Overall, studies show that the majority of Americans support the use of the death penalty for murderers; however, few studies have investigated response patterns to death penalty survey questions that offer more than yes/no response options. Without a realistic understanding of Americans’ attitudes, the existence of this controversial legislation may hinge on inaccurate depictions of public opinion. The current study utilizes a college sample of students from a southern university ( N = 775, average age 22) to investigate how nondichotomous response options affect our understandings of death penalty attitudes. Using independent variables that are commonly found in quantitative studies about death penalty attitudes (i.e., religiosity, biblical literalism, political attitudes, race, gender, age, southern region) as well as independent variables less commonly seen in death penalty studies (i.e., feminist identity, and student-specific variables: grade point average, freshman status, high school size, and sociology major/minor), ordinary least squares and logistic regression results indicate that examining death penalty support with nondichotomous response options reveals more nuanced results when compared to examinations of death penalty that use dichotomous response options. Policy implications are discussed.

Research examining attitudes toward the death penalty has led to a variety of theoretical and practical implications that continue to inform both research and policy. While many studies have examined how race, class, and gender are related to attitudes toward the death penalty, there is a complete lack of literature regarding sexual orientation and attitudes toward the death penalty. This is quite surprising since demographic research suggests that gay and lesbian individuals (compared to heterosexual individuals) have significantly higher levels of education and may be much more likely to align with liberal politics (two things that have been found to be correlated with a lack of support for the death penalty). Furthermore, studies suggest that gender differences in attitudes toward capital punishment can be related to the fact that women are socialized to be more empathic than men; however, it is unclear how these gender differences in empathic concern may be related to death penalty attitudes among gay and lesbian individuals. In this exploratory analysis using the General Social Survey (years 2002 and 2004), the authors investigate gay and lesbian individuals' attitudes toward the use of the death penalty. Preliminary findings indicate that similar to heterosexuals, the majority of gay and lesbian individuals support the death penalty; however, being a gay man exerts a significant negative effect on death penalty support. Furthermore, both empathic concern and political beliefs entirely mediate the effects of gender and sexual orientation on attitudes toward the death penalty.