The Interaction of Attractiveness and Style of Cri Essays

The Interaction of Attractiveness and Style of Cri Essays The Interaction of Attractiveness and Style of Crime Carter W. Daniels University of Kentucky Abstract Attractiveness has often been investigated as involving a leniency effect; however, in the context of a con based crime, it becomes the Achilles heel of the perpetrator. Previous research has, for the most part, demonstrated both effects as real and measurable. The present study recreates the con specifically; it is believed that an attractive defendant will receive a harsher sentence than an unattractive one, because a con requires the use of beauty/charm as a weapon. The study utilized psychology undergraduates from the University of Kentucky as participants, because at the time they were seen as representative of the university population at large. Students read a crime summary either accompanied by a picture or no picture at all, which was meant to influence their decision in how long the perpetrator stayed in prison. The results were inconclusive due to many extraneous variables that weren't controlled, thereby resulting in confounds and the inability to reject the null hyp othesis. Limitations are discussed as a foundation for expanded research that would produce conclusive data. The Interaction of Attractiveness and Style of Crime Attractiveness is something that our society hold s to a self-fulfilling standard; that is we often go easier or reward more attractive people because of their physical appearance , however sometimes physical appearances can be a detriment to an individual . There is a lot of research out there that tries to explain this phenomenon and most of it is conflicting because each study tries to measure attractiveness through a myriad of unequal measures. Each study redefines at tractiveness in a different way: a ttractiveness as a set of requirements ( Stewart II, 1985) , facial m aturity (Dumas Teste 2006), and they sometimes look at the relationship of one's self image to perceived beauty ( Darby Jeffers, 1988). Then other times the idea of attractiveness is complicated wit h the type of transgression . The attractiveness-transgression effect allows us to see that attractiveness isn't always the golden standard ( Stewart II, 1985; Schwibbe G. Schwibbe M., 1981; Sigall Ostrove, 1975). A study in 2006 looked at physical beauty as also containing the characteristic of fa cial maturity and researched it s persuasion over juridic decisions when related to offens e congruency and case ambiguity. Dumas and Teste (2006) investigated the "influence of face/offence congruency on such judgments, taking into account the strength of the case against the defendant and the maturity and attractiveness att ributes of the defendant's face " (p. 237 ) . The offense congruency hypothesis proposed stated that those with mature faces would receive harsher prison sentences if the ambiguity of the case was low than those with " baby faces " and low ambiguity. To test their hypothesis a sam ple of forty diverse people were selected to read case summaries accompanied by a questionnaire. Dumas and Teste paired each summary with a photo that was either incongruent or congruent with the case, determined by degree of facial maturity. After performing their analysis , Dumas and Teste concluded that maturity had a more profound effect on the severity of juridical decisions than perceived attractiveness. Physical appearance can also be determined through a list of characteristics; that is to say, one must meet certain criteria to be attractive. In the following research conducted by Stewart II (1985) , attractiveness was defined as having the following four characteristics , "physical attractiveness, neatness, cl eanliness, and quality of dress " (p. 373). Based on these four c haracteristics of appearance Stewart (1985) constructed a field study to test whether or not these components of attractiveness would have persuasion over juridic decisions. In the study eig ht participants went to a court house and observed court cases until sentences were determined . This occurred over a two-yea r period and consisted of sixty cases; ranging from murder, larceny, drug charges and other various felonies. Stewart provided each participant with an "attractiveness index," and filler questions to fill out for each case . After controlling for other influence s such as race, gender, ethnicity, etc ... Stewart found that, "In a series of actual criminal