Losing the lottery of life: Examining intuitions of desert toward the socially and genetically “unlucky” in criminal punishment contexts

Abstract

This research presents three experiments that examine how natural "luck" (social and genetic luck) may affect lay intuitions toward desert-based criminal punishment. Study 1 examined if intuitions surrounding desert-based rewards in relation to good qualities/advantages ascribed to natural luck would extend to desert-based punishments in relation to bad qualities/disadvantages ascribed to natural luck. Study 2 examined how both social and genetic luck affect support for desert-based punishment across different criminal offenses and tests the relevance of immanent justice reasoning to such support. Study 3 examined whether findings in the prior studies are specific to desert-based punishment and immanent justice reasoning, or if natural luck elicits broader punishment judgments and types of justice reasoning. Results showed that known intuitions surrounding desert-based rewards do extend to desertbased punishments in instances of natural luck. Immanent justice reasoning was strongly associated with support for desert-based punishment in instances of both social and genetic luck. However, genetic luck, as compared to social luck, significantly increased support for desert-based punishment, with imminent justice reasoning mediating this increased support. Implications are discussed in relation to capital sentencing and better understanding lay intuitions toward the punishment of criminal offenders who may have qualities ascribed to the "natural lottery."

A jury of scientists: Formal education in biobehavioral sciences reduces the odds of punitive criminal sentencing

“…Further, both science and non-science graduates in our sample were significantly less punitive towards an offender whose behavior was said to be influenced by an innate neurobiological characteristic (i.e., genetic mutation), as compared to when no neurobiological information was presented. This adds to a mixed body of existing work on the effects of genetic explanations of behavior on sentencing decisions (Berryessa, 2020;Denno, 2011;Peters et al, 2021;Xu et al, 2021), with some experimental studies suggesting that attributing criminal behavior to genetic or other innate neurobiological factors, as an offender's deep-rooted, permanent, and untreatable characteristics, can increase support for his punishment (Berryessa, 2020(Berryessa, , 2022Cheung & Heine, 2015;Xu et al, 2021). The lack of interaction between education group and the provision of neurobiological explanations might suggest that both science and non-science graduates are receptive to genetic explanations of behavior.…”