In two studies, participants completed measures of trait empathy and social dominance orientation, read a summary of a hit and run trial, and provided reactions to the case. In Study 1, the three randomly assigned conditions included a prompt to empathize with the victims, the empathy prompt with a mortality salience manipulation, and a control condition. Participants high in trait empathy were harsher in their judgments of the defendant than were low empathy participants, particularly after having read the mortality salience prompt. The results indicated that mortality salience had triggered personality differences. Participants high in social dominance assigned harsher sentences across conditions. Study 2 involved the same paradigm, but the prompts were presented on behalf of the defendant. Despite the pro-defendant slant, the pattern of results was similar to Study 1. Differences by trait empathy were more apparent among participants experiencing mortality salience, and social dominance was related to sentence choices. There were no indications in either study of mortality salience increasing bias against defendants in general or increasing racial bias.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.