Effects of perspective taking on courtroom decisions

Abstract

Four experiments examined the hypothesis that perspective taking with a defendant would lead to greater empathy, which would mediate lowered perceptions of culpability, with lowered culpability mediating a lower probability of guilt and recidivism. Experiments 1 and 2 established that perspective taking leads to a lower probability of guilty verdicts and recidivism, mediated by a decreased perception of the defendant's culpability. Experiment 2 showed that it does so by increasing empathy. Experiment 3 showed that perspective taking also heightens the perception of culpability through increased empathy for the victim. Experiment 4 showed that decreased culpability is in part driven by leniency, which is also a function of empathy. We tie our findings into other research investigating links between empathy and perspective taking.

Whose Side Are You On? Exploring the Role of Perspective Taking on Third-Party’s Reactions to Workplace Deviance

“…Bridging research in social psychology, which shows that taking the perspective of the perpetrator of unethical actions is associated with biased perceptions of the perpetrator's and victim's behavior (Kearns & Fincham, 2005;Skorinko, Laurent, Bountress, Nyein, & Kuckuck, 2014), with organizational research on the factors affecting third-party reactions to the negative behavior of others (Folger et al, 2005;Skarlicki & Kulik, 2004), the current research provides several contributions.…”

“…More specifically, participants taking the role of the perpetrator brought up more explanations that focused on the victim's passive behavior (e.g., the victim's controllable inaction), whereas those taking the perspective of the victim focused more on the perpetrator's controllable actions. Another study (Skorinko, Laurent, Bountress, Nyein, & Kuckuck, 2014) investigated the effect of perspective taking on mock courtroom decisions, showing that perceptions of culpability depended on the perspective taken (perpetrator/victim) and that empathy with the target mediated this effect.…”

Perspective-taking influences autonomic attunement between partners during discussion of conflict

“…Over three decades of research have established PT as an important contributor to relational health (e.g., Davis, 1983) and interpersonal closeness (Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce, & Neuberg, 1997). This ability to put oneself figuratively into “another person’s shoes” has been associated with a wide array of social benefits, including increased empathic concern toward others, a greater willingness to engage in altruistic and helping behavior, more leniency for social transgressions, and better theory of mind (Davis, 1983; Harwood & Farrar, 2006; Lamm, Batson, & Decety, 2007; Maner et al, 2002; Oswald, 1996; Skorinko, Laurent, Bountress, Nyein, & Kuckuck, 2014). PT has also been linked to behavioral attunement between individuals in the form of behavioral mimicry and taking on the beliefs and attitudes of a social target (Galinsky, Ku, & Wang, 2005; Laurent & Myers, 2011), which in turn is highly related to liking, cohesion, and inhibition of aggressive responding (e.g., Lakin, Jefferies, Cheng, & Chartrand, 2003; Richardson, Green, & Lago, 1998).…”

Individual and Structural Interventions

“…Perspective-taking interventions even reduce implicit bias, and lead, in turn, to more positive face-to-face interactions (Todd et al, 2011). Consider also that mock jurors encouraged to adopt the perspective of defendants become less likely to find them guilty (Skorinko et al, 2014). See also McHugh and Davidson's discussions of "epistemic friction" and "world-traveling" (Chapter 7, "Epistemic Responsibility and Implicit Bias").…”