Defendant psychopathic traits, but not defendant gender, predict death penalty verdicts in mock-juror decision making

Abstract

Perceptions of a defendant’s psychopathic personality traits can impact mock jurors’ decision making, yet findings on the relationship of jurors’ and defendants’ gender on legal decision making have been inconsistent. This study investigates the relationship between defendant prototypical gender-congruent or -incongruent psychopathic traits and mock jurors’ perception and sentencing recommendations. In a between-subject design, participants (N = 1,721) rendered a verdict and rated the extent to which they perceived the defendant as legally responsible, morally responsible, and their recidivism risk. Participants prescribed harsher punishments and held more negative perceptions of a defendant with psychopathic traits than a defendant without these traits. However, the defendant received similar punishment and was judged equally negatively in both gender-congruent and -incongruent conditions. Finally, while men were more likely to choose the death verdict, women held more negative views of the defendant. Thus, portrayal of psychopathic traits seems related to harsher sentencing independent of gender-specific trait variations.

Keywords:

• defendant gender
• gender congruency
• juror perception
• mock jury decision making
• participant gender
• psychopathic traits
• verdict decision

Ethical standards

Declaration of conflicts of interest

Gaurav Saxena has declared no conflicts of interest.

Hedwig Eisenbarth has declared no conflicts of interest.

Jennifer Cox has declared no conflicts of interest.

Adam Coffey has declared no conflicts of interest.

Claire Lankford has declared no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the redacted for peer review Non-Medical Institutional Review Board and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study

Notes

1 Although frequently used interchangeably, sex and gender are distinct constructs. For the purposes of this review, we use the terms used by the original authors.