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The relationship between facial attractiveness and perceived guilt across types of crime

Robin SS Kramer Orcid Logo, Janie-Lea Jarvis, Michaela Green, Alex Jones Orcid Logo

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Swansea University Author: Alex Jones Orcid Logo

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Abstract

Facial first impressions influence jurors in both laboratory experiments and real courtrooms. Often, more attractive defendants are perceived as less guilty and receive more lenient sentences. However, the type of crime under consideration, as well as the ecological validity of the stimuli presented...

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Published in: Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
ISSN: 1747-0218 1747-0226
Published: SAGE Publications
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa65122
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first_indexed 2023-11-26T21:54:42Z
last_indexed 2023-11-26T21:54:42Z
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spelling v2 65122 2023-11-26 The relationship between facial attractiveness and perceived guilt across types of crime a24e1e2a89b0a9120fe03b481a629edd 0000-0003-3600-3644 Alex Jones Alex Jones true false 2023-11-26 HPS Facial first impressions influence jurors in both laboratory experiments and real courtrooms. Often, more attractive defendants are perceived as less guilty and receive more lenient sentences. However, the type of crime under consideration, as well as the ecological validity of the stimuli presented, may determine the nature of this bias. Here, extending previous work, we considered three crime types (robbery, sexual assault, and murder) and utilised short video clips of male defendants, accompanied by real-world crime descriptions. Crucially, we varied attractiveness by presenting a large set of identities, in comparison with the typical use of one “high” and one “low” attractive face. Using null hypothesis significance testing, we found no evidence that either attractiveness or crime type influenced guilt perceptions. Taking a Bayesian perspective, our results provided some evidence that more attractive defendants were rated as less guilty of murder but more guilty of sexual assault, with no bias observed for robbery. Importantly, however, none of these effects had high certainty and all were small in size. By comparing the extremes of attractiveness, we again found inconclusive evidence of any attractiveness effects, with small differences in all cases. The implications for this departure from previous findings are discussed in terms of ecological validity and the need to consider attractiveness as a continuous rather than binary measure. Journal Article Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology SAGE Publications 1747-0218 1747-0226 Face perception, bias, facial attractiveness, defendant, juror decision-making, guilt 0 0 0 0001-01-01 10.1177/17470218231218651 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/17470218231218651 COLLEGE NANME Psychology COLLEGE CODE HPS Swansea University 2024-03-05T12:17:45.8379329 2023-11-26T21:51:16.2437394 Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences School of Psychology Robin SS Kramer 0000-0001-8339-8832 1 Janie-Lea Jarvis 2 Michaela Green 3 Alex Jones 0000-0003-3600-3644 4 65122__29351__1220214401834502bfaca8954265c4cd.pdf 65122.VOR.pdf 2024-01-03T11:47:47.0153141 Output 301412 application/pdf Version of Record true Distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). true eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title The relationship between facial attractiveness and perceived guilt across types of crime
spellingShingle The relationship between facial attractiveness and perceived guilt across types of crime
Alex Jones
title_short The relationship between facial attractiveness and perceived guilt across types of crime
title_full The relationship between facial attractiveness and perceived guilt across types of crime
title_fullStr The relationship between facial attractiveness and perceived guilt across types of crime
title_full_unstemmed The relationship between facial attractiveness and perceived guilt across types of crime
title_sort The relationship between facial attractiveness and perceived guilt across types of crime
author_id_str_mv a24e1e2a89b0a9120fe03b481a629edd
author_id_fullname_str_mv a24e1e2a89b0a9120fe03b481a629edd_***_Alex Jones
author Alex Jones
author2 Robin SS Kramer
Janie-Lea Jarvis
Michaela Green
Alex Jones
format Journal article
container_title Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
institution Swansea University
issn 1747-0218
1747-0226
doi_str_mv 10.1177/17470218231218651
publisher SAGE Publications
college_str Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
hierarchytype
hierarchy_top_id facultyofmedicinehealthandlifesciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofmedicinehealthandlifesciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
department_str School of Psychology{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Psychology
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/17470218231218651
document_store_str 1
active_str 0
description Facial first impressions influence jurors in both laboratory experiments and real courtrooms. Often, more attractive defendants are perceived as less guilty and receive more lenient sentences. However, the type of crime under consideration, as well as the ecological validity of the stimuli presented, may determine the nature of this bias. Here, extending previous work, we considered three crime types (robbery, sexual assault, and murder) and utilised short video clips of male defendants, accompanied by real-world crime descriptions. Crucially, we varied attractiveness by presenting a large set of identities, in comparison with the typical use of one “high” and one “low” attractive face. Using null hypothesis significance testing, we found no evidence that either attractiveness or crime type influenced guilt perceptions. Taking a Bayesian perspective, our results provided some evidence that more attractive defendants were rated as less guilty of murder but more guilty of sexual assault, with no bias observed for robbery. Importantly, however, none of these effects had high certainty and all were small in size. By comparing the extremes of attractiveness, we again found inconclusive evidence of any attractiveness effects, with small differences in all cases. The implications for this departure from previous findings are discussed in terms of ecological validity and the need to consider attractiveness as a continuous rather than binary measure.
published_date 0001-01-01T12:17:43Z
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