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Description: Participants (N = 160) read scenarios in which a defendant's guilt status (guilty, not guilty); type of emotion judgment made (feeling, displaying); and defendant/victim relationship (husband and stranger) were varied to determine their influences on expectations for defendants' emotional responses. In a second experiment, we presented these same variables between-subjects to 324 online participants. In a third experiment, 329 online participants provided expectations for a defendant's crying behavior when defendant gender, guilt status, and defendant/victim relationship varied. Generally, more emotion (e.g., sadness) was expected when a spouse versus stranger was killed, but only when the defendant was not guilty. Expectations varied with defendant gender and participants' self-reported emotionality. The implications of having defendant emotion expectations are discussed within a wrongful conviction context.
Suggested Citation:
Heath, W. P., & Grannemann, B. D. (2015). Expectations for defendant emotion [Electronic Version]. Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice,
11(2), 126-145.
Keywords: expectations for defendant emotion, crying, wrongful conviction
Date: Jun 03, 2015 | File Size: 418.78 Kb | Downloads: 1472