The Effect of Offender's Attractiveness and Subject's Gender on Judgments in Swindling

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to re-examine the effect of physical attractiveness in swindling and possible factors that might account for such an effect. One-hundred-thirty-nine men and 144 women were asked to read a description of a swindle and assign punishment to the offender as well as blame to both the offender and victim. The findings suggest that a male victim of a female swindler might be held more accountable if the swindler is unattractive and if he is judged by a woman. Victim-offender blame attributions were inversely related to one another. Thus, attributing more blame to the victim meant attributing less blame to the offender and vice versa. There was no leniency bias in punishing the attractive swindler.

Key words:

• attractiveness
• blame
• bias
• gender
• judgments
• offenders
• swindling