Examining the Role of Compassion Towards Victims and Harmdoers in Qualitative Sentencing Recommendations
By: Marina Aguinsky, Madelline Beckham, Daniella Cluver, Tiphaney Coles, David Coronado, Patricia De La Rosa Torres, Zoe Fejes, Yanina Lavarias, Isabelle Madayag, Gabrielle Martinez, Elizabeth Santos Nguyen, Gurneet Nijjar, and Fabiola Beatriz Valle
Department: Psychology
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Amy Smith
A variety of social psychological studies have shown that certain virtues such as compassion, empathy and gratitude affect how individuals view crime and punishment. In this study we examine whether participants assign different punishments to individuals accused of crime when exposed to a vignette focused on compassion toward the accused, versus compassion toward the victim, using a between-subjects design, where the independent variable is compassion and the dependent variable is recommended punishment.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions (Control, General Compassion, Compassion for the victim, Compassion for the offender) by reading one of 4 vignettes describing a theft from an elementary school food pantry. Participants then answered questions about: their perception of the crime's seriousness, severity of punishment, and the type of justice outcome participants feel should be assigned to the accused. We hypothesized that participants assigned to the victim scenario would punish more harshly, while participants assigned to the harmdoer compassion condition would make less punitive recommendations.
Our hypotheses were supported. Here, we present an analysis of the qualitative recommendations for punishment made by participants in each condition. Our findings have implications for better understanding punitive or restorative responses to harm.