Abstract
An impartial judgment is the goal of judiciary. As natural people, whether judges’ emotions impact on measuring penalty or not and to what extent are the influences have been drawing attention from both public and academia.
The study’s purpose was to examine the impact of specific case-unrelated emotion and case-related emotion on Judges’ penalty measurement decision making. In Experiment 1, 150 judges were recruited (8 excluded from data analysis). They were divided into 4 groups randomly, which were sadness group, happiness group, anger group and neutral emotion group. Firstly, They watched different movie clips which induced sadness, happiness, anger and neutral emotion seperately for 5minutes. Then they were asked to sentence two cases: one larceny case and one rape case. Finally, they reported their gender, age and working time. The results showed: (1) In larceny case, the effect of case-unrelated emotion was significant on Judges’ penalty measurement decision making, F(3,138)=4.731,p<.05. Judges with sadness emotion (M=2.31,SD=0.97)sentenced shorter than neutral emotion(M=2.86,SD=0.96), anger emotion(M=3.10,SD=0.69)and happiness emotion(M=3.00,SD=1.20). In rape case, the effect of case-unrelated emotion was also significant, F(3,138)=2.937,p<.05. Judges with sadness emotion(M=3.30,SD=0.52)sentenced shorter than neutral emotion(M=3.78, SD=1.20), anger emotion(M=3.96,SD=0.96)and happiness emotion(M=3.84,SD=1.27). (2) The effect of gender and working time was not significant on Judges’ penalty measurement decision making. (3) The effect of gender and working time was not significant on case-unrelated emotion elicitation.
In Experiment 2, 142 judges were recruited (7 excluded from data analysis). They were divided into 3 groups randomly, which were sympathy group, disgust group and rage group. These 3 different groups recevied different questionnares. Each questionnare contains 2 larceny cases and 2 rape cases. The first larceny case and the first rape case were used to induce none emotion, and the second larceny case and rape case were used to induce specific case-related emotion (sympathy, disgust and rage). Judges were asked to sentence these 4 cases. Finally, they reported their gender, age and working time. The results showed: (1) In larceny case, the effect of case-related emotion was significant on Judges’ penalty measurement decision making, F(2,130)=32.905,p<.01. Judges with sympathy emotion (M=2.43,SD=0.13)sentenced shorter than disgust emotion(M=3.76,SD=0.14)and rage emotion(M=3.72,SD=0.13). In rape case, the effect of case-related emotion was significant on Judges’ penalty measurement decision making, F(2,131)=58.155,p<.01. Judges with sympathy emotion (M=3.12,SD=0.20)sentenced shorter than disgust emotion(M=5.27,SD=0.21)and rage emotion(M=6.10,SD=0.19). Judges with rage emotion sentenced longer than disgust emotion. (2) The effect of gender and working time was not significant on Judges’ penalty measurement decision making. (3) The effect of gender and working time was not significant on case-related emotion elicitation.
Taken together, these findings suggest that case-unrelated emotion and case-related emotion can influence judges on penalty measurement decision making.
Key words
case-unrelated emotion /
case-related emotion /
penalty measurement /
decision making /
gender /
working time
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Jie Li.
Case-unrelated Emotion and Case-related Emotion Influence Penalty Measurement Decision Making: An Experimental Research[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2015, 38(1): 196-202
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