Englich and Mussweiler

Question 1

Aim

Answer 1

To investigate if the simple request for a certain length for a prison sentence would unduly effect the decision made by a judege

Question 2

Participants

Answer 2

19 young trial judges

Question 3

Procedure

Answer 3

• Before the study, an alleged rape case study was pilot tested by a group of senior law students, the average amount of months decided by them was 17.2 months.
• they had used this as a basis for determining the severity of the anchors
• This same case study was then given to the participants however half of the participants had the prosecutor demand 34 months, whilst the other half had 2 months. After they analysed this case alongside a penal code, they were asked to fill out a question air with the critical question “how long shouldve the sentence been”

Question 4

Results

Answer 4

• the participants with the low anchor gave the average of a 18.7 month sentence, whilst the group with the high anchor gave the average of 28.7 months