Neuroscience
When people are deciding the appropriate punishment for a crime, they’re most interested in ensuring that the perpetrator gets the payback they deserve. They’re less interested in practical issues relating to whether the perpetrator needs to be locked up to protect the public, or in how much of a deterrent to other potential criminals the punishment will be.
Kevin Carlsmith at Colgate University asked 42 students to imagine they were responsible for deciding the punishment to be given to a criminal. To help them come to a decision, they had five chances to choose different categories of information about the criminal and the crime.
They could select information relevant to issues of retribution (e.g. how much harm the criminal caused; how much intent they had), incarceration (e.g. how likely the criminal was to offend again), or deterrent (e.g. how much publicity the crime attracted).
Carlsmith found the students were more likely to choose information pertinent to retribution first, and that choosing such information led them to be more confident in their sentencing decision. In a further experiment, students were allocated a random selection of information to help them make their sentencing decision – in this case, those students given information pertinent to retribution tended to be more confident in their punishment decision than the other students.
“Although people say they value utilitarian goals, when it comes to actually seeking information and assigning sentences, their behaviour reveals that they care most about retribution”, Carlsmith concluded.
_________________________________
Carlsmith, K.M. (2006). The roles of retribution and utility in determining punishment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 437-451.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
An eye for an eye...
When people are deciding the appropriate punishment for a crime, they’re most interested in ensuring that the perpetrator gets the payback they deserve. They’re less interested in practical issues relating to whether the perpetrator needs to be locked up to protect the public, or in how much of a deterrent to other potential criminals the punishment will be.Kevin Carlsmith at Colgate University asked 42 students to imagine they were responsible for deciding the punishment to be given to a criminal. To help them come to a decision, they had five chances to choose different categories of information about the criminal and the crime.
They could select information relevant to issues of retribution (e.g. how much harm the criminal caused; how much intent they had), incarceration (e.g. how likely the criminal was to offend again), or deterrent (e.g. how much publicity the crime attracted).
Carlsmith found the students were more likely to choose information pertinent to retribution first, and that choosing such information led them to be more confident in their sentencing decision. In a further experiment, students were allocated a random selection of information to help them make their sentencing decision – in this case, those students given information pertinent to retribution tended to be more confident in their punishment decision than the other students.
“Although people say they value utilitarian goals, when it comes to actually seeking information and assigning sentences, their behaviour reveals that they care most about retribution”, Carlsmith concluded.
_________________________________
Carlsmith, K.M. (2006). The roles of retribution and utility in determining punishment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 437-451.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- How Our Judgments About Criminals Are Swayed By Disgust, Biological Explanations And Animalistic Descriptions
We expect of our jurors and judges calm, reasoned evaluation of the evidence. Of course we know the reality is rather different - prejudice and emotional reactions will always play their part. Now two new studies add insight into the ways people's...
- Not All Psychopaths Are Criminal
Experts have recognised for some time that not all psychopaths are violent criminals. Many of them live inconspicuously amongst us (see item 4 here). But according to Mehmet Mahmut and his colleagues, these more benign psychopaths have been relatively...
- Reasons To Do Your Maths Homework
People who are good with numbers make better decision-makers. That’s according to Ellen Peters and colleagues at Decision Research who found the less numerate among 100 students were more likely to be influenced by so-called ‘framing effects’. For...
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Numerous psychology experiments have demonstrated the limitations of eyewitness memory. But less researched is ‘earwitness’ memory – how well people are able to recall criminal conversations. Now Laura Campos at the University of Granada and Maria...
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Criminal Justice Career and Internship Fair 2012 Tuesday, March 06, 2012 • 10:00AM - 03:00PM Location: Grand Ballroom - Stamp Student Union Interested in Criminal Justice or Psychology related internship and career opportunities?...Then, the Criminal...