S2W4Crime

Question 1

Perpetrator Characteristics

Answer 1

Black defendants are at a disadvantage (more likely to received death penalty and be convicted of murder).

Attractive defendants, female defendants, and those of higher SES are advantaged.

Defendants who smile are advantaged.

Question 2

Correll et al. (2014) – characteristics of the offender

Answer 2

How does the target’s race impact on the decision to shoot?

Archival/observational data:

Race accounts for 4-5x increase in police killings of a suspect.

Experimental:
o Stereotyping
o Thread perceptions
o Priming

Race effects on shooting are smaller for (trained) police officers than UG students.

Mediators:
o	Training
o	Cognitive control
o	Fatigue
o	Fear & Arousal

Question 3

Blair et al. (2004) – criminal sentencing of offenders

Answer 3

Does feature-based stereotyping impact on criminal sentencing?

Analysis of records of 216 young male prisoners.

Sentences roughly equivalent for Black and White prisoners.

BUT within each race, more ‘African’ looking prisoners had received harsher sentences.

Corroborates existing lab findings

Question 4

Eberhardt et al. (2006) – death penalty evidence

Answer 4

Role of race in death penalty sentence.

Database of 600 death eligible cases.

Students rated photographs of them for stereotypically black facial features.

Jurors influenced by defendants race AND racial stereotypicality.

Being stereotypically Black made a Black defendant more ‘deathworthy’.

Especially when the victim was White (intergroup conflict?)

Question 5

Wilczynski (1997) - Sex and gender

Answer 5

• Criminal justice system responses to men vs. women who kill their children.

Influencing factors in sentencing:
o	Prior abuse of victim
o	Crime motivation
o	Upbringing
o	Prior offences
o	Psychiatric disorder

Question 6

Viki et al. (2005): sexism

Answer 6

Evaluation of Myra Hindley.

123 UK students.

IV: H and B sexism

DVs:
Judgement assessment
Trait assessment (semantic differential).

B (not H) sexism says Myra is:
o An evil person
o Treated justly
o Violated female stereotype

Question 7

Hostile sexism

Answer 7

Antagonistic attitude toward women, who are often viewed as trying to control men through feminist ideology or sexual seduction.

Question 8

Benevolent sexism

Answer 8

Chivalrous attitude toward women that feels favourable but is actually sexist because it casts women as weak creatures in need of men’s protection.

Question 9

Double deviance

Answer 9

People are willing to be more lenient on women who have violated gender roles if they are mad but Myra Hindley wasn’t mad.

Violated female stereotypic nurturing role in extreme way.

Question 10

Semantic differential

Answer 10

Measure of traits.

Stable/unstable
Affectionate/cold