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The Impact of Physical Attractiveness and Type of Crime in Judicial Decision Making
Nienhaus, Sarah (2025) The Impact of Physical Attractiveness and Type of Crime in Judicial Decision Making.
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| Abstract: | Judges and juries are expected to evaluate cases based on legal factors, such as severity; however, their judgment is sometimes clouded by extra-legal factors, like the defendant's attractiveness and subsequent likability. This can include more lenient sentences for attractive defendants, potentially compromising society’s trust in the legal sector. However, research is ambiguous, with some finding effects of attractiveness and crime type, while others do not. Extending previous work, with this study, the effect of a defendant’s physical attractiveness and crime type on sentencing decisions in terms of sentence length and perceived seriousness is examined. For this, a 2 (Attractiveness: Attractive vs. Unattractive) x 4 (Crime Type: Burglary vs. Swindle vs. Sexual Assault vs. Physical Assault) factorial between-subjects mixed-methods study design was used. It was hypothesised that there is a difference between attractive and unattractive defendants in sentence length and seriousness of crime, depending on crime type, due to the liking-leniency effect and the beauty penalty. The results depict no difference in sentencing decisions based on attractiveness or its interaction with crime type. However, crime type influenced sentencing decisions, with burglary and swindle receiving similar sentence lengths, as did sexual and physical assault. The crime types were rated as increasingly serious in the following order: burglary, swindle, physical assault and sexual assault. Moreover, utilitarian sentencing orientation and gender role beliefs explained part of the variance for sentence length and seriousness, with likeability also emerged as a significant covariate of the seriousness of crime. Lastly, an exploratory analysis revealed that participants assigned significantly more responsibility to the victim in the swindle case, compared to sexual assault. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 77 psychology |
| Programme: | Psychology MSc (66604) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/107209 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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