'I know how they must feel': Empathy and judging defendants | The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context

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For the sake of clarity, errors are not shown. All factor loadings were statistically significant." ] ] ] "autores" => array:1 [ 0 => array:2 [ "autoresLista" => "Marisol Lila, Amparo Oliver, Alba Catalá-Miñana, Laura Galiana, Enrique Gracia" "autores" => array:5 [ 0 => array:2 [ "nombre" => "Marisol" "apellidos" => "Lila" ] 1 => array:2 [ "nombre" => "Amparo" "apellidos" => "Oliver" ] 2 => array:2 [ "nombre" => "Alba" "apellidos" => "Catalá-Miñana" ] 3 => array:2 [ "nombre" => "Laura" "apellidos" => "Galiana" ] 4 => array:2 [ "nombre" => "Enrique" "apellidos" => "Gracia" ] ] ] ] ] "idiomaDefecto" => "en" "EPUB" => "https://multimedia.elsevier.es/PublicationsMultimediaV1/item/epub/S1889186114700095?idApp=UINPBA00004N" "url" => "/18891861/0000000600000001/v0_201407241407/S1889186114700095/v0_201407241407/en/main.assets" ] "en" => array:14 [ "idiomaDefecto" => true "titulo" => "'I know how they must feel': Empathy and judging defendants" "subtitulo" => "'Sé cómo se deben sentir': Empatía y juicio de los acusados" "tieneTextoCompleto" => true "paginas" => array:1 [ 0 => array:2 [ "paginaInicial" => "37" "paginaFinal" => "43" ] ] "autores" => array:1 [ 0 => array:3 [ "autoresLista" => "Jane L Wood*, Mark James, Caoilte Ó Ciardha" "autores" => array:3 [ 0 => array:4 [ "nombre" => "Jane L" "apellidos" => "Wood*" "ranking" => "*" "referencia" => array:1 [ 0 => array:2 [ "etiqueta" => "a" "identificador" => "affa" ] ] ] 1 => array:3 [ "nombre" => "Mark" "apellidos" => "James" "referencia" => array:1 [ 0 => array:2 [ "etiqueta" => "a" "identificador" => "affa" ] ] ] 2 => array:3 [ "nombre" => "Caoilte Ó" "apellidos" => "Ciardha" "referencia" => array:1 [ 0 => array:2 [ "etiqueta" => "a" "identificador" => "affa" ] ] ] ] "afiliaciones" => array:1 [ 0 => array:3 [ "entidad" => "School of Psychology, University of Kent, UK" "etiqueta" => "a" "identificador" => "affa" ] ] ] ] "titulosAlternativos" => array:1 [ "es" => array:1 [ "titulo" => "'Sé cómo se deben sentir': Empatía y juicio de los acusados" ] ] "textoCompleto" => " In the UK, a crown court Judge suspended an offender's six-month prison sentence when the defendant cried in the dock. This was, the Judge stated, because the offender's tears demonstrated his remorse for committing the offense. However, the offender later admitted that he felt no remorse and had cried because he feared imprisonment (BBC News, 2006). If even experienced professionals erroneously attribute emotions to others and use these to make important judgments, it seems unlikely that lay legal decision-makers, such as jurors, can be expected to make more "accurate" decisions. This study examined the role of empathy and attributions of remorse to an offender in case-related judgments. Affect control theory (ACT; Heise, 1979) explains how people make misguided attributions of emotions, such as remorse, to others. ACT asserts that people strive to maintain self-associated meaning. That is, people tend to behave consistently across situations unless situations create temporary deviations from personal meanings and create uncharacteristic responses. For example, someone who is generally considerate of others may, due to situational influences, behave uncharacteristically and fail to consider others' feelings. Observers of this uncharacteristic behavior might expect that the target would subsequently experience and show remorse for their actions. ACT maintains that observers will use such negative emotional displays to inform judgments about the type of person they are. Since members of a jury cannot legally actually know a defendant, they may use a defendant's emotional demeanor as a guide to their subsequent judgments of the type of person she/he is and his/her role in the offense. For instance, negative emotional displays may generate more positive judgments of a defendant (i.e. she/he is a fundamentally good person; that the crime resulted from situational not intrapersonal factors; that the defendant feels remorse for their part in the offense). Research using ACT supports this by showing that when a defendant appears to be sad, observers evaluate his/her identity more positively. The result of this positive evaluation is that observers may recommend shorter sentences and are less inclined to believe that the defendant will commit a similar offense in the future (MacLin, Downs, MacLin, & Caspers, 2009). However, what is not clear from previous work is whether these more lenient judgments result solely from the defendant's emotional display or whether other factors such as an observer's empathy also influences judgments. Empathy has many definitions but for the purposes of this study Davis' definition was used. This definition claims that empathy is a multidimensional construct involving taking the perspective of another resulting in a cognitive adoption and emotional understanding of his/her perspective (Davis, 1983). The observer also experiences an emotional reaction to the target's emotional display and uses this as a basis for decisions regarding the target (Davis, 1983). So, in the case of the judge outlined above, the defendant's emotional display may have generated an emotional response in the judge who used this to inform his decision regarding the defendant's sentence.Empathy and Legal Decisions Empathy has two forms: Trait empathy is a stable personality characteristic whilst state empathy is temporary and can be induced. The value of inducing state empathy in jurors is recognized by lawyers who urge that empathy may be manipulated via attorneys' statements and during cross-examination of witnesses (Stevenson, Najdowski, Bottoms, & Haegerich, 2009). However, it remains unclear whether it is trait, state or a combination of both forms of empathy that influences judgments in a court case. So far, little work has been conducted to examine the role of trait empathy in judgments of defendants. Research findings suggest that when judging others, high trait empathizers hold defendants less responsible for an offense and favour lenient punishments (Colby, 2012; Chin, 2012) High trait empathizers also interpret offenders' displays of remorse as arising from concern for the victim, recognition of personal responsibility for events and acceptance that punishment will follow (Brooks & Reddon, 2003). In contrast, low trait empathizers interpret an offender's remorse as an indication of the offender's knowledge that she/he has violated other people's values and standards. Low trait empathizers also see an offender's remorse as emanating from a fear of punishment rather than from concern for the victim (Brooks & Reddon, 2003). Far more research has examined state empathy. This may be justified since, as noted above, state empathy can be induced in jurors via courtroom processes, whilst identifying trait empathy in potential jurors is more problematic (Plumm & Terrance, 2009). Inducing state empathy, typically via attorneys' opening statements, is easily done and may have an enduring influence on jurors' preferences for the defense or the prosecution from the start of a trial (Pyszczynski & Wrightsman, 1981). Mock juror studies show how state empathy for a defendant results in the crime being attributed to situational rather than dispositional factors (Archer, Foushee, Davis, & Aderman, 1979). Mock jurors who make situational rather than dispositional judgments also attribute less responsibility to the defendant, and make fewer judgments of guilt (Haegerich & Bottoms, 2000).Trait and State Empathy Interaction Since the examination of trait empathy in judicial judgments is so limited, its role, if any, in initiating state empathy is not clear. So, since it cannot be verified that state empathy stands alone, it may be that trait and state empathy work in concert to influence judgments. The relationship between state and trait empathy is likely to act in accordance with one of Rusting's (1998, 1999) three theoretical frameworks of trait and mood congruency in judgments, where: 1) state empathy (temporary emotion) and trait empathy (stable disposition) have independent effects (i.e. neither influences the other); 2) trait empathy moderates state empathy (i.e. judgments are either state empathy congruent or incongruent due to trait empathy's influence); and 3) the effect of trait empathy on processing emotional cues are mediated by state empathy (i.e. state empathy enables trait empathy to be expressed). Research examining emotions has shown that emotional traits generally correlate positively with emotional states, and generate a propensity to experience related emotional states (Rusting, 1999). Consequently, the robust effects of state empathy observed in research may actually stem from the underlying influence of trait empathy and in trials that last for weeks or even months the enduring influence of traits on decisions may be even more important. However, research also shows that people may behave 'out of character' with their personality traits (Fleeson & Wilt, 2010) and so it can be expected that they may also make judgments that are 'out of character' with their underlying traits. So, it is important that the relationship between trait and state emotions and their relationship to people's judgments is examined more closely. As Rusting sensibly advocates, research including both states and traits will offer a more reliable picture of how emotions work to influence decisions (Rusting, 1999). To date there is little research that has examined both trait and state empathy in legal judgments. One study showed how state empathy influenced judgments and that high - compared to low -trait empathizers attributed the crime to more situational causes and held the offender less responsible for the offense (Archer et al., 1979). However, as stated earlier, there are problems associated with attempts to assess trait empathy in potential jurors. Nonetheless many lawyers have recognised the potential value of trait empathy. As Archer et al. (1979) comment, one successful lawyer preferred emotionally-inclined jurors because this would help him to elicit empathy for his clients. More recently, researchers in the U.S.A. note that attorneys may employ the voir dire process to select jurors who empathize with their client since they are likely to make judgments in the client's favour (Eagle, 2013). If such tactics are used in court by attorneys, it becomes even more imperative that researchers gain a clearer understanding of the individual and collective influence of trait and state empathy in judgments and how these two important influences on legal judgments work together.The Current Study This study used an individual mock juror paradigm. This was partly because it is not legal to interview actual jurors in the U.K. and partly because laboratory-based work enables the manipulation of variables whilst controlling for extraneous influences on judgments (Devine, 2012). The study aimed to assess: 1) the importance of empathy in judgments of a defendant; 2) whether trait or state empathy exerts a greater influence in legal judgments; and 3) whether trait and state empathy work together or independently to influence judgments. Mock juror research often focuses on very serious offenses such as homicide following sexual or domestic abuse (Plumm & Terrance, 2009). However, such crimes are relatively rare and their content may elicit strong emotions in jurors. This study aimed to see if empathy can influence judgments in more commonplace, and less emotive crimes. If it does then it can be said, with a degree of certainty, that decision-makers' empathy is potentially important to most court cases. For the purpose of this research a case involving physical assault was used to examine empathy's relevance. To understand more of the effects of empathy its influence was examined when the defendant shows no emotion. Previous work has relied on trials with emotional content to elicit empathic responses in mock jurors. However, research shows that when tasks are ambiguous, judgments are likely to become more trait congruent (Rusting, 1998). So, this study aimed to clarify this process by assessing if empathy inclines people to attribute emotions to an emotionally expressionless defendant. For theoretical purposes this research also aimed to understand more of the relationship between trait and state empathy by examining if trait and state empathy interact act in accordance with one of Rusting's (1998, 1999) three theoretical frameworks (see above) in a mock jury context. Expectations were that: high levels of empathy (trait and/or state) would a) predict attributions of remorse to an emotionally expressionless defendant, and b) predict leniency in punishment, responsibility, future offending judgments and disagreement with a guilty verdict. No predictions were made regarding the relationship between trait and state empathy: this part of the study was purely exploratory.Method Participants One hundred and fifty eight undergraduate students participated for course credit. Twenty-six were male and 132 were female. Participants' ages ranged from 18 to 59 years (M = 20.37, SD = 5.82). All were required to be native English speakers to guarantee comprehension of the colloquial English used by scenario characters.Design The study used an individual mock juror design, similar to that used by Haegerich and Bottoms (2000). Power analysis showed that a sample size of 68 was necessary to identify a medium effect and a sample of 485 for a small effect. Consequently, this study's sample size of 158 was sufficient to identify a small to medium effect (Cohen's f2 = .062).Procedure The study was advertised via a university research participation website which asked for native English speakers to volunteer to participate. Once participants had volunteered, data collection took place in a quiet laboratory in groups of 6. Participants were seated apart to prevent collaboration and the researcher stayed in the room throughout. Participants were provided with an information sheet which provided researchers' details and an outline of the study's aims. They were then given the chance to ask questions and, if happy to continue (none refused), they were informed of their rights to anonymity, confidentiality and to withdraw at any time without repercussions. They were then asked to sign a consent form. All participants were provided with a unique participation number, for potential identification purposes, on all their materials except the consent form which was kept separate from questionnaires. In the first part of data collection participants completed a questionnaire (IRI; Davis, 1983) to assess their trait empathy. Following this, they were randomly presented with one of two separate versions of the trial; one containing state empathy induction (experimental condition, n = 79), the other did not (controls, n = 79). State empathy was induced in the experimental condition by adding dialogue to the defense attorney's opening and closing statements (see below). After reading the transcript, participants completed a questionnaire to assess their judgments of the case. Each data collection session lasted approximately 35 minutes. Following completion of the study participants received a verbal and written debrief and were able again to ask questions.Materials and Measurements The first questionnaire included a series of demographic questions that assessed each participant's age (measured as actual age) their gender and whether they had ever been a victim of assault (measured as yes or no) since this may impact on their perception of the defendant. The second questionnaire was the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1983) which comprises 28 items to assess trait empathy. Example questions include: "I believe that there are two sides to every question and try to look at them both"), and "When I am reading an interesting story or novel, I imagine how I would feel if the events in the story were happening to me" and "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me." Nine items were reverse-scored to prevent biased responding (e.g. "I sometimes find it difficult to see things from the 'other guy's' point of view", "Other people's misfortunes do not usually disturb me a great deal"). All items were measured using a five-point scale, ranging from one (Doesn't describe me very well) to five (Describes me very well). Internal consistency for this scale was good (Cronbach's α = .81). The trial scenario materials (DPP v Hopper & Lush, 2002) were presented in a 20-page booklet explaining how an offender had been charged with assaulting a colleague, causing a permanent and debilitating injury. After admitting hitting the victim during an argument over the offender's girlfriend, the offender pleaded Not Guilty due to provocation. Participants read the defense and prosecution attorneys' opening and closing statements and evidence from four witnesses: two defense (the offender and his girlfriend) and two prosecution (the investigating police officer and the victim). State empathy was induced in the experimental condition via the defense attorney's opening and closing statements. The opening statement ended with: "I ask you, please, members of the jury, that as you consider the evidence about to be presented, imagine how you would feel if you were in the defendant's shoes. Here was a man whose good friend had betrayed his trust, and then attacked him. How would you have felt and reacted if you had been in his place?" The closing statement ended with: "I ask you, members of the jury, to consider how you would feel if you were to be told that a trusted friend had been making advances on your partner. I ask you to consider how you would feel if you needed to pick up a baseball bat in order to protect yourself and your partner. And I ask you to consider how you would feel if you were then the one to find yourself facing criminal prosecution." In the control condition, these statements were omitted. At the end of each transcript participants read that the offender had been found guilty by a majority verdict. More commonly, participants' views on offender guilt are assessed using a continuous guilt probability scale, but this technique has been questioned (Mitchell, Haw, Pfeifer, & Meissner, 2005). Also, dichotomous verdict judgments provide only limited testable information. For example, those judging the offender to be Not Guilty have no need to provide punishment judgments since punishment does not follow acquittal. By providing the trial outcome it was possible to examine participants' attitudes toward the verdict and their recommendation of punishment without losing any data. The description of the verdict being returned by a majority verdict aimed to emphasize to participants that at least some of the real jurors disagreed with the guilty verdict and thus discourage participant inclinations to socially conform to a unanimous verdict an effect demonstrated by Pennington & Hastie (1992). Providing participants with a verdict enabled them to see their own judgments in context of others' whilst also assessing their punishment decisions without losing data. In line with previous experimental work (Haegerich & Bottoms, 2000), participants were asked to write a short paragraph after reading the trial transcript: experimental participants wrote a brief paragraph describing how they believed they would feel if they were in the offender's position, whilst controls wrote about their general thoughts and feelings about the case. This served to reinforce the transcripts' empathy inductions. All participants then completed an identical series of case-related items: 1. A state empathy scale (adapted from Haegerich & Bottoms, 2000) assessed empathy with the offender. Internal consistency for this scale was excellent (Cronbach's α = .87). This scale was also used to test empathy induction. The scale had seven items (e.g. I can really imagine what Pete, the offender, must have been feeling the night of the crime), and was scored using a seven-point Likert scale ranging from one (Strongly disagree) to seven (Strongly agree). 2. Participants' attributions of remorse to the offender were assessed using two items (e.g., How genuinely remorseful do you believe Pete, the offender, feels for committing the offence?), and was scored on a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from one (Not at all) to seven (Extremely). Internal consistency for these two items was excellent (Cronbach's α = .85). The trial transcript contained no reference to any emotions expressed or felt by the offender, so any attributions of remorse originated solely from participants' own interpretations of his behavior. 3. A responsibility scale (adapted from Haegerich & Bottoms, 2000) assessed evaluations of the offender's responsibility for the offense. The scale had three items (e.g. "Please rate the degree to which you believe Pete, the offender, is to blame for Chris's injury"), and was scored on a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from one (Not at all) to seven (Completely). Internal consistency for this scale was also excellent (Cronbach's α = .86). 4. Finally, participants were asked to make three case judgments. The first asked if participants agreed with the guilty verdict (0 = no, 1 = yes). The second asked for an appropriate offender punishment, with options ranging from zero (Community Punishment) to seven (11+ years in prison). The final item asked for participants' beliefs as to whether the offender would commit a similar offence in the future, on a Likert scale ranging from one (Not at all likely) to seven (Extremely likely).Results Preliminary Analysis Descriptive data for the variables of the study may be seen at Table 1. A t test assuming unequal variances (Levene's test of equal variances, F = 5.39, p < .05) showed that empathy induction was successful. Experimental participants, reported higher levels of state empathy with the defendant (M = 4.34, SD = 1.02) than did controls (M = 3.87, SD = 1.21), t(151.1) = -2.60, p < .01, d = 0.42, 95% CI [-5.73, -0.79].<img alt="Table 1 Descriptive statistics for all variables: Control and experimental groups" src="381v06n01-90264750fig1.jpg"></img>Defendant Remorse and Responsibility Trait and state empathy together with the demographic variables, age, gender (dummy coded as 0 & 1) and ever been a victim of assault (dummy coded as 0 & 1) were entered as independent variables (IVs) in a series of multiple regressions to examine their effects on judgments. This was necessary to identify if demographics had any effect on participants' responses. The first regression used attributions of defendant remorse as the dependant variable (DV). The model was significant, accounting for 11% of the variance, power (1-β) = .88 (see Table 2). The significant predictors as shown by the regression analysis were age (older participants were more likely to attribute remorse to the defendant), and state and trait empathy (higher state and/or trait empathizers attributed more remorse to the defendant).<img alt="Table 2 Multiple regression analyses predicting attributions of remorse and responsibility" src="381v06n01-90264750fig2.jpg"></img> The second regression used judgments of defendant responsibility for the offence. The model was significant, and accounted for 4.4% of the variance, power (1-β) = .90 (see Table 2). The regression analysis showed that state empathy was a significant predictor as shown by and showed that participants highest in state empathy judged the defendant to be less responsible for the offence.Punishment, Future Offending and Verdict Subsequent regression models predicting punishment decisions, F(5, 150) = 0.77, ns, power (1-β) = .30 and future offending beliefs, F(5, 150) = 0.22, ns, power (1-β) = .30, were not significant. A logistic regression was used to see if participants agreed with the verdict. Trait and state empathy and demographic variables were entered as IVs and verdict agreement as the DV. Results (see Table 3) produced a reliable model, χ2(1) = 14.85, p < .001, accounting for between 9.1% and 13.5% of the variance, power (1-β) = .90 and classifying correctly, 73.7% of cases who disagreed with the jury's verdict and 95.8% of cases who agreed with the jury's verdict. Only state empathy was an important predictor and showed that each unit increase in state empathy was associated with a decrease in the odds of agreeing with the guilty verdict. Raw data showed that 82.3% of participants in the empathy not induced group (controls) agreed with the guilty verdict, whereas 69.2% of participants in the empathy induced group (experimental group) agreed with the guilty verdict. This suggests that participants higher in state empathy - regardless of whether they were in the control or experimental group - were less likely to agree with the guilty verdict.<img alt="Table 3 Logistic regression predicting mock juror's agreement with trial verdict from trait and state empathy, age, gender and victim status " src="381v06n01-90264750fig3.jpg"></img>Trait and State Empathy Relationship Since defendant remorse was the only DV predicted by both trait and state empathy, it was sensible to use this to test for an interaction between trait and state empathy.Trait Empathy as a Moderator of State Empathy Trait and state empathy scores were centered (using X - M procedure) and an interaction term calculated from their product. The centered and interaction terms for trait and state empathy were entered into a regression to predict defendant remorse. Results showed a non-significant main effect of centered trait empathy (β = .085, p = .276), a significant main effect of centered state empathy (β = .263, p < .001) and a non-significant interaction term (β = .141, p = .07), accounting for 9.1% of the variance, F(3, 154) = 6.13, p < .001, power (1-β) = .87. This suggests that trait empathy does not moderate state empathy's effects on remorse attributions.State Empathy as a Mediator of Trait Empathy To examine whether the relationship between trait empathy and defendant remorse was mediated by state empathy, it was first necessary to examine whether the hypothesised causal variable (trait empathy) was correlated with the hypothesised mediator (state empathy; Baron & Kenny, 1986). A regression analysis indicated that this first requirement was not satisfied (β = .116, p = .148). Thus, state empathy cannot act as a mediator for the effects of trait empathy. To explore these findings further the role of gender in trait and state empathy was examined. Gender was not an important predictor in any of the regression analyses. This seemed odd since research supports that women have higher levels of empathy than do men (Eisenberg & Lennon, 1983). To examine this further an equal variance t test was performed (Levene's tests for equality of variance were not significant for state empathy, p = .86, and for trait empathy, p = .35) to compare male and female trait and state empathy. Results showed that, similar to previous findings, women (M = 70.63, SD = 10.06) compared to men (M = 63.62, SD = 11.83), did indeed have higher levels of trait empathy, t(154) = -3.15, p < .01, d = 0.51, 95% CI [-11.41, -2.62]. However, further analysis showed that men (M = 33.11, SD = 8.17) compared to women (M = 27.86, SD = 7.68) had higher levels of state empathy with the defendant, t(155), = 3.15, p < .01, d = 0.51, 95% CI [1.95, 8.55].Discussion This study aimed to assess: 1) empathy's importance in judgments of a defendant; 2) whether trait or state empathy exerts more influence in legal judgments; and 3) whether trait and state empathy work together or independently to influence judgments of a defendant. The expectation that empathy would predict attributions of defendant remorse and responsibility was upheld. Participants with higher levels of trait and/or state empathy believed the defendant felt remorse even though he showed no emotion. Participants with higher state empathy also held the defendant less responsible for the offense. This finding is unique and important. It suggests that high empathizers may believe that a defendant is remorseful, even if she/he shows no emotion. They then use this assumption to attribute lower responsibility to the defendant for the offense. The expectation that empathy would lead to lenient punishment decisions and beliefs that the defendant would not offend again was not upheld. However, state, but not trait empathy, successfully predicted disagreement with the guilty verdict. Thus, the current findings suggest that even when participants knew that 10 out of 12 other jurors found the defendant guilty, social conformity effects found in previous work (Pennington & Hastie, 1992), did not influence them to agree. Rather, it seems that their state empathy may have influenced their disagreement with the guilty verdict. This is important since it suggests that state empathy may act to reduce social conformity effects in legal judgments. These findings show that it is state and not trait empathy that has most relevance in legal judgments. It is not clear why trait empathy was important only in predicting defendant remorse. Perhaps high trait empathizers are predisposed to expect others to feel as they would in a similar situation and so they attribute emotions to others that they would expect to feel but this effect is not strong enough to influence other judgments too. This question cannot be answered from the current data, but future work could certainly test this effect. For theoretical purposes the relationship between trait and state empathy was examined and no interaction was found. This finding may seem counterintuitive since trait and state emotions often interact (Rusting, 1999). The current findings also show that even though females had higher levels of trait empathy, males had the highest levels of state empathy with the defendant. This result contradicts previous findings that females are more inclined to empathize with others (Eisenberg & Lennon, 1983) and so why males had higher levels of state empathy for the defendant is not clear. However, as noted already, people may behave in ways that are inconsistent with their underlying personality traits - and feel comfortable doing so (Fleeson & Wilt, 2010). It could be that in the current study males, but not females, perceived a similarity between the defendant and themselves and that this elicited their state empathy for the defendant. Although previous work (Haegerich & Bottoms, 2000) has shown that empathy works independently of feelings of similarity to the defendant it seems likely that males in this study related to, and thus empathized with, the situational factors of the case rather than seeing the defendant as a similar other. As Fleeson and Wilt (2010) explain, state-content significance means that some behaviors feel more authentic because of their content and consequences and this is regardless of the individual's traits. The defendant was a male involved in a violent altercation with a former friend who had apparently made sexual advances to the defendant's partner. It may be that this situation generated a greater social understanding in male participants than it did in female participants and that this social understanding induced feelings of state empathy for the defendant in males (see also Terrance, Plumm & Kehn, 2013, for a discussion on social understanding and gender). And, as Pennington and Hastie (1993) note, when a story has relevance to the listener's personal social understanding it has greater credibility with listeners. This finding also contrasts with previous work suggesting that women make more lenient judgments than do men (Haegerich & Bottoms, 2000) since it was the state empathizers (i.e. predominantly men) who disagreed with the guilty verdict. However, as noted earlier, many mock juror studies focus on emotive crimes (Haegerich & Bottoms, 2000; Plumm & Terrance, 2009). Such crimes may well generate a greater social understanding and hence, state empathy, in women. Equally, female participants in the current study may also have been responding to the state-content significance of the information and so responded in a way that is inconsistent with their trait inclinations. The current data cannot attest to this so more research is needed to understand more about this idea. It can be concluded from the current data that when judging a defendant, trait and state emotions act independently. This has theoretical significance since it provides empirical support for Rusting's (1998; 1999) first theoretical framework that state and trait empathy have independent effects on judgments. However, this finding is not conclusive since the power attached to the current analyses was not ideal and only a larger sample size could attest to the strength of this finding. Nonetheless, the fact that females had higher levels of trait empathy and males had higher levels of state empathy suggests that an interaction between trait and state empathy, even with a larger sample size, is unlikely. Future work could definitely examine this possibility. This study is vulnerable to the usual vagaries of mock jury research with student populations (i.e. a lack of ecological validity). Despite participants attending carefully to the trial scenario, this study could not replicate the reality of a courtroom. However, as noted above, laboratory studies allow researchers to manipulate variables whilst controlling for extraneous effects on judgments (Devine, 2012). Research also shows that although student populations are unique, this does not adversely affect the validity of research conducted with them (Wiecko, 2010). Another limitation is the induction of empathy solely for the defendant. In reality, both sides would compete for jurors' empathy, and this prevents broader conclusions. Future work could induce empathy for both defendant and victim. Most importantly, empathy must be explored in a design that includes deliberation. The current data cannot speak to the endurance of empathy during deliberation processes. Finally, future work could examine if empathy can be induced by using attorneys' statements alone and examine responses to these tactics by seeing if low empathizers are more skeptical or more immune to empathy induction attempts. However, the aim of this study was to improve understanding of empathy's effects primarily for theoretical purposes and since the empathy-induction was successful it seems that participants genuinely engaged with the trial transcript and that their judgments were sincerely delivered.Conclusion The research emphasis has mostly been on state empathy and so the examination of both trait and state empathy in legal judgments is novel. This study's findings provide important implications for theory and courtroom practices. By including state and trait empathy the findings from this study show that the research emphasis on state rather than trait empathy is valid. The finding that whilst females had higher levels of trait empathy, males had higher levels of state empathy, suggests that gender differences in empathy are inconsistent and that situational factors may elicit state empathy regardless of existing trait empathy levels. Findings also show that attorneys' statements can generate state empathy which, in turn, leads to attributions of emotions to others even when none is shown, fewer attributions of defendant responsibility for the offense, and disagreement with guilty verdicts returned by others. Importantly, since most court cases are more run-of-the-mill than the emotive cases favored by previous work, the current findings show that empathy is influential in lower-level court cases. Finally, although data was collected in a snap-shot of time many legal judgments are made over short periods (e.g. parole boards, magistrates' courts) and so the current findings may be especially relevant to these contexts. From the current findings, it can be concluded that it is possible to induce empathy via attorney tactics and that empathy influences legal decisions and causes people to infer others' emotions. And, from the rationale expressed by the judge above, this may result in misconceptions and hence bias in the courtroom.Conflict of interest The authors of this article declare no conflict of interest.Acknowledgements This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number RES-000-22-2847].<hr></hr> ARTICLE INFORMATION Manuscript received: 11/09/2013 Revision received: 23/10/2013 Accepted: 25/10/2013<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5093/ejpalc2014a5" class="elsevierStyleCrossRefs">http://dx.doi.org/10.5093/ejpalc2014a5</a>*Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to Jane L. Wood, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom. E-mail: <a href="mailto:J.L.Wood@kent.ac.uk" class="elsevierStyleCrossRefs">J.L.Wood@kent.ac.uk</a><hr></hr>References Archer, R. L., Foushee, H. C., Davis, M. H., & Aderman, D. (1979). Emotional empathy in a courtroom simulation: A person-situation interaction. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 9, 275-291. Doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1979.tb02711.x Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182. Doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.51.6.1173 BBC News (2006, July 6). No jail term for weeping criminal. Retrieved from http://news. bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/5153600.stm Brooks, J. H., & Reddon, J. R. (2003). The two dimensional nature of remorse: An empirical inquiry into internal and external aspects. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 38(2), 1-15. Doi: 10.1300/J076v38n02_01 Chin, D. (2012). Sentencing: A role for empathy. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 160, 1561-1584. Colby, T. (2012). In defense of judicial empathy. Minnesota Law Review, 96, 1944. Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 113-126. Doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113 Devine, D. J. (2012). Jury decision making: The state of the science. New York, NY: New York University Press. DPP v Hopper and Lush, (2002). The courts administration authority. Retrieved from http://www.courts.sa.gov.au/Community/ForSchools/Resources/Lists/Mock%20 Court%20MultiDocuments/Attachments/2/R%20v%20Hopper.pdf Eagle, M. M. (2013). Assessment of juror reasoning for compensatory damage award allocation in sexual harassment cases (Master's thesis). Retrieved from http://repositories.tdl. org/uh-ir/bitstream/handle/10657/ETD-UH-2012-05-460/EAGLE-.pdf?sequence=2 Eisenberg, N., & Lennon, R. (1983). Sex differences in empathy and related capacities. Psychological Bulletin, 94, 100-131. Doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.94.1.100 Fleeson, W., & Wilt, J. (2010). The relevance of big five trait content in behavior to subjective authenticity: Do high levels of within-person behavioral variability undermine or enable authenticity achievement? Journal of Personality, 78, 1353-1382. Doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00653.x Haegerich, T. M., & Bottoms, B. L. (2000). Empathy and jurors' decisions in patricide trials involving child sexual assault allegations. Law and Human Behavior, 24, 421-448. Doi: 10.1023/A:1005592213294 Heise, D. R. (1979). Understanding events: Affect and the construction of social action. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. MacLin, M. K., Downs, C., MacLin, O. H., & Caspers, H. M. (2009). The effect of defendant facial expression on mock juror decision-making: The power of remorse. North American Journal of Psychology, 11, 323-332. Mitchell, T. L., Haw, R. M., Pfeifer, J. E., & Meissner, C. A. (2005). Racial bias in mock juror decision-making: A meta-analytic review of defendant treatment. Law and Human Behavior, 29, 621-637. Doi: 10.1007/s10979-005-8122-9 Pennington, N., & Hastie, R. (1992). Explaining the evidence: Tests of the story model for juror decision-making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 189-206. Doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.62.2.189 Plumm, K. M., & Terrance, C. A. (2009). Battered women who kill: The impact of expert testimony and empathy induction in the courtroom. Violence against Women, 15, 186-205. Doi: 10.1177/1077801208329145 Pyszczynski, T. A., & Wrightsman, L. S. (1981). The effects of opening statements on mock jurors' verdicts in a simulated criminal trial. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 11, 301-313. Doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1981.tb00826.x Rusting, C. L. (1998). Personality, mood, and cognitive processing of emotional information: Three conceptual frameworks. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 165-196. Doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.124.2.165 Rusting, C. L. (1999). Interactive effects of personality and mood on emotion-congruent memory and judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1073-1086. Doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.77.5.1073 Stevenson, M. C., Najdowski, C. J., Bottoms, B. L., & Haegerich, T. M. (2009). Understanding adults' perceptions of juvenile offenders. In B. L. Bottoms, G. S. Goodman, & C. J. Najdowski (Eds.), Child victims, child offenders: Psychology and law (pp. 349-368). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Terrance, C. A., Plumm, K. M., & Kehn, A. (2013). Battered women who kill: Impact of expert testimony type and timing. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law. Advance online publication. Doi: 10.1080/13218719.2013.773846 Wiecko, F. M. (2010). Research note: Assessing the validity of college samples: Are students really that different? Journal of Criminal Justice, 38, 1186-1190." 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Todos los participantes leyeron la transcripción de un juicio sobre el que se les pidió que dictaminaran: el veredicto; la responsabilidad del acusado en el delito; cuál sería un castigo apropiado; la probabilidad de que el acusado reincidiera en el futuro; y si el acusado había sentido remordimientos por el delito cometido. Los resultados mostraron que, tanto la empatía estado como la empatía rasgo, predecían atribuciones de remordimiento en el acusado. La empatía como estado también predecía juicios más indulgentes sobre la responsabilidad del acusado y el acuerdo con el veredicto. Además, los resultados también pusieron de manifiesto que la empatía estado y la empatía rasgo no interactuaban. Los resultados indicaron que la empatía estado y rasgo actúan de manera independiente influenciando los juicios legales, y que la inducción de empatía en las personas que toman decisiones puede influir en los resultados del juicio más allá de los hechos." ] "en" => array:1 [ "resumen" => " The current study investigated the effects of state and trait empathy in legal judgments and tested the relationship between trait and state emotion in one hundred and fifty eight students aged 18-59. Assessments were taken of participants' trait empathy and then state empathy was induced in half the sample. Following this all participants read a trial transcript and made judgments regarding: the verdict decision; the defendant's responsibility for the offense; what would be an appropriate punishment; the likelihood that the offender would offend in the future; and whether the defendant felt remorse for committing the offense. Findings showed that both trait and state empathy predicted attributions of offender remorse. State empathy also predicted judgments of offender responsibility and agreement with verdict decisions in a lenient direction. Findings also showed that state and trait empathy did not interact. 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'I know how they must feel': Empathy and judging defendants

'Sé cómo se deben sentir': Empatía y juicio de los acusados

Jane L Wood*a, Mark Jamesa, Caoilte Ó Ciardhaa

a School of Psychology, University of Kent, UK

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    "textoCompleto" => "<p class="elsevierStylePara"> In the UK&#44; a crown court Judge suspended an offender&#39;s six-month prison sentence when the defendant cried in the dock&#46; This was&#44; the Judge stated&#44; because the offender&#39;s tears demonstrated his remorse for committing the offense&#46; However&#44; the offender later admitted that he felt no remorse and had cried because he feared imprisonment &#40;BBC News&#44; 2006&#41;&#46; If even experienced professionals erroneously attribute emotions to others and use these to make important judgments&#44; it seems unlikely that lay legal decision-makers&#44; such as jurors&#44; can be expected to make more &#34;accurate&#34; decisions&#46; This study examined the role of empathy and attributions of remorse to an offender in case-related judgments&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Affect control theory &#40;ACT&#59; Heise&#44; 1979&#41; explains how people make misguided attributions of emotions&#44; such as remorse&#44; to others&#46; ACT asserts that people strive to maintain self-associated meaning&#46; That is&#44; people tend to behave consistently across situations unless situations create temporary deviations from personal meanings and create uncharacteristic responses&#46; For example&#44; someone who is generally considerate of others may&#44; due to situational influences&#44; behave uncharacteristically and fail to consider others&#39; feelings&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Observers of this uncharacteristic behavior might expect that the target would subsequently experience and show remorse for their actions&#46; ACT maintains that observers will use such negative emotional displays to inform judgments about the type of person they are&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Since members of a jury cannot legally actually know a defendant&#44; they may use a defendant&#39;s emotional demeanor as a guide to their subsequent judgments of the type of person she&#47;he is and his&#47;her role in the offense&#46; For instance&#44; negative emotional displays may generate more positive judgments of a defendant &#40;i&#46;e&#46; she&#47;he is a fundamentally good person&#59; that the crime resulted from situational not intrapersonal factors&#59; that the defendant feels remorse for their part in the offense&#41;&#46; Research using ACT supports this by showing that when a defendant appears to be sad&#44; observers evaluate his&#47;her identity more positively&#46; The result of this positive evaluation is that observers may recommend shorter sentences and are less inclined to believe that the defendant will commit a similar offense in the future &#40;MacLin&#44; Downs&#44; MacLin&#44; &#38; Caspers&#44; 2009&#41;&#46; However&#44; what is not clear from previous work is whether these more lenient judgments result solely from the defendant&#39;s emotional display or whether other factors such as an observer&#39;s empathy also influences judgments&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Empathy has many definitions but for the purposes of this study Davis&#39; definition was used&#46; This definition claims that empathy is a multidimensional construct involving taking the perspective of another resulting in a cognitive adoption and emotional understanding of his&#47;her perspective &#40;Davis&#44; 1983&#41;&#46; The observer also experiences an emotional reaction to the target&#39;s emotional display and uses this as a basis for decisions regarding the target &#40;Davis&#44; 1983&#41;&#46; So&#44; in the case of the judge outlined above&#44; the defendant&#39;s emotional display may have generated an emotional response in the judge who used this to inform his decision regarding the defendant&#39;s sentence&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Empathy and Legal Decisions </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Empathy has two forms&#58; Trait empathy is a stable personality characteristic whilst state empathy is temporary and can be induced&#46; The value of inducing state empathy in jurors is recognized by lawyers who urge that empathy may be manipulated via attorneys&#39; statements and during cross-examination of witnesses &#40;Stevenson&#44; Najdowski&#44; Bottoms&#44; &#38; Haegerich&#44; 2009&#41;&#46; However&#44; it remains unclear whether it is trait&#44; state or a combination of both forms of empathy that influences judgments in a court case&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> So far&#44; little work has been conducted to examine the role of trait empathy in judgments of defendants&#46; Research findings suggest that when judging others&#44; high trait empathizers hold defendants less responsible for an offense and favour lenient punishments &#40;Colby&#44; 2012&#59; Chin&#44; 2012&#41; High trait empathizers also interpret offenders&#39; displays of remorse as arising from concern for the victim&#44; recognition of personal responsibility for events and acceptance that punishment will follow &#40;Brooks &#38; Reddon&#44; 2003&#41;&#46; In contrast&#44; low trait empathizers interpret an offender&#39;s remorse as an indication of the offender&#39;s knowledge that she&#47;he has violated other people&#39;s values and standards&#46; Low trait empathizers also see an offender&#39;s remorse as emanating from a fear of punishment rather than from concern for the victim &#40;Brooks &#38; Reddon&#44; 2003&#41;&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Far more research has examined state empathy&#46; This may be justified since&#44; as noted above&#44; state empathy can be induced in jurors via courtroom processes&#44; whilst identifying trait empathy in potential jurors is more problematic &#40;Plumm &#38; Terrance&#44; 2009&#41;&#46; Inducing state empathy&#44; typically via attorneys&#39; opening statements&#44; is easily done and may have an enduring influence on jurors&#39; preferences for the defense or the prosecution from the start of a trial &#40;Pyszczynski &#38; Wrightsman&#44; 1981&#41;&#46; Mock juror studies show how state empathy for a defendant results in the crime being attributed to situational rather than dispositional factors &#40;Archer&#44; Foushee&#44; Davis&#44; &#38; Aderman&#44; 1979&#41;&#46; Mock jurors who make situational rather than dispositional judgments also attribute less responsibility to the defendant&#44; and make fewer judgments of guilt &#40;Haegerich &#38; Bottoms&#44; 2000&#41;&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Trait and State Empathy Interaction </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Since the examination of trait empathy in judicial judgments is so limited&#44; its role&#44; if any&#44; in initiating state empathy is not clear&#46; So&#44; since it cannot be verified that state empathy stands alone&#44; it may be that trait and state empathy work in concert to influence judgments&#46; The relationship between state and trait empathy is likely to act in accordance with one of Rusting&#39;s &#40;1998&#44; 1999&#41; three theoretical frameworks of trait and mood congruency in judgments&#44; where&#58; 1&#41; state empathy &#40;temporary emotion&#41; and trait empathy &#40;stable disposition&#41; have <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">independent effects</span> &#40;i&#46;e&#46; neither influences the other&#41;&#59; 2&#41; trait empathy <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">moderates</span> state empathy &#40;i&#46;e&#46; judgments are either state empathy congruent or incongruent due to trait empathy&#39;s influence&#41;&#59; and 3&#41; the effect of trait empathy on processing emotional cues are <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">mediated </span>by state empathy &#40;i&#46;e&#46; state empathy enables trait empathy to be expressed&#41;&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Research examining emotions has shown that emotional traits generally correlate positively with emotional states&#44; and generate a propensity to experience related emotional states &#40;Rusting&#44; 1999&#41;&#46; Consequently&#44; the robust effects of state empathy observed in research may actually stem from the underlying influence of trait empathy and in trials that last for weeks or even months the enduring influence of traits on decisions may be even more important&#46; However&#44; research also shows that people may behave &#39;out of character&#39; with their personality traits &#40;Fleeson &#38; Wilt&#44; 2010&#41; and so it can be expected that they may also make judgments that are &#39;out of character&#39; with their underlying traits&#46; So&#44; it is important that the relationship between trait and state emotions and their relationship to people&#39;s judgments is examined more closely&#46; As Rusting sensibly advocates&#44; research including both states and traits will offer a more reliable picture of how emotions work to influence decisions &#40;Rusting&#44; 1999&#41;&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> To date there is little research that has examined both trait and state empathy in legal judgments&#46; One study showed how state empathy influenced judgments and that high - compared to low -trait empathizers attributed the crime to more situational causes and held the offender less responsible for the offense &#40;Archer et al&#46;&#44; 1979&#41;&#46; However&#44; as stated earlier&#44; there are problems associated with attempts to assess trait empathy in potential jurors&#46; Nonetheless many lawyers have recognised the potential value of trait empathy&#46; As Archer et al&#46; &#40;1979&#41; comment&#44; one successful lawyer preferred emotionally-inclined jurors because this would help him to elicit empathy for his clients&#46; More recently&#44; researchers in the U&#46;S&#46;A&#46; note that attorneys may employ the voir dire process to select jurors who empathize with their client since they are likely to make judgments in the client&#39;s favour &#40;Eagle&#44; 2013&#41;&#46; If such tactics are used in court by attorneys&#44; it becomes even more imperative that researchers gain a clearer understanding of the individual and collective influence of trait and state empathy in judgments and how these two important influences on legal judgments work together&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleItalic">The Current Study </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> This study used an individual mock juror paradigm&#46; This was partly because it is not legal to interview actual jurors in the U&#46;K&#46; and partly because laboratory-based work enables the manipulation of variables whilst controlling for extraneous influences on judgments &#40;Devine&#44; 2012&#41;&#46; The study aimed to assess&#58; 1&#41; the importance of empathy in judgments of a defendant&#59; 2&#41; whether trait or state empathy exerts a greater influence in legal judgments&#59; and 3&#41; whether trait and state empathy work together or independently to influence judgments&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Mock juror research often focuses on very serious offenses such as homicide following sexual or domestic abuse &#40;Plumm &#38; Terrance&#44; 2009&#41;&#46; However&#44; such crimes are relatively rare and their content may elicit strong emotions in jurors&#46; This study aimed to see if empathy can influence judgments in more commonplace&#44; and less emotive crimes&#46; If it does then it can be said&#44; with a degree of certainty&#44; that decision-makers&#39; empathy is potentially important to most court cases&#46; For the purpose of this research a case involving physical assault was used to examine empathy&#39;s relevance&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> To understand more of the effects of empathy its influence was examined when the defendant shows no emotion&#46; Previous work has relied on trials with emotional content to elicit empathic responses in mock jurors&#46; However&#44; research shows that when tasks are ambiguous&#44; judgments are likely to become more trait congruent &#40;Rusting&#44; 1998&#41;&#46; So&#44; this study aimed to clarify this process by assessing if empathy inclines people to attribute emotions to an emotionally expressionless defendant&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> For theoretical purposes this research also aimed to understand more of the relationship between trait and state empathy by examining if trait and state empathy interact act in accordance with one of Rusting&#39;s &#40;1998&#44; 1999&#41; three theoretical frameworks &#40;see above&#41; in a mock jury context&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Expectations were that&#58; high levels of empathy &#40;trait and&#47;or state&#41; would a&#41; predict attributions of remorse to an emotionally expressionless defendant&#44; and b&#41; predict leniency in punishment&#44; responsibility&#44; future offending judgments and disagreement with a guilty verdict&#46; No predictions were made regarding the relationship between trait and state empathy&#58; this part of the study was purely exploratory&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleBold">Method </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Participants </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> One hundred and fifty eight undergraduate students participated for course credit&#46; Twenty-six were male and 132 were female&#46; Participants&#39; ages ranged from 18 to 59 years &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">M</span> &#61; 20&#46;37&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">SD</span> &#61; 5&#46;82&#41;&#46; All were required to be native English speakers to guarantee comprehension of the colloquial English used by scenario characters&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Design </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> The study used an individual mock juror design&#44; similar to that used by Haegerich and Bottoms &#40;2000&#41;&#46; Power analysis showed that a sample size of 68 was necessary to identify a medium effect and a sample of 485 for a small effect&#46; Consequently&#44; this study&#39;s sample size of 158 was sufficient to identify a small to medium effect &#40;Cohen&#39;s <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">f</span><span class="elsevierStyleSup">2 </span>&#61; &#46;062&#41;&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleBold">Procedure </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> The study was advertised via a university research participation website which asked for native English speakers to volunteer to participate&#46; Once participants had volunteered&#44; data collection took place in a quiet laboratory in groups of 6&#46; Participants were seated apart to prevent collaboration and the researcher stayed in the room throughout&#46; Participants were provided with an information sheet which provided researchers&#39; details and an outline of the study&#39;s aims&#46; They were then given the chance to ask questions and&#44; if happy to continue &#40;none refused&#41;&#44; they were informed of their rights to anonymity&#44; confidentiality and to withdraw at any time without repercussions&#46; They were then asked to sign a consent form&#46; All participants were provided with a unique participation number&#44; for potential identification purposes&#44; on all their materials except the consent form which was kept separate from questionnaires&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> In the first part of data collection participants completed a questionnaire &#40;IRI&#59; Davis&#44; 1983&#41; to assess their trait empathy&#46; Following this&#44; they were randomly presented with one of two separate versions of the trial&#59; one containing state empathy induction &#40;experimental condition&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">n</span> &#61; 79&#41;&#44; the other did not &#40;controls&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">n</span> &#61; 79&#41;&#46; State empathy was induced in the experimental condition by adding dialogue to the defense attorney&#39;s opening and closing statements &#40;see below&#41;&#46; After reading the transcript&#44; participants completed a questionnaire to assess their judgments of the case&#46; Each data collection session lasted approximately 35 minutes&#46; Following completion of the study participants received a verbal and written debrief and were able again to ask questions&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Materials and Measurements </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> The first questionnaire included a series of demographic questions that assessed each participant&#39;s age &#40;measured as actual age&#41; their gender and whether they had ever been a victim of assault &#40;measured as yes or no&#41; since this may impact on their perception of the defendant&#46; The second questionnaire was the Interpersonal Reactivity Index &#40;IRI&#59; Davis&#44; 1983&#41; which comprises 28 items to assess trait empathy&#46; Example questions include&#58; &#34;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">I believe that there are two sides to every question and try to look at them both</span>&#34;&#41;&#44; and &#34;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">When I am reading an interesting story or novel&#44; I imagine how I would feel if the events in the story were happening to me</span>&#34; and &#34;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">I often have tender&#44; concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me&#46;</span>&#34; Nine items were reverse-scored to prevent biased responding &#40;e&#46;g&#46; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">&#34;I sometimes find it difficult to see things from the &#39;other guy&#39;s&#39; point of view&#34;&#44; &#34;Other people&#39;s misfortunes do not usually disturb me a great deal&#34;</span>&#41;&#46; All items were measured using a five-point scale&#44; ranging from one &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Doesn&#39;t describe me very well</span>&#41; to five &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Describes me very well</span>&#41;&#46; Internal consistency for this scale was good &#40;Cronbach&#39;s &#945; &#61; &#46;81&#41;&#46; The trial scenario materials &#40;DPP v Hopper &#38; Lush&#44; 2002&#41; were presented in a 20-page booklet explaining how an offender had been charged with assaulting a colleague&#44; causing a permanent and debilitating injury&#46; After admitting hitting the victim during an argument over the offender&#39;s girlfriend&#44; the offender pleaded Not Guilty due to provocation&#46; Participants read the defense and prosecution attorneys&#39; opening and closing statements and evidence from four witnesses&#58; two defense &#40;the offender and his girlfriend&#41; and two prosecution &#40;the investigating police officer and the victim&#41;&#46; State empathy was induced in the experimental condition via the defense attorney&#39;s opening and closing statements&#46; The opening statement ended with&#58;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> &#34;I ask you&#44; please&#44; members of the jury&#44; that as you consider the evidence about to be presented&#44; imagine how you would feel if you were in the defendant&#39;s shoes&#46; Here was a man whose good friend had betrayed his trust&#44; and then attacked him&#46; How would you have felt and reacted if you had been in his place&#63;&#34;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> The closing statement ended with&#58;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> &#34;I ask you&#44; members of the jury&#44; to consider how you would feel if you were to be told that a trusted friend had been making advances on your partner&#46; I ask you to consider how you would feel if you needed to pick up a baseball bat in order to protect yourself and your partner&#46; And I ask you to consider how you would feel if you were then the one to find yourself facing criminal prosecution&#46;&#34;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> In the control condition&#44; these statements were omitted&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> At the end of each transcript participants read that the offender had been found guilty by a majority verdict&#46; More commonly&#44; participants&#39; views on offender guilt are assessed using a continuous guilt probability scale&#44; but this technique has been questioned &#40;Mitchell&#44; Haw&#44; Pfeifer&#44; &#38; Meissner&#44; 2005&#41;&#46; Also&#44; dichotomous verdict judgments provide only limited testable information&#46; For example&#44; those judging the offender to be Not Guilty have no need to provide punishment judgments since punishment does not follow acquittal&#46; By providing the trial outcome it was possible to examine participants&#39; attitudes toward the verdict and their recommendation of punishment without losing any data&#46; The description of the verdict being returned by a majority verdict aimed to emphasize to participants that at least some of the real jurors disagreed with the guilty verdict and thus discourage participant inclinations to socially conform to a unanimous verdict an effect demonstrated by Pennington &#38; Hastie &#40;1992&#41;&#46; Providing participants with a verdict enabled them to see their own judgments in context of others&#39; whilst also assessing their punishment decisions without losing data&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> In line with previous experimental work &#40;Haegerich &#38; Bottoms&#44; 2000&#41;&#44; participants were asked to write a short paragraph after reading the trial transcript&#58; experimental participants wrote a brief paragraph describing how they believed they would feel if they were in the offender&#39;s position&#44; whilst controls wrote about their general thoughts and feelings about the case&#46; This served to reinforce the transcripts&#39; empathy inductions&#46; All participants then completed an identical series of case-related items&#58;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> 1&#46; A state empathy scale &#40;adapted from Haegerich &#38; Bottoms&#44; 2000&#41; assessed empathy with the offender&#46; Internal consistency for this scale was excellent &#40;Cronbach&#39;s &#945; &#61; &#46;87&#41;&#46; This scale was also used to test empathy induction&#46; The scale had seven items &#40;e&#46;g&#46; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">I can really imagine what Pete&#44; the offender&#44; must have been feeling the night of the crime</span>&#41;&#44; and was scored using a seven-point Likert scale ranging from one &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Strongly disagree</span>&#41; to seven &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Strongly agree</span>&#41;&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> 2&#46; Participants&#39; attributions of remorse to the offender were assessed using two items &#40;e&#46;g&#46;&#44; How genuinely remorseful do you believe Pete&#44; the offender&#44; feels for committing the offence&#63;&#41;&#44; and was scored on a seven-point Likert scale&#44; ranging from one &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Not at all</span>&#41; to seven &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Extremely</span>&#41;&#46; Internal consistency for these two items was excellent &#40;Cronbach&#39;s &#945; &#61; &#46;85&#41;&#46; The trial transcript contained no reference to any emotions expressed or felt by the offender&#44; so any attributions of remorse originated solely from participants&#39; own interpretations of his behavior&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> 3&#46; A responsibility scale &#40;adapted from Haegerich &#38; Bottoms&#44; 2000&#41; assessed evaluations of the offender&#39;s responsibility for the offense&#46; The scale had three items &#40;e&#46;g&#46; &#34;Please rate the degree to which you believe Pete&#44; the offender&#44; is to blame for Chris&#39;s injury&#34;&#41;&#44; and was scored on a seven-point Likert scale&#44; ranging from one &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Not at all</span>&#41; to seven &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Completely</span>&#41;&#46; Internal consistency for this scale was also excellent &#40;Cronbach&#39;s &#945; &#61; &#46;86&#41;&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> 4&#46; Finally&#44; participants were asked to make three case judgments&#46; The first asked if participants agreed with the guilty verdict &#40;0 &#61; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">no</span>&#44; 1 &#61; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">yes</span>&#41;&#46; The second asked for an appropriate offender punishment&#44; with options ranging from zero &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Community Punishment</span>&#41; to seven &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">11&#43; years in prison</span>&#41;&#46; The final item asked for participants&#39; beliefs as to whether the offender would commit a similar offence in the future&#44; on a Likert scale ranging from one &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Not at all likely</span>&#41; to seven &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Extremely likely</span>&#41;&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleBold">Results </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Preliminary Analysis </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Descriptive data for the variables of the study may be seen at Table 1&#46; A <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">t</span> test assuming unequal variances &#40;Levene&#39;s test of equal variances&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">F</span> &#61; 5&#46;39&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">p</span> &#60; &#46;05&#41; showed that empathy induction was successful&#46; Experimental participants&#44; reported higher levels of state empathy with the defendant &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">M</span> &#61; 4&#46;34&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">SD</span> &#61; 1&#46;02&#41; than did controls &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">M</span> &#61; 3&#46;87&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">SD</span> &#61; 1&#46;21&#41;&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">t</span>&#40;151&#46;1&#41; &#61; -2&#46;60&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">p</span> &#60; &#46;01&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">d </span>&#61; 0&#46;42&#44; 95&#37; CI &#91;-5&#46;73&#44; -0&#46;79&#93;&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><img alt="Table 1 Descriptive statistics for all variables&#58; Control and experimental groups" src="381v06n01-90264750fig1.jpg"></img></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Defendant Remorse and Responsibility </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Trait and state empathy together with the demographic variables&#44; age&#44; gender &#40;dummy coded as 0 &#38; 1&#41; and ever been a victim of assault &#40;dummy coded as 0 &#38; 1&#41; were entered as independent variables &#40;IVs&#41; in a series of multiple regressions to examine their effects on judgments&#46; This was necessary to identify if demographics had any effect on participants&#39; responses&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> The first regression used attributions of defendant remorse as the dependant variable &#40;DV&#41;&#46; The model was significant&#44; accounting for 11&#37; of the variance&#44; power &#40;1-&#946;&#41; &#61; &#46;88 &#40;see Table 2&#41;&#46; The significant predictors as shown by the regression analysis were age &#40;older participants were more likely to attribute remorse to the defendant&#41;&#44; and state and trait empathy &#40;higher state and&#47;or trait empathizers attributed more remorse to the defendant&#41;&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><img alt="Table 2 Multiple regression analyses predicting attributions of remorse and responsibility" src="381v06n01-90264750fig2.jpg"></img></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> The second regression used judgments of defendant responsibility for the offence&#46; The model was significant&#44; and accounted for 4&#46;4&#37; of the variance&#44; power &#40;1-&#946;&#41; &#61; &#46;90 &#40;see Table 2&#41;&#46; The regression analysis showed that state empathy was a significant predictor as shown by and showed that participants highest in state empathy judged the defendant to be less responsible for the offence&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Punishment&#44; Future Offending and Verdict </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Subsequent regression models predicting punishment decisions&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">F</span>&#40;5&#44; 150&#41; &#61; 0&#46;77&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">ns</span>&#44; power &#40;1-&#946;&#41; &#61; &#46;30 and future offending beliefs&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">F</span>&#40;5&#44; 150&#41; &#61; 0&#46;22&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">ns</span>&#44; power &#40;1-&#946;&#41; &#61; &#46;30&#44; were not significant&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> A logistic regression was used to see if participants agreed with the verdict&#46; Trait and state empathy and demographic variables were entered as IVs and verdict agreement as the DV&#46; Results &#40;see Table 3&#41; produced a reliable model&#44; &#967;<span class="elsevierStyleSup">2</span>&#40;1&#41; &#61; 14&#46;85&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">p</span> &#60; &#46;001&#44; accounting for between 9&#46;1&#37; and 13&#46;5&#37; of the variance&#44; power &#40;1-&#946;&#41; &#61; &#46;90 and classifying correctly&#44; 73&#46;7&#37; of cases who disagreed with the jury&#39;s verdict and 95&#46;8&#37; of cases who agreed with the jury&#39;s verdict&#46; Only state empathy was an important predictor and showed that each unit increase in state empathy was associated with a decrease in the odds of agreeing with the guilty verdict&#46; Raw data showed that 82&#46;3&#37; of participants in the empathy not induced group &#40;controls&#41; agreed with the guilty verdict&#44; whereas 69&#46;2&#37; of participants in the empathy induced group &#40;experimental group&#41; agreed with the guilty verdict&#46; This suggests that participants higher in state empathy - regardless of whether they were in the control or experimental group - were less likely to agree with the guilty verdict&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><img alt="Table 3 Logistic regression predicting mock juror&#39;s agreement with trial verdict from trait and state empathy&#44; age&#44; gender and victim status " src="381v06n01-90264750fig3.jpg"></img></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Trait and State Empathy Relationship </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Since defendant remorse was the only DV predicted by both trait and state empathy&#44; it was sensible to use this to test for an interaction between trait and state empathy&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Trait Empathy as a Moderator of State Empathy </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Trait and state empathy scores were centered &#40;using <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">X</span> - <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">M</span> procedure&#41; and an interaction term calculated from their product&#46; The centered and interaction terms for trait and state empathy were entered into a regression to predict defendant remorse&#46; Results showed a non-significant main effect of centered trait empathy &#40;&#946; &#61; &#46;085&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">p</span> &#61; &#46;276&#41;&#44; a significant main effect of centered state empathy &#40;&#946; &#61; &#46;263&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">p &#60;</span> &#46;001&#41; and a non-significant interaction term &#40;&#946; &#61; &#46;141&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">p </span>&#61; &#46;07&#41;&#44; accounting for 9&#46;1&#37; of the variance&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">F</span>&#40;3&#44; 154&#41; &#61; 6&#46;13&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">p</span> &#60; &#46;001&#44; power &#40;1-&#946;&#41; &#61; &#46;87&#46; This suggests that trait empathy does not moderate state empathy&#39;s effects on remorse attributions&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleItalic">State Empathy as a Mediator of Trait Empathy </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> To examine whether the relationship between trait empathy and defendant remorse was mediated by state empathy&#44; it was first necessary to examine whether the hypothesised causal variable &#40;trait empathy&#41; was correlated with the hypothesised mediator &#40;state empathy&#59; Baron &#38; Kenny&#44; 1986&#41;&#46; A regression analysis indicated that this first requirement was not satisfied &#40;&#946; &#61; &#46;116&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">p</span> &#61; &#46;148&#41;&#46; Thus&#44; state empathy cannot act as a mediator for the effects of trait empathy&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> To explore these findings further the role of gender in trait and state empathy was examined&#46; Gender was not an important predictor in any of the regression analyses&#46; This seemed odd since research supports that women have higher levels of empathy than do men &#40;Eisenberg &#38; Lennon&#44; 1983&#41;&#46; To examine this further an equal variance <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">t</span> test was performed &#40;Levene&#39;s tests for equality of variance were not significant for state empathy&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">p</span> &#61; &#46;86&#44; and for trait empathy&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">p</span> &#61; &#46;35&#41; to compare male and female trait and state empathy&#46; Results showed that&#44; similar to previous findings&#44; women &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">M</span> &#61; 70&#46;63&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">SD</span> &#61; 10&#46;06&#41; compared to men &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">M</span> &#61; 63&#46;62&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">SD</span> &#61; 11&#46;83&#41;&#44; did indeed have higher levels of trait empathy&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">t</span>&#40;154&#41; &#61; -3&#46;15&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">p</span> &#60; &#46;01&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">d</span> &#61; 0&#46;51&#44; 95&#37; CI &#91;-11&#46;41&#44; -2&#46;62&#93;&#46; However&#44; further analysis showed that men &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">M</span> &#61; 33&#46;11&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">SD</span> &#61; 8&#46;17&#41; compared to women &#40;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">M</span> &#61; 27&#46;86&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">SD</span> &#61; 7&#46;68&#41; had higher levels of state empathy with the defendant&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">t</span>&#40;155&#41;&#44; &#61; 3&#46;15&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">p</span> &#60; &#46;01&#44;<span class="elsevierStyleItalic"> d</span> &#61; 0&#46;51&#44; 95&#37; CI &#91;1&#46;95&#44; 8&#46;55&#93;&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleBold">Discussion </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> This study aimed to assess&#58; 1&#41; empathy&#39;s importance in judgments of a defendant&#59; 2&#41; whether trait or state empathy exerts more influence in legal judgments&#59; and 3&#41; whether trait and state empathy work together or independently to influence judgments of a defendant&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> The expectation that empathy would predict attributions of defendant remorse and responsibility was upheld&#46; Participants with higher levels of trait and&#47;or state empathy believed the defendant felt remorse even though he showed no emotion&#46; Participants with higher state empathy also held the defendant less responsible for the offense&#46; This finding is unique and important&#46; It suggests that high empathizers may believe that a defendant is remorseful&#44; even if she&#47;he shows no emotion&#46; They then use this assumption to attribute lower responsibility to the defendant for the offense&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> The expectation that empathy would lead to lenient punishment decisions and beliefs that the defendant would not offend again was not upheld&#46; However&#44; state&#44; but not trait empathy&#44; successfully predicted disagreement with the guilty verdict&#46; Thus&#44; the current findings suggest that even when participants knew that 10 out of 12 other jurors found the defendant guilty&#44; social conformity effects found in previous work &#40;Pennington &#38; Hastie&#44; 1992&#41;&#44; did not influence them to agree&#46; Rather&#44; it seems that their state empathy may have influenced their disagreement with the guilty verdict&#46; This is important since it suggests that state empathy may act to reduce social conformity effects in legal judgments&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> These findings show that it is state and not trait empathy that has most relevance in legal judgments&#46; It is not clear why trait empathy was important only in predicting defendant remorse&#46; Perhaps high trait empathizers are predisposed to expect others to feel as they would in a similar situation and so they attribute emotions to others that they would expect to feel but this effect is not strong enough to influence other judgments too&#46; This question cannot be answered from the current data&#44; but future work could certainly test this effect&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> For theoretical purposes the relationship between trait and state empathy was examined and no interaction was found&#46; This finding may seem counterintuitive since trait and state emotions often interact &#40;Rusting&#44; 1999&#41;&#46; The current findings also show that even though females had higher levels of trait empathy&#44; males had the highest levels of state empathy with the defendant&#46; This result contradicts previous findings that females are more inclined to empathize with others &#40;Eisenberg &#38; Lennon&#44; 1983&#41; and so why males had higher levels of state empathy for the defendant is not clear&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> However&#44; as noted already&#44; people may behave in ways that are inconsistent with their underlying personality traits - and feel comfortable doing so &#40;Fleeson &#38; Wilt&#44; 2010&#41;&#46; It could be that in the current study males&#44; but not females&#44; perceived a similarity between the defendant and themselves and that this elicited their state empathy for the defendant&#46; Although previous work &#40;Haegerich &#38; Bottoms&#44; 2000&#41; has shown that empathy works independently of feelings of similarity to the defendant it seems likely that males in this study related to&#44; and thus empathized with&#44; the <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">situational</span> factors of the case rather than seeing the defendant as a similar other&#46; As Fleeson and Wilt &#40;2010&#41; explain&#44; state-content significance means that some behaviors feel more authentic because of their content and consequences and this is regardless of the individual&#39;s traits&#46; The defendant was a male involved in a violent altercation with a former friend who had apparently made sexual advances to the defendant&#39;s partner&#46; It may be that this situation generated a greater social understanding in male participants than it did in female participants and that this social understanding induced feelings of state empathy for the defendant in males &#40;see also Terrance&#44; Plumm &#38; Kehn&#44; 2013&#44; for a discussion on social understanding and gender&#41;&#46; And&#44; as Pennington and Hastie &#40;1993&#41; note&#44; when a story has relevance to the listener&#39;s personal social understanding it has greater credibility with listeners&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> This finding also contrasts with previous work suggesting that women make more lenient judgments than do men &#40;Haegerich &#38; Bottoms&#44; 2000&#41; since it was the state empathizers &#40;i&#46;e&#46; predominantly men&#41; who disagreed with the guilty verdict&#46; However&#44; as noted earlier&#44; many mock juror studies focus on emotive crimes &#40;Haegerich &#38; Bottoms&#44; 2000&#59; Plumm &#38; Terrance&#44; 2009&#41;&#46; Such crimes may well generate a greater social understanding and hence&#44; state empathy&#44; in women&#46; Equally&#44; female participants in the current study may also have been responding to the state-content significance of the information and so responded in a way that is inconsistent with their trait inclinations&#46; The current data cannot attest to this so more research is needed to understand more about this idea&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> It can be concluded from the current data that when judging a defendant&#44; trait and state emotions act independently&#46; This has theoretical significance since it provides empirical support for Rusting&#39;s &#40;1998&#59; 1999&#41; first theoretical framework that state and trait empathy have <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">independent effects</span> on judgments&#46; However&#44; this finding is not conclusive since the power attached to the current analyses was not ideal and only a larger sample size could attest to the strength of this finding&#46; Nonetheless&#44; the fact that females had higher levels of trait empathy and males had higher levels of state empathy suggests that an interaction between trait and state empathy&#44; even with a larger sample size&#44; is unlikely&#46; Future work could definitely examine this possibility&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> This study is vulnerable to the usual vagaries of mock jury research with student populations &#40;i&#46;e&#46; a lack of ecological validity&#41;&#46; Despite participants attending carefully to the trial scenario&#44; this study could not replicate the reality of a courtroom&#46; However&#44; as noted above&#44; laboratory studies allow researchers to manipulate variables whilst controlling for extraneous effects on judgments &#40;Devine&#44; 2012&#41;&#46; Research also shows that although student populations are unique&#44; this does not adversely affect the validity of research conducted with them &#40;Wiecko&#44; 2010&#41;&#46; Another limitation is the induction of empathy solely for the defendant&#46; In reality&#44; both sides would compete for jurors&#39; empathy&#44; and this prevents broader conclusions&#46; Future work could induce empathy for both defendant and victim&#46; Most importantly&#44; empathy must be explored in a design that includes deliberation&#46; The current data cannot speak to the endurance of empathy during deliberation processes&#46; Finally&#44; future work could examine if empathy can be induced by using attorneys&#39; statements alone and examine responses to these tactics by seeing if low empathizers are more skeptical or more immune to empathy induction attempts&#46; However&#44; the aim of this study was to improve understanding of empathy&#39;s effects primarily for theoretical purposes and since the empathy-induction was successful it seems that participants genuinely engaged with the trial transcript and that their judgments were sincerely delivered&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleBold">Conclusion </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> The research emphasis has mostly been on state empathy and so the examination of both trait and state empathy in legal judgments is novel&#46; This study&#39;s findings provide important implications for theory and courtroom practices&#46; By including state <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">and</span> trait empathy the findings from this study show that the research emphasis on state rather than trait empathy is valid&#46; The finding that whilst females had higher levels of trait empathy&#44; males had higher levels of state empathy&#44; suggests that gender differences in empathy are inconsistent and that situational factors may elicit state empathy regardless of existing trait empathy levels&#46; Findings also show that attorneys&#39; statements can generate state empathy which&#44; in turn&#44; leads to attributions of emotions to others even when none is shown&#44; fewer attributions of defendant responsibility for the offense&#44; and disagreement with guilty verdicts returned by others&#46; Importantly&#44; since most court cases are more run-of-the-mill than the emotive cases favored by previous work&#44; the current findings show that empathy is influential in lower-level court cases&#46; Finally&#44; although data was collected in a snap-shot of time many legal judgments <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">are</span> made over short periods &#40;e&#46;g&#46; parole boards&#44; magistrates&#39; courts&#41; and so the current findings may be especially relevant to these contexts&#46; From the current findings&#44; it can be concluded that it is possible to induce empathy via attorney tactics and that empathy influences legal decisions and causes people to infer others&#39; emotions&#46; And&#44; from the rationale expressed by the judge above&#44; this may result in misconceptions and hence bias in the courtroom&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleBold">Conflict of interest </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> The authors of this article declare no conflict of interest&#46;</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleBold">Acknowledgements </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council &#91;grant number RES-000-22-2847&#93;&#46;</p><hr></hr><p class="elsevierStylePara"> ARTICLE INFORMATION <br></br> Manuscript received&#58; 11&#47;09&#47;2013 <br></br> Revision received&#58; 23&#47;10&#47;2013 <br></br> Accepted&#58; 25&#47;10&#47;2013</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><a href="http&#58;&#47;&#47;dx&#46;doi&#46;org&#47;10&#46;5093&#47;ejpalc2014a5" class="elsevierStyleCrossRefs">http&#58;&#47;&#47;dx&#46;doi&#46;org&#47;10&#46;5093&#47;ejpalc2014a5</a></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleBold">&#42;</span>Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to <br></br> Jane L&#46; Wood&#44; University of Kent&#44; Canterbury&#44; Kent&#44; <br></br> United Kingdom&#46; E-mail&#58; <a href="mailto&#58;J&#46;L&#46;Wood&#64;kent&#46;ac&#46;uk" class="elsevierStyleCrossRefs">J&#46;L&#46;Wood&#64;kent&#46;ac&#46;uk</a></p><hr></hr><p class="elsevierStylePara"><span class="elsevierStyleBold">References </span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Archer&#44; R&#46; L&#46;&#44; Foushee&#44; H&#46; C&#46;&#44; Davis&#44; M&#46; H&#46;&#44; &#38; Aderman&#44; D&#46; &#40;1979&#41;&#46; Emotional empathy in a courtroom simulation&#58; A person-situation interaction&#46; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Journal of Applied Social Psychology&#44; 9</span>&#44; 275-291&#46; Doi&#58; 10&#46;1111&#47;j&#46;1559-1816&#46;1979&#46;tb02711&#46;x</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Baron&#44; R&#46; M&#46;&#44; &#38; Kenny&#44; D&#46; A&#46; &#40;1986&#41;&#46; The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research&#58; Conceptual&#44; strategic&#44; and statistical considerations&#46; 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&#40;1999&#41;&#46; Interactive effects of personality and mood on emotion-congruent memory and judgment&#46; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Journal of Personality and Social Psychology&#44; 77</span>&#44; 1073-1086&#46; Doi&#58; 10&#46;1037&#47;0022-3514&#46;77&#46;5&#46;1073</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Stevenson&#44; M&#46; C&#46;&#44; Najdowski&#44; C&#46; J&#46;&#44; Bottoms&#44; B&#46; L&#46;&#44; &#38; Haegerich&#44; T&#46; M&#46; &#40;2009&#41;&#46; Understanding adults&#39; perceptions of juvenile offenders&#46; In B&#46; L&#46; Bottoms&#44; G&#46; S&#46; Goodman&#44; &#38; C&#46; J&#46; Najdowski &#40;Eds&#46;&#41;&#44; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Child victims&#44; child offenders&#58; Psychology and law</span> &#40;pp&#46; 349-368&#41;&#46; New York&#44; NY&#58; Guilford Press<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">&#46;</span></p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Terrance&#44; C&#46; A&#46;&#44; Plumm&#44; K&#46; M&#46;&#44; &#38; Kehn&#44; A&#46; &#40;2013&#41;&#46; Battered women who kill&#58; Impact of expert testimony type and timing&#46; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Psychiatry&#44; Psychology and Law</span>&#46; Advance online publication&#46; Doi<span class="elsevierStyleBold">&#58; </span>10&#46;1080&#47;13218719&#46;2013&#46;773846</p><p class="elsevierStylePara"> Wiecko&#44; F&#46; M&#46; &#40;2010&#41;&#46; Research note&#58; Assessing the validity of college samples&#58; Are students really that different&#63; <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Journal of Criminal Justice&#44; 38</span>&#44; 1186-1190&#46;</p>"
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        "resumen" => "<p class="elsevierStylePara"> Se analizaron los efectos de la empat&#237;a estado y rasgo en los juicios legales&#44; y se examin&#243; la relaci&#243;n entre la emoci&#243;n estado y rasgo&#46; Participaron en el estudio ciento cincuenta y ocho estudiantes de entre 18 y 59 a&#241;os&#46; Se evalu&#243; la empat&#237;a-rasgo de los participantes&#44; y posteriormente se indujo la empat&#237;a como estado a la mitad de la muestra&#46; Todos los participantes leyeron la transcripci&#243;n de un juicio sobre el que se les pidi&#243; que dictaminaran&#58; el veredicto&#59; la responsabilidad del acusado en el delito&#59; cu&#225;l ser&#237;a un castigo apropiado&#59; la probabilidad de que el acusado reincidiera en el futuro&#59; y si el acusado hab&#237;a sentido remordimientos por el delito cometido&#46; Los resultados mostraron que&#44; tanto la empat&#237;a estado como la empat&#237;a rasgo&#44; predec&#237;an atribuciones de remordimiento en el acusado&#46; La empat&#237;a como estado tambi&#233;n predec&#237;a juicios m&#225;s indulgentes sobre la responsabilidad del acusado y el acuerdo con el veredicto&#46; Adem&#225;s&#44; los resultados tambi&#233;n pusieron de manifiesto que la empat&#237;a estado y la empat&#237;a rasgo no interactuaban&#46; Los resultados indicaron que la empat&#237;a estado y rasgo act&#250;an de manera independiente influenciando los juicios legales&#44; y que la inducci&#243;n de empat&#237;a en las personas que toman decisiones puede influir en los resultados del juicio m&#225;s all&#225; de los hechos&#46;</p>"
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        "resumen" => "<p class="elsevierStylePara"> The current study investigated the effects of state and trait empathy in legal judgments and tested the relationship between trait and state emotion in one hundred and fifty eight students aged 18-59&#46; Assessments were taken of participants&#39; trait empathy and then state empathy was induced in half the sample&#46; Following this all participants read a trial transcript and made judgments regarding&#58; the verdict decision&#59; the defendant&#39;s responsibility for the offense&#59; what would be an appropriate punishment&#59; the likelihood that the offender would offend in the future&#59; and whether the defendant felt remorse for committing the offense&#46; Findings showed that both trait and state empathy predicted attributions of offender remorse&#46; State empathy also predicted judgments of offender responsibility and agreement with verdict decisions in a lenient direction&#46; Findings also showed that state and trait empathy did not interact&#46; The results indicate that trait and state empathy work independently to influence legal judgments and that inducing empathy in decision-makers can impact on trial outcomes above and beyond the facts of the case&#46;</p>"
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Article information

ISSN: 18891861
Original language: English

DOI:10.5093/ejpalc2014a5

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Year/Month	Html	Pdf	Total

2024 October	53	6	59
2024 September	43	7	50
2024 August	39	6	45
2024 July	43	3	46
2024 June	32	4	36
2024 May	19	8	27
2024 April	46	6	52
2024 March	42	4	46
2024 February	64	7	71
2024 January	82	19	101
2023 December	49	13	62
2023 November	81	16	97
2023 October	98	13	111
2023 September	46	7	53
2023 August	50	4	54
2023 July	53	10	63
2023 June	53	5	58
2023 May	103	3	106
2023 April	73	6	79
2023 March	31	2	33
2023 February	31	10	41
2023 January	18	7	25
2022 December	22	3	25
2022 November	35	4	39
2022 October	20	6	26
2022 September	23	22	45
2022 August	19	17	36
2022 July	20	7	27
2022 June	24	3	27
2022 May	23	8	31
2022 April	28	9	37
2022 March	26	5	31
2022 February	27	3	30
2022 January	44	7	51
2021 December	14	8	22
2021 November	23	5	28
2021 October	27	7	34
2021 September	36	10	46
2021 August	45	10	55
2021 July	26	9	35
2021 June	18	9	27
2021 May	34	4	38
2021 April	104	6	110
2021 March	50	10	60
2021 February	31	4	35
2021 January	19	11	30
2020 December	23	11	34
2020 November	21	10	31
2020 October	16	6	22
2020 September	17	13	30
2020 August	16	9	25
2020 July	15	8	23
2020 June	18	6	24
2020 May	26	6	32
2020 April	11	9	20
2020 March	8	8	16
2020 February	7	1	8
2020 January	2	2	4
2019 December	19	3	22
2019 November	9	2	11
2019 October	9	0	9
2019 September	7	1	8
2019 August	3	1	4
2019 July	8	6	14
2019 June	22	8	30
2019 May	110	27	137
2019 April	85	15	100
2019 March	116	17	133
2019 February	103	16	119
2019 January	75	21	96
2018 December	88	12	100
2018 November	111	11	122
2018 October	58	7	65
2018 September	34	8	42
2018 August	39	15	54
2018 July	34	12	46
2018 June	45	10	55
2018 May	39	13	52
2018 April	87	8	95
2018 March	104	12	116
2018 February	79	12	91
2018 January	60	15	75
2017 December	36	12	48
2017 November	82	7	89
2017 October	70	18	88
2017 September	69	10	79
2017 August	61	12	73
2017 July	50	16	66
2017 June	79	14	93
2017 May	97	15	112
2017 April	99	15	114
2017 March	80	18	98
2017 February	166	14	180
2017 January	79	14	93
2016 December	91	18	109
2016 November	102	22	124
2016 October	144	25	169
2016 September	175	12	187
2016 August	193	17	210
2016 July	143	7	150
2016 June	132	20	152
2016 May	134	18	152
2016 April	203	16	219
2016 March	173	22	195
2016 February	204	27	231
2016 January	159	31	190
2015 December	161	18	179
2015 November	178	21	199
2015 October	152	16	168
2015 September	174	14	188
2015 August	159	12	171
2015 July	271	9	280
2015 June	378	18	396
2015 May	479	28	507
2015 April	426	21	447
2015 March	649	26	675
2015 February	446	22	468
2015 January	763	23	786
2014 December	580	23	603
2014 November	399	18	417
2014 October	654	21	675
2014 September	661	32	693
2014 August	367	23	390
2014 July	511	51	562
2014 June	629	49	678
2014 May	560	34	594
2014 April	376	29	405
2014 March	330	36	366
2014 February	353	46	399
2014 January	249	33	282

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