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The Journal ofSocial Psvcholom. 2001.141~5~.603-615
Interactive Effects of Characteristics of
Defendant and Mock Juror on U.S.
Participants ’ Judgment and Sentencing
Recommendations
DAVID A. ABWENDER
KENYATTA HOUGH
Department of Psychology
State University of New York College at Bmckport
ABSTRACT. The authors examined the effects of interactions (a) between defendant
attractiveness and juror gender and (b) between defendant race and juror race on judgment
and sentencing among 207 Black, Hispanic, and White participants in the United States.
After reading a vehicular-homicide vignette in which the defendant’s attractiveness and
race varied, the participants rated guilt and recommended sentences. The women treated
the unattractive female defendant more harshly than they treated the attractive female
defendant; the men showed an opposite tendency. The Black participants showed greater
leniency when the defendant was described as Black rather than White. The Hispanic participants showed an opposite trend, and the White participants showed no race-based
leniency. The findings on racial effects were consistent (a) with in-group favorability bias
among the Black participants and (b) with attribution effects unrelated to race among the
White participants.
Key words: attractiveness, defendant characteristics, gender, in-group bias, interactive
effects, judgment, mock-juror characteristics, race, sentencing
ALTHOUGH TRIAL JURIES are expected to be impartial, extralegal variables
(e.g., pretrial publicity;jurors’ exposure to inadmissible evidence; characteristics
of the victims, defendants, and jurors) have influenced verdicts (Fein, Morgan,
Norton, & Sommers, 1997; Johnson, Whitestone, Jackson, & Gatto, 1995;
Mazzella & Feingold, 1994). A sizable literature has suggested that those extralegal variables may influence the impressions formed by jurors.
The authors thank Herbert C.Finkfor helpful comments.
Address correspondence to David A. Abwender, Department of Psychology, SUNY
Brockport. 350 New Campus Drive, Bmckport, NY 14420.
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The Journal of Social Psychology
One of the most widely studied extralegal variables is the defendant’s physical attractiveness. A fairly consistent literature suggests that physically unattractive defendants are generally at a disadvantage, with respect to both the likelihood of being found guilty and the severity of the recommended sentence.
Researchers have traditionally attributed the tendency to treat physically attractive defendants more leniently to the belief that attractive persons possess more
socially desirable characteristics, the so-called “what is beautiful is good”
hypothesis (Dion, Bersheid, & Walster, 1972). In their meta-analytic review,
Mazzella and Feingold (1994) suggested that attractive defendants receive better
treatment because juries consider such defendants more likable and, consequently, treat them more leniently.
Although attractive defendants seem to have an advantage, researchers have
indicated that their advantage may hold only for certain crimes, such as rape, robbery, and other offenses (Mazzella & Feingold, 1994). For other crimes, including swindle (Sigall & Ostrove, 1975; Smith & Hed, 1979) and negligent homicide (Mazzella & Feingold), physically attractive defendants tend to be treated
more harshly, perhaps because they are perceived to have used their appearance
to their advantage (in the former case) or should have exhibited better judgment
(in the latter case). As Mazzella and Feingold noted, attractive persons may
receive harsher treatment when they do not live up to people’s higher expectations for them, as in the poor judgment usually associated with negligent vehicular homicide.
Although researchers have frequently demonstrated the attractivenessleniency effect (ALE), there has been little investigation of the possible mediating
effect of juror characteristics. Using several crimes related to criminal mischief,
Darby and Jeffers (1988) reported that the ALE held for self-rated attractive participantslmock jurors but that self-rated unattractive participantslmock jurors
showed leniency toward both highly attractive and highly unattractive defendants.
The latter finding suggests that similarity between juror and defendant also leads
to leniency. Researchers have studied the main effect of participant gender on
judgment and sentencing, but with mixed results; the most consistent finding is
that gender mattered only in cases of sexual assault (Ellsworth & Mauro, 1998;
Nemeth, 1981). In few published studies have researchers explored possible interactions between juror gender and defendant attractiveness. One might expect, in
the case of crimes for which attractiveness confers advantage, that the ALE would
be strongest for attractive defendants being judged by participants of the other gender, for whom the defendant’s attractiveness may be more salient. On the one
hand, Wuensch, Castellow, and Moore (199 1) found an ALE for female participants rating male defendants but no effect for those rating female defendants; the
male participants did not show an ALE for defendants of either gender. On the
other hand, Efran (1974) reported an ALE for male participants judging female
defendants but not for female participants judging male defendants. Efran’s data
did not include conditions in which participants judged sarne-sex defendants.
Abwender & Hough
605
In contrast, for crimes in which attractiveness may be a disadvantage (e.g.,
swindle, negligent homicide), attractive defendants being judged by participantshock jurors of the other gender may be treated more harshly (i.e., a reverse
ALE). Again, the increased salience of defendant attractiveness, and thus expectations for responsible conduct, may precipitate harsher judgments from othergender mock jurors, consistent with the suggestion of Mazzella and Feingold
(1994). However, Wuensch et al. (1991) included both swindle and burglary and
found that female participants showed a conventional ALE in rating male defendants regardless of offense. Moreover, the female participants in their study
showed a stronger ALE when rating male defendants accused of swindle than
when rating those accused of burglary, contradicting earlier findings (Sigall &
Ostrove, 1975; Smith & Hed, 1979). Wuensch et al. speculated that they did not
obtain the ALE for male participants because of the possible influence of a
female experimenter.
Investigators of interactions between defendant attractiveness and juror gender have not explored negligent homicide, an unintentional crime associated with
poor or lapsed judgment, in which there is no implication that defendants exploited their attractiveness for personal gain. If salient attractiveness engenders
greater expectation of sound judgment, then male mock jurors may accord harsher treatment to an attractive woman accused of a crime of negligence (e.g., vehicular homicide). This effect may be weaker for female mock jurors, for whom the
female defendant’s attractiveness may be a less salient, and thus less potent,
determinant of expectations for good judgment.
A second widely researched extralegal variable is defendant race.
Researchers have suggested that, although Black defendants are not routinely
treated more harshly than White defendants, White defendants appear to be
favored in cases of negligent homicide (Mazella & Feingold, 1994). The reason
for this tendency is unclear, although the few available studies of this crime have
involved White participants almost exclusively. Little research has directly
explored interactions between defendant race and juror race. Social identity theorists (Tajfel & Turner, 1985) hold that individuals categorize others into ingroup or out-group members and favor the in-group in the service of enhancing
self-image. A tendency for jurors to treat same-race defendants more leniently,
and other-race defendants more harshly (Ugwuegbu, 1979), may be explained
parsimoniously by an in-group favorability bias.
Complicating matters is the possibility that defendant-juror race interactions
are moderated by type of crime. Some researchers have suggested that, if defendants are accused of crimes uncommon among members of their race, then jurors
may make external. unstable attributions for the criminal act and show leniency
(Gordon, Bindrim, McNicholas, & Walden, 1988). Attribution theorists would
suggest that, if jurors perceive crimes of negligence as more common among one
group, then they may view members of that group as more dispositionally prone
to such crimes than are nonmembers. Thus, one would expect harsher treatment
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The Journal of Social Psychology
from jurors based on the assumption that the defendant is likely to behave similarly in the future (Gordon et al.). Gordon (1990) reported that defendants
accused of race-stereotypic crimes were indeed treated more harshly, but without
any defendant-juror race interaction. Negligent homicide is not stereotypically
associated with any particular ethnic or racial group (Gordon, 1993). If jurors
lack preconceptions about the racial stereotypicality of this crime, one might
expect negligible attribution-relatedeffects, leaving open the potential for simple
in-group favorability biases. However, one might anticipate a stronger in-group
effect for Black than for White jurors, given the tendency for greater in-group
salience, and thus bias, among members of racial minorities, especially those
who have faced discrimination by the out-group (Stephan, 1985).
On the basis of the foregoing review, we formulated the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis I : The attractiveness of the female defendant accused of negligent homicide interacts with participant gender, so that the male participants
show a stronger reverse ALE than do the female participants.
Hypothesis 2: Defendant race interacts with participant race. so that Black
participants show a stronger in-group favorability bias (i.e., greater leniency
when the defendant is of the same race) than do White participants.
Although we initially expected that most participants would identify themselves as either Black or White, the large number identifying themselves as Hispanic allowed us to analyze their data as well, but we had formed no a priori
hypothesis about their judgments of the defendant.
Method
Participants
There were 240 participants from 25 Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate
Achievement programs from across the United States. The McNair program,
operated through a U.S.Department of Education grant, seeks to prepare academically promising college students from groups underrepresented in graduatelevel study (e.g., first generation, low income, and ethnic minority) for admission
into doctoral programs. Because of insuEcient numbers, we did not include 23
participants who identified themselves as either Asian or Native American in the
analyses involving participant race. To maintain sample consistency, we also
eliminated those 23 participants from analyses involving participant gender and
defendant attractiveness, with no change in the results. After we excluded another 10 whose data were incomplete, the 207 participants remaining in the analyses consisted of 89 who identified themselves as Black (62 women, 27 men), 55
who identified themselves as Hispanic (33 women, 22 men), and 63 who identified themselves as White (34 women, 29 men), They ranged in age from 19 to 51
years (A4 = 24.11, SD = 6.01).
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Materials
A demographic-background questionnaire included items pertaining to participant age, primary racial background (American Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut;
Asian or Pacific Islander; Black; Hispanic; White), and gender, as well as distracter items pertaining to academic major, class standing, number of traffic tickets received, and how closely participants had followed the 0. J. Simpson and
Oklahoma City bombing trials.
Next, we presented a case vignette describing a negligent homicide, modified slightly from Friend and Vinson (1974). In brief, the vignette told of a 25year-old woman who was stopped by a police officer for reckless driving.
Although the woman was intoxicated, the officer decided not to arrest her and
instead hailed a taxi. Soon after, the woman got out of the cab, returned to her
own car, and proceeded driving home again, at which point she struck and killed
a pedestrian. There were four versions of the vignette, varying in terms of
embedded descriptions of the defendant’s race (Black or White) and attractiveness (attractive or unattractive). The case descriptions were identical in all other
aspects.
Last, the participants completed a questionnaire containing two dependent
variables: their impression of the defendant’s guilt, rated on a 7-point Likert-type
scale (1 = guilty, 7 = not guilty), and their recommended jail sentence (0-99
years) for the defendant. Although most juries are not responsible for sentencing
and guilt is dichotomous rather than continuous, we chose those measures to be
consistent with previous research in which they were sensitive indicators of participants’ impressions of, and attitudes toward, defendants (DeSantis & Kayson,
1997; Efran, 1974; Johnson et al., 1995; Nemeth & Sosis, 1973; Sigall & Ostrove, 1975). On the questionnaire, we also asked participants to rate, again on 7point Likert-type scales, the defendant’s attractiveness, likability, degree of
intoxication at the time of the incident, and level of responsibility for the incident. Only the endpoints of the scales contained anchor terms (e.g., 1 = very
unattractive, 7 = very attractive). The participants also indicated whether they
had “ever known anyone who struck a pedestrian while driving drunk” and “ever
known anyone who was struck by a drunk driver.”
Procedure
We asked all McNair programs in the United States to participate. We
requested the 25 who agreed to indicate the number of students who might be
willing to participate, and we mailed a sufficient number of questionnaire packets. Each packet, which was to be completed individually and returned in an
enclosed, postage-paid envelope, contained, in order, a cover letter indicating
instructions and specifying that anonymity would be maintained, the demographic questionnaire, the case description, and the dependent measure ques-
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The Journal of Social Psychology
tionnaire. We asked the participants not to discuss this project with one another
and gave them the authors’ address should they wish to contact them to learn
more about the study or the findings.
Results
Effectiveness of Defendant Attractiveness Manipulation
Results of an analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that the participants
whose vignette described the attractive defendant did indeed rate her as significantly more attractive (M = 4.83, SD = 1.51 for both male and female participants) than did the participants whose vignette described the unattractive defendant ( M = 2.97, SD = 1.21), F(1, 183) = 75.32. p < .001. None of the other
independent variables (defendant race, participant race, participant gender) influenced attractiveness ratings, nor were any of the interaction terms significant.
Effect of Juror Gender and Defendant Attractiveness
We analyzed the two dependent variables of interest, impression of guilt and
recommended sentence, in a two-way (Participant Gender x Defendant Attractiveness) multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) using Pillai’s trace. We
selected MANOVA because of the moderate correlation between the dependent
variables ( r = -.26; lower scores = greater impression of guilt) and, thus, as protection against Type I error. Levene’s test revealed that both dependent variables
exhibited heterogeneity of error variance across conditions, violating an assumption of MANOVA. We subjected them to a logarithmic transformation to improve
homogeneity of error variance. This procedure is recommended for positively
skewed data, as was the case with ratings of impression of guilt, and inferences
drawn from log-transformed data can be applied safely to the original data (Kirk,
1982). Neither of the main effects was significant, aIthough we found a significant
Participant Gender x Defendant Attractiveness interaction effect, F(2,202) = 4.69,
p = .010.
We conducted follow-up univariate ANOVAs on the log-transformed dependent measures. The interaction effect was not significant for impression of guilt,
but the results revealed a significant interaction for recommended sentence, F( 1,
203) = 9.14, p = .003. The male participants recommended longer sentences for
the attractive defendant (M= 21.95 years, SD = 26.50, untransformed) than for
the unattractive defendant (M = 14.00 years, SD = 17.33, untransformed). By
contrast, the female participants recommended longer sentences for the unattractive defendant ( M = 26.98 years, SD = 33.25, untransformed) than for the attractive defendant ( M =13.83 years, SD = 21.23, untransformed). Examination of the
simple main effect of defendant attractiveness indicated that the difference in recommended sentences was significant only for female participants, F( 1, 127) =
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609
8.99,p = .003.To further explore this finding, we included ratings of defendant
likability (which were correlated positively with ratings of attractiveness, r = .42)
and responsibility for the incident in separate analyses of covariance (ANCOVA),
with no appreciable change in results for either male or female participants.
Examination of the simple main effect of participant gender also revealed that
gender differences in recommended sentence were significant for both attractive,
F(1, 104) = 5.03,p = .027,and unattractive defendants, F(1, 100)= 4.30,p =
.041. For the attractive defendant, the female participants recommended shorter
sentences than did the male participants, and inclusion of either responsibility or
likability ratings as covariates did not alter this result. However, for the unattractive defendant, the male participants recommended shorter sentences than did the
female participants. Moreover, we eliminated this gender effect by inclusion of
responsibility, but not likability, ratings as a covariate.
Regression analysis showed a significant curvilinear relationship between
participant-rated attractiveness and responsibility for the incident for the male
participants, F(2,78)= 3.47,p = .036.The male participants who rated the defendant as unattractive tended to rate her also as less responsible for the incident,
with responsibility ratings reaching a ceiling as rated attractiveness of the defendant increased. We found no relationship between participant-rated defendant
attractiveness and responsibility for female participants.
Effect of Defendant and Juror Race
We performed a two-way (Defendant Race x Participant Race) MANOVA
on the two log-transformed dependent variables. Neither main effect was statistically significant, although the interaction effect was, F(4,402)= 2.43,p = .047.
Follow-up univariate ANOVA, with impression of guilt as the dependent variable, indicated that the interaction term was statistically significant, F(2, 201) =
3.30,p = .039.Whereas the Black participants gave higher guilt ratings to the
White ( M = 1.38,SD = 0.69,untransformed) than to the Black (M= 1.77,SD =
0.96,untransformed) defendant, the Hispanic participants exhibited the opposite
pattern (for the White defendant, M = 1.90,SD = 1.17;for the Black defendant,
M = 1.46,SD = 0.88,untransformed).The White participants gave fairly similar
guilt ratings to both the White ( M = 1.54,SD = 0.79,untransformed) and the
Black ( M = 1.71,SD = 1.45,untransformed) defendants. Tests of simple main
effects showed that differences in guilt ratings were significant only for the Black
participants, F(1, 89)= 5.04,p = .027,but approached significance for the Hispanic participants (p = .095).To explore this finding further, we correlated ratings of defendant responsibility for the incident (higher scores = greater responsibility) with guilt (lower scores = greater certainty of guilt) separately for Black
( r = 18,ns), Hispanic (r = -.21, ns), and White participants ( r = -.65,p < .OOl).
ANOVA revealed that responsibility ratings did not vary as a function of defendant race, participant race, or their interaction. Moreover, including responsibil-
-.
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The Journal of Social Psychology
ity ratings as a covariate in a Defendant Race x Participant Race ANCOVA did
not change the results noted earlier. Thus, although the defendant was perceived
as equally responsible across experimental conditions, guilt ratings among the
Black, and to a lesser extent the Hispanic, participants seemed to vary more as
an interactive function of defendant race and juror race than of perceived defendant responsibility.Defendant likability did not vary as a function of her race for
any of our participant groups.
Examination of the simple main effect of participant race revealed a borderline significant difference @ = .058) between groups for the White, but not the
Black, defendant. The Black participants tended toward greater ratings of guilt
for the White defendant, and the Hispanic participants tended to assign lesser
guilt ratings to the White defendant; the White participants’ ratings fell between.
Follow-up univariate ANOVA on recommended ‘sentencerevealed no significant main effects. The interaction term approached significance QJ = .068), and
the relationships among group means were nearly identical to those for impression of guilt: The Black participants recommended shorter sentencesfor the Black
than for the White defendant, the opposite pattern obtained for Hispanic participants, and the White participants recommended slight differences in sentences.
Discussion
The findings offer partial support for both hypotheses. Regarding Hypothesis
1, the female participants showed a significant conventionalALE they were more
punitive to the unattractive female defendant. On the other hand, the male participants recommended longer sentences for the attractive than for the unattractive
female defendant. In addition, the male participants tended to rate the unattractive
defendant as less responsible for the incident, and the observed gender difference
in sentencing the unattractivedefendant (i.e., the male participants were less punitive than the female participants) was moderated by responsibility ratings. With
respect to Hypothesis 2, although the White participants showed little difference
in their impressions of guilt or recommended sentences for the White versus the
Black defendants, the Black and the Hispanic participants showed greater leniency toward the Black and the White defendants, respectively.
Mazzella and Feingold (1994) suggested that attractive defendants may be
held to higher standards for judgment, conduct, and behavior and, thus, may be
treated more harshly when they do not live up to those standards (i.e.. the reverse
ALE with certain crimes). They noted that negligent homicide differs from other
crimes in being unintentional (i.e., a function of lapsed judgment), and persons
accused of this crime may receive harsher treatment because they should have
“known better.” The present male participants’ group means and their parallel
perceptions of the unattractive defendant as less responsible for the incident suggest the reverse ALE associated with negligent homicide. At least for decisions
that may turn on the soundness of a defendant’s judgment, the male jurors’
Abwender & Hough
61 1
impressions of the female defendant appeared to be influenced by attractivenessrelated attributions regarding her level of responsibility for the crime.
Perhaps more striking was the finding that the female participants showed
leniency to the attractive female defendant. Mazzella and Feingold (1994) suggested that the ALE may be a function of defendant likability; inasmuch as
attractiveness may promote liking, they proposed using likability ratings as a
covariate in analyses involving defendant attractiveness. We found that controlling for likability did not change the ALE among our female participants; that
finding suggests that they were responding to something beyond the attractive
defendant’s merely being more likable.
If the ALE is contingent on the defendant’s having external justification for
committing the crime (Izzett & Fishman, 1976), then it may be that the ALE may
have held for the present female participants if they perceived the defendant’s
actions as justified under the circumstances (i.e., if they made a situational attribution for her behavior). Izzett and Fishman found that shorter sentences were
recommended for attractive defendants whose actions seemed justified than for
those whose actions lacked external justification, even though all defendants
were rated equally guilty. We did not assess the participants’ beliefs about
whether the defendant’s actions were justified, but the inclusion of ratings of the
defendant’s responsibility for the incident as a proxy covariate in analyses for the
female participants did not eliminate the ALE. Finally, perhaps because we
manipulated the female defendant’s attractiveness by descriptions rather than
photographs, the female participants may have more easily construed the attractive defendant as similar to themselves (i.e., as an in-group member), thus casting the ALE as an in-group bias. The ALE is considerably more complex than the
“what is beautiful is good” stereotype indicates (Wuensch et al., 1991). At least
among the present college students, the effect of defendant attractiveness was
moderated by juror gender.
Although one could view the absence of a main effect for defendant race on
guilt and sentencing as an encouraging sign, the interaction between defendant
and participant race, although close to what we had expected, is noteworthy.
Indeed, our findings are consistent with the assertion of Johnson et al. (1995) that
justice is still not colorblind.
Jurors are thought to be more likely to convict when they attribute defendants’ actions to stable, internal causes, as opposed to situational, external causes (Gordon et al., 1988; Graham, Weiner, & Zucker, 1997; Izzett & Fishman,
1976). In the latter case, defendants are considered less responsible. The participants in the present study did not systematically make attributions about the
defendant’s responsibility for her actions on the basis of her race. Reanalysis of
the Defendant Race x Participant Race data, including ratings of responsibility
for the accident as a covariate, did not change the results. Whereas the White participants showed a stronger tendency to assign guilt ratings in accordance with
perceived defendant responsibility, the Black and the Hispanic participants
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The Journal of Social Psychology
appeared to be responding to defendant race in assigning guilt ratings, even
though they did not rate same-race defendants as more likable. At least for the
Black participants, the hypothesized in-group favorability bias held.
The lack of an in-group bias for the White participants is consistent with previous data indicating a tendency for White research participants to “bend over
backwards” to prove they are not prejudiced against Blacks (Gordon, 1993;
Rogers & Prentice-Dunn, 1981). Given the prevailing attitudes on U.S. college
and university campuses, it is not surprising that the White participants made a
point of demonstrating their egalitarianism, or at least their political correctness
(Mack et al., 1997). The willingness of the Black participants to treat the White
defendant significantly more harshly appears to reflect the reported tendency
toward greater in-group bias among members of smaller, lower status, or
oppressed groups (Mullen, Brown, & Smith, 1992). Our findings parallel those
of other studies in which the Black, but not the White, participants expressed less
favorable views of the racial out-group (e.g., Jackson, Hymes, & Sullivan, 1987;
Mack et al.). We reluctantly offer post hoc speculations about the results from the
Hispanic participants. One possibility is that the Hispanic participants perceived
the White defendant more as an in-group member. The present results, which
suggest that the processes by which extralegal variables influence trial outcomes
may vary as a function of juror demographics, underscore the value of exploring
interactive effects between defendant and juror characteristics.
One must bear in mind several limitations of the present study. First, the recruitment of McNair program undergraduates as participants, on the one hand,
may limit the extent to which our findings can be generalized to broader populations, because such students are (a) generally high academic achievers and (b)
almost invariably from lower socioeconomicstrata. On the other hand, our racially and geographically diverse sample may be no less representative than the
single-site, mostly White samples typical of many studies in this area. Moreover,
our sampling method eliminates the confounding of race with socioeconomic
status (Gordon, 1990). Second, all participants were residents of the United
States, where they were educated and affected by the mass media. In other societies, therefore, researchers may need to consider other variables and weight
those in the present study differently. Finally, all research of this type sacrifices
external validity for the sake of internal validity and control. The extent to which
findings from analogue studies, even those that used mock juries with group
deliberation, reflect the complex intra- and interpersonal processes inherent in
jury trials remains unclear. However, observers of actual defendants in criminal
trials (Daudistel, Hosch, Holmes, & Graves, 1999; Downs & Lyons, 1991; Stewart, 1980, 1985) have indicated that defendant attractiveness and race were related to adjudication outcome; their observations suggest that the effects noted in
analogue studies may hold in the courtroom as well. However, researchers have
yet to explore the complex interactions between defendant and juror characteristics in naturalistic studies,
Abwender & Hough
613
Although juror characteristics may influence the results of analogue
research, apparently by interacting with defendant characteristics, the disparate
findings across studies discussed earlier suggest that other variables may be
involved. Future researchers in this area of continuing interest may profit from
exploration of the role of individual differences among jurors in relation to defendant characteristics. One useful tack would be to assess the strength of participants’ ethnic identification, inasmuch as this variable may influence relative
impressions of in-group versus out-group members (Tajfel & Turner, 1985).
Relatedly, it seems necessary also to pursue investigations that depict not only
defendants described as Hispanic but also those whose ethnicity is identified
more specifically (e.g., Cuban American, Puerto Rican, Mexican American),
given the existence of in-group biases among these Hispanic subgroups (Huddy
& Virtanen, 1995). By collecting similar ethnicity and ethnic identification data
on participants, future investigators may elucidate reasons for the present Hispanic participants’ tendency to treat the White defendant more leniently.
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Received June 1I , 1999
Accepted March 29, 2000