The Impact of Defendant Gender and Attractiveness on Juror Decision-Making in a Sexual Offense Case

Winters, Georgia M.; Collins, Carisa; Kaylor, Leah E.; Jeglic, Elizabeth L.

doi:10.1080/01639625.2020.1844364

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Inquiries into this area have largely been broken down into two categories: the physical appearance of the perpetrator, and the physical appearance of the victim. Although there has been some research done in the former category (e.g., Popovich et al, 1996; Winters, 2018), empirical inquiries have focused heavily on the influence of victim characteristics. For instance, the death of an attractive woman has been seen as more tragic and unfair than the death of an unattractive woman (Callan, Powell, & Ellard, 2007).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Tipping the Scales: Effects of Gender, Rape Myth Acceptance, and Anti-Fat Attitudes on Judgments of Sexual Coercion Scenarios

Zidenberg

Sparks

Harkins

et al. 2019

J Interpers Violence

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A damaging belief exists that to become a victim of sexual violence, victims must be deemed sexually desirable. As a result, sexual violations where the victims are individuals whom society may deem as less attractive—such as overweight women—may elicit less empathy for the victim or minimize the likelihood they are believed. Yet, there is some evidence that overweight women actually report higher rates of sexual violence than women of other weight categories. Although there has been some research implicating weight biases in sexual assault cases, this has not been extended to cases of sexual coercion despite their growing share of police reports. A sample of 168 participants were recruited from Canada via social media ( n = 82) and through a midsized university in Ontario, Canada ( n = 86). Using a mock jury paradigm, participants responded to a vignette depicting the sexual coercion of a thin or overweight woman. Participants reported their opinions on the sexual coercion scenario, and prejudicial attitudes, using two standardized scales. Men reported greater rape myth acceptance, anti-fat attitudes, and victim responsibility and endorsed significantly more perpetrator mitigating factors and expressed more negative affect toward the victim. Participants in the overweight condition also expressed greater perpetrator sympathy, greater perpetrator mitigation, and less negative affect toward the perpetrator. These results suggest that overweight women may face additional barriers when reporting their experiences of sexual coercion, particularly to men.

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confidence: 99%

Tipping the Scales: Effects of Gender, Rape Myth Acceptance, and Anti-Fat Attitudes on Judgments of Sexual Coercion Scenarios

Zidenberg

Sparks

Harkins

et al. 2019

J Interpers Violence

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While many analyses of criminal incarcerations and convictions have separated types of crimes to see how these impact gender bias (e.g., violent offences vs. non-violent offences), crimes against children have not been separately analysed. Of the few mock juror studies that have examined crimes against children, most involve sexual abuse perpetrated by a non-parent (e.g., Pozzulo et al, 2010;Winters, 2018). Pettalia et al's (2017) Canadian study examining various types of child abuse included both victim and mock juror gender, but not defendant gender.…”

Section: Mock Jury Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intersectionality: Gender and Race in the Court

Roberts¹

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This study investigated the effects of defendant gender (man/woman) and race (Indigenous/White) on Canadian mock jurors' verdicts in a case of parent-perpetrated child neglect. The potential intensified negative consequences against Indigenous women, produced by the intersectionality of gender and race, were of particular interest.Four hundred and one participants read a mock trial transcript, provided verdicts on two charges, and rated the defendant on a variety of adjectives. Logistic regressions revealed mock jurors were not influenced by the defendant's gender or the interaction between the defendant's gender and race. Race had an unpredicted influence, with an Indigenous defendant receiving fewer guilty verdicts. The adjective ratings moderated the effect of gender on verdicts, but not race.Mock jurors were less likely to find a woman guilty when they held positive impressions of her.This study contributes to previous literature that suggests jurors' verdicts may be influenced by extralegal factors.

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The relationship between facial attractiveness and perceived guilt across types of crime

Kramer,

Jarvis,

Green

et al. 2023

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Facial first impressions influence jurors in both laboratory experiments and real courtrooms. Often, more attractive defendants are perceived as less guilty and receive more lenient sentences. However, the type of crime under consideration, as well as the ecological validity of the stimuli presented, may determine the nature of this bias. Here, extending previous work, we considered three crime types (robbery, sexual assault, and murder) and utilised short video clips of male defendants, accompanied by real-world crime descriptions. Crucially, we varied attractiveness by presenting a large set of identities, in comparison with the typical use of one “high” and one “low” attractive face. Using null hypothesis significance testing, we found no evidence that either attractiveness or crime type influenced guilt perceptions. Taking a Bayesian perspective, our results provided some evidence that more attractive defendants were rated as less guilty of murder but more guilty of sexual assault, with no bias observed for robbery. Importantly, however, none of these effects had high certainty and all were small in size. By comparing the extremes of attractiveness, we again found inconclusive evidence of any attractiveness effects, with small differences in all cases. The implications for this departure from previous findings are discussed in terms of ecological validity and the need to consider attractiveness as a continuous rather than binary measure.

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The Impact of Defendant Gender and Attractiveness on Juror Decision-Making in a Sexual Offense Case

Cited by 3 publications

References 45 publications

Tipping the Scales: Effects of Gender, Rape Myth Acceptance, and Anti-Fat Attitudes on Judgments of Sexual Coercion Scenarios

Tipping the Scales: Effects of Gender, Rape Myth Acceptance, and Anti-Fat Attitudes on Judgments of Sexual Coercion Scenarios

Intersectionality: Gender and Race in the Court

The relationship between facial attractiveness and perceived guilt across types of crime

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