Judging offenders: the role of observers' emotions
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Kent
Department Name: Sch of Psychology
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Jane Wood (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Wood J
(2014)
'I know how they must feel': Empathy and judging defendants
in The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context
| Description | Findings showed that feelings of empathy can be generated by statements which are favourable to an offender. Findings also showed how people with high levels of empathy are likely to judge an offender as feeling remorse - even if the offender does not show remorse. In turn, these same people are likely to make more lenient judgements of the offender. That is, overall, they hold the offender less responsible for an offence and are less inclined to agree with guilty verdicts of other jurors. |
| Exploitation Route | Our findings could be used in training of individuals involved in decision making regarding offenders. For example, members of parole boards and judges may benefit from a greater understanding of how empathy may be manipulated and how it may impact on their decision making. Previous research has tended to focus on either trait (ie personality characteristic) or state (ie current situation) empathy. However, our findings indicate that trait and state empathy may act independently under certain ci |
| Description | Conference Presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | 75+ people attended a presentation of our research findings. This stimulated discussion and requests for further information about our findings I have been contacted by several people wanting further information from our research that they could use to inform their work |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
| Description | Conference Presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 40+ lawyers and policy makers attended the presentation - questions and discussion followed the presentation Requests for further information on this research were received |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |