the rational woman approach). Undergraduate participants taking the perspective of the complainant were more sensitive to offensive conduct than were those adopting an objective perspective. Although the utilitarian altemative further increased sensitivity on some measures, it failed to produce a principled judgment strategy. Finally, Study 3 examined the kinds of errors that full-time workers make when applying the "severity or pervasiveness" test to examine more closely the sensitivity of the subjective approach.

The psychology of telling murder stories: do we think in scripts, exemplars, or prototypes?

According to the story model of Pennington and Hastie, jurors collect information at trial and modify it with general knowledge to create case stories. Schank and Ableson argue that human memory is organized to tell and understand stories. However, Finkel and Groscup questioned the use of manipulated, experimenter-constructed narratives to demonstrate the existence of multiple prototypical crime stories. We interviewed 76 jury eligible, death qualified citizens and asked them to imagine a first-degree murder scenario, describing the events that led to the killing. We coded the presence of dichotomous variables in the resulting stories and identified at least three shared story prototypes using cluster and profile analysis. We conclude that people do not store crime stories as simple prototypes and comment on the implications of this finding for legal decision-making.