How information about perpetrators’ nature and nurture influences assessments of their character, mental states, and deserved punishment

Abstract

Evidence of perpetrators’ biological or situational circumstances has been increasingly brought to bear in courtrooms. Yet, research findings are mixed as to whether this information influences folk evaluations of perpetrators’ dispositions, and subsequently, evaluations of their deserved punishments. Previous research has not clearly dissociated the effects of information about perpetrators’ genetic endowment versus their environmental circumstances. Additionally, most research has focused exclusively on violations involving extreme physical harm, often using mock capital sentences cases as examples. To address these gaps in the literature, we employed a “switched-at-birth” paradigm to investigate whether positive or negative information about perpetrators’ genetic or environmental backgrounds influence evaluations of a perpetrator’s mental states, character, and deserved punishment. Across three studies, we varied whether the transgression involved direct harm, an impure act that caused no harm, or a case of moral luck. The results indicate that negative genetic and environmental backgrounds influenced participants’ evaluations of perpetrators’ intentions, free will, and character, but did not influence participants’ punishment decisions. Overall, these results replicate and extend existing findings suggesting that perpetrators’ supposed extenuating circumstances may not mitigate the punishment that others assign to them.

The use of neurobiological evidence in sentencing mitigation

“…Researchers have investigated the potential impact of behavioral genetic evidence in hypothetical criminal cases using mock jurors, finding that evidence about heritable traits that predispose an individual toward antisocial and criminal behavior can increase the likelihood of harsher punishments (Gordon & Greene, 2018) as well as more public support for funding law enforcement rather than social support (Meyer et al., 2022). Other researchers have found that evidence regarding negative genetic factors influenced decisionmakers' opinions regarding defendants' intentions, free will, and character but did not influence decisions about punishment (Lynch et al., 2019). Raad and Appelbaum (2015) Sabatello & Appelbaum, 2017 found that behavioral genetic evidence increased the likelihood that study respondents, a representative sample of the U.S. adult population, would endorse treatment with medication for a hypothetical child found to have a genetic variant associated with a high risk for future violent behavior.…”

Genetic essentialist beliefs about criminality predict harshness of recommended punishment.

“…If assumptions of naturalness are most salient, people’s inclination to punish may decline, as one might expect judgments of culpability to decrease when an individual is “born that way”; in contrast, if assumptions of immutability or discreteness dominate, people's inclination to punish may increase, as they may perceive a perpetrator to be stably dangerous or flawed and/or a member of a qualitatively distinct outgroup. The idea that different facets of essentialist inferences may differentially predict judgments may also account for the findings of a third body of experimental work, which indicates that presenting evidence that criminal behavior has biological origins has no net effect on recommended punishment, though such information may reliably relate to people’s evaluations of perpetrators’ dangerousness, deservingness of treatment, level of control over their actions, and moral character (Appelbaum et al, 2015; Lynch et al, 2019; Scurich & Appelbaum, 2016). In this way, essentialist explanations for crime may act as a “double-edged sword,” for instance promoting assumptions both of uncontrollability and increased likelihood of reoffense, ultimately canceling out punishment-related effects across participants (Cheung & Heine, 2015; Scurich & Appelbaum, 2016, 2017).…”

“…In light of contemporary scientific and popular discussions regarding how genes are implicated in complex human behavior, directly addressing people’s lay genetic essentialist beliefs is an important focus to include when exploring attributions for crime, and whether these beliefs matter for relevant and societally important attitudes about punishment and crime prevention. Past work obtained mixed evidence regarding how the biological component of psychological essentialism predicted punishment judgments, sometimes yielding a positive correlation, sometimes a negative correlation, and sometimes no correlation (Allen et al, 2019; Appelbaum et al, 2015; Aspinwall et al, 2012; Berryessa, 2020; Dar-Nimrod et al, 2011; de Vel-Palumbo et al, 2019; Lynch et al, 2019; Martin et al, in press; Martin & Heiphetz, 2021; Monterosso et al, 2005; Robbins & Litton, 2017; Scurich & Appelbaum, 2016; Xu et al, 2022). We had no directional predictions regarding the association between genetic essentialism and punishment.…”