Can empathy close the racial divide and gender gap in death penalty support?

Abstract

Public opinion data indicate that the majority of US respondents support the death penalty. Research has consistently indicated, however, that Blacks and females are significantly less likely to support capital punishment than their White and male counterparts. Past research efforts attempting to account for these differences have, at best, only partially accounted for them: the racial divide and gender gap in death penalty support, while narrowed, remained evident. This study proposes that empathy, particularly ethnocultural empathy, may be a key explanatory correlate of death penalty support and that racial and gender differences in empathy may fully explain the observed racial and gender differences in death penalty support. This study uses three forms of empathy measures (cognitive, affective, and ethnocultural) to test this hypothesis using survey data from a sample of undergraduate students. Our results show that neither a variety of other “known correlates” of death penalty support nor cognitive or affective empathy scales were able to fully account for the observed racial difference in death penalty support. Ethnocultural empathy, however, was successful in reducing the effect of race on death penalty support to nonsignificance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to have done so.

Racial Sympathy and Support for Capital Punishment:A Case Study in Concept Transfer

“…These policies were not explicitly racial as asked. Note that the care/harm moral foundation did reduce support for the death penalty in line with research showing that empathy and similar factors manifest this association (see, e.g., Applegate et al, 2000;Godcharles et al, 2019;Unnever & Cullen, 2007a;Unnever, Cullen, & Applegate, 2005, Unnever et al, 2006Unnever, Cullen, & Fisher, 2005). By contrast, even with significant effects found for racial resentment, care/harm, and egalitarianism, the analysis revealed that racial sympathy heightened perceptions that the death penalty was racially discriminatory.…”

“…Finally, an obvious concern is that any effects attributed to racial sympathy might be due to respondents holding a global orientation for caring for others. As noted, prior studies have, in fact, reported that constructs such as compassion, empathy, and religious forgiveness decrease punitiveness, including support for the death penalty (Applegate et al, 2000;Godcharles et al, 2019;Metcalfe et al, 2015;Unnever & Cullen, 2007a;Unnever, Cullen, & Applegate, 2005;Unnever et al, 2006;Unnever, Cullen, & Fisher, 2005). To address this issue, the analysis includes a measure of "care/harm," one of the five foundations of morality identified by Haidt (2012).…”

“…She demonstrates as well that such sympathy diminishes punitiveness toward Black offenders. Although limited, research in criminology shows that orientations such as compassion, empathy, and religious forgiveness are related to less support for capital punishment and to lower levels of punitiveness (see, e.g., Applegate, Cullen, Fisher, & Vander Ven, 2000;Godcharles, Rad, Heide, Cochran, & Solomon, 2019;Metcalfe, Pickett, & Mancini, 2015;Unnever & Cullen, 2007a;Unnever, Cullen, & Applegate, 2005, Unnever, Cullen, & Bartkowski, 2006Unnever, Cullen, & Fisher, 2005). More generally in the social sciences, a call exists to explore a range of racial views, including Whites' racial apathy (Brown, Bento, Gorman, Koku, & Culber, 2019;Forman & Lewis, 2006) and racial emotions (Bonilla-Silva, 2019).…”

Racial Sympathy and Support for Capital Punishment: A Case Study in Concept Transfer

“…She demonstrates as well that such sympathy diminishes punitiveness toward Black offenders. Although limited, research in criminology shows that orientations such as compassion, empathy, and religious forgiveness are related to less support for capital punishment and to lower levels of punitiveness (see, e.g., Applegate, Cullen, Fisher, & Vander Ven, 2000;Godcharles, Rad, Heide, Cochran, & Solomon, 2019;Metcalfe, Pickett, & Mancini, 2015;Unnever & Cullen, 2007a;Unnever, Cullen, & Applegate, 2005, Unnever, Cullen, & Bartkowski, 2006Unnever, Cullen, & Fisher, 2005). More generally in the social sciences, a call exists to explore a range of racial views, including Whites' racial apathy (Brown, Bento, Gorman, Koku, & Culber, 2019;Forman & Lewis, 2006) and racial emotions (Bonilla-Silva, 2019).…”

Ideology Matters: College Students’ Emotional Reactions to the Killing of Trayvon Martin

“…Ethnocultural empathy (Wang et al, 2003) is one of the more commonly used indicators of empathic attitudes towards People of Color in general; a number of researchers view ethnocultural empathy as a disposition amenable to change over the course of time (Fleming, Thomas, Shaw, Burnham, & Charles, 2015). Research suggests ethnocultural empathy is associated with increased positive intergroup relations (Chapman et al, 2018;Peifer, Lawrence, Williams, & Leyton-Armakan, 2016) as well as attitudes toward controversial race-related topics such as the death penalty (Godcharles, Rad, Heide, Cochran, & Solomon, 2019). Conceptually, greater empathic feelings toward racial minority groups should be linked to greater emotional responding or concern regarding Trayvon Martin's shooting and Zimmerman's acquittal.…”