Eberhardt - "Looking Deathworthy" Flashcards
What are the 3 main problems with the death penalty?
It can be difficult to establish with absolute certainty whether the defendant is guilty of murder, the costs associated with the processes associated with the death penalty are extremely expensive and there is often the issue of racial discrimination in the death sentence
What was the aim of Eberhardt’s study?
To investigate whether there is support for the hypothesis that black offenders with stereotypically black features were more likely to get the death sentence than white offenders
What method did Eberhardt use in his study?
Lab experiment
What did the researchers analyse?
The databases of death penalty cases in Philadelphia between 1979 and 1999
In how many cases did a black man murder a white victim?
44
Who were the photographs of the offenders shown to?
51 raters from Stanford University
What were the raters asked to do?
Use the facial features of the men in the photographs to give them a rating of stereotypicality from 1-11, where 11 was stereotypical
How long did the raters have to look at the photographs?
4 seconds
What other factors did the researchers analyse?
The extent to which the defendant had stereotypically black features, severity of the murder, socioeconomic status of the victim and the defendants attractiveness
How many US States still use the death penalty?
36
Of all of the variables, what was found to be the most significant in determining whether participants thought the defendant should receive the death sentence?
How stereotypically black the defendants were
How much more likely were stereotypically black defendants to receive the death sentence?
57.5%
What did this study provide support for?
The hypothesis that black offenders with stereotypically black features are more likely to get the death sentence than white offenders
When are stereotypically black offenders more likely to receive the death sentence?
When the victim is white
