Dangerous, depraved, and death‐worthy: A meta‐analysis of the correlates of perceived psychopathy in jury simulation studies

Abstract

Objectives: Experimental research suggests that legal defendants described as psychopathic are generally, although not uniformly, judged more negatively and punitively. Understanding the correlates of perceived psychopathy, regardless of exposure to mental health evidence, is an important step towards clarifying divergent findings. Method: We conducted a quantitative synthesis of ten juror simulation studies (combined N = 2,980) examining the meta-analytic association between perceived defendant psychopathy and various psychologically important and legally relevant outcomes. Results: Perceiving someone as being more psychopathic was associated with viewing that defendant as more dangerous (r W = 0.31) and evil (r W = 0.44). Moreover, perceptions of defendant psychopathy predicted greater support for more adverse consequences in terms of capital sentencing (r W = 0.22) and sentence length (r W = 0.27), although not perceived treatment amenability (r W = 0.09). Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of including ratings of perceived psychopathy in experimental designs to identify the circumstances under which psychopathy evidence might prejudicially impact case outcomes. K E Y W O R D S forensic-clinical assessment, meta-analysis, psychopathic personality, stigma J. Clin. Psychol. 2019;75:627-643.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jclp

Is it all in the details? Effect of psychopathy communication format on laypeople's perceptions of legal outcomes

“…A separate meta-analysis by Kelley et al (2019) attempted to further understand the psychopathy labelling literature by looking at the effect of perceived psychopathy on various outcomes. Examining ten juror simulation studies, Kelley et al (2019) found that when participants perceived someone as being more psychopathic, they viewed that individual as being more dangerous (rw = 0.31), evil (rw = 0.44) and deserving of harsher consequences for capital sentencing (rw = 0.22) and sentence length (rw = 0.27).…”

“…These results demonstrated the importance of perceived psychopathy in experimental studies to help identify the circumstances under which psychopathy evidence might negatively impact legal outcomes. Further, the researchers suggested that it is possible that previous studies that failed to find a psychopathy labelling effect may not have sufficiently elicited differing perceptions of the defendant's level of psychopathy (Kelley et al, 2019).…”

“…There are some circumstances, such as with decisions involving perceptions of future dangerousness, where more negative outcomes due to perceived psychopathy may be warranted as research supports the idea that an individual with higher levels of psychopathy poses a greater risk than an individual with lower levels of psychopathy (Yang et al, 2010). However, the influence of psychopathy evidence on legal outcomes cannot always be justified and may be considered as undue prejudice Kelley et al, 2019). For example, perceiving those with psychopathic traits as "evil" may contribute to undue prejudice in capital cases, as psychopathy testimony is predictive of death verdicts, even when perceived dangerousness is accounted for (Edens et al, 2005;Kelley et al, 2019).…”

“…However, the influence of psychopathy evidence on legal outcomes cannot always be justified and may be considered as undue prejudice Kelley et al, 2019). For example, perceiving those with psychopathic traits as "evil" may contribute to undue prejudice in capital cases, as psychopathy testimony is predictive of death verdicts, even when perceived dangerousness is accounted for (Edens et al, 2005;Kelley et al, 2019). Additionally, perceiving psychopathy as a "moral illness" that has no effect on competency or intelligence may interfere with judgements related to not criminally responsible (NCR) or mental capacity claims (Glenn et al, 2009).…”

“…Research has demonstrated that labelling the individual as a psychopath is associated with higher perceived risk, dangerousness, and rates of reoffending , however the effect appears to have only been studied in the presence of high levels of psychopathy or when specifically referring to the individual as a psychopath. Thus, there is little reason to expect that an individual demonstrating an average score on the PCL-R would elicit the same perceptions, particularly when there is meta-analytic evidence that higher perceived psychopathy leads to harsher outcomes concerning dangerousness and sentencing decisions among other things (Kelley et al, 2019).…”