Emotional Empathy in a Courtroom Simulation: A Person‐Situation Interaction¹

Abstract

A pair of experiments were conducted using a simulated courtroom trial of a criminal case. In Experiment I subject‐jurors were asked by defense counsel either to imagine themselves as the defendant (empathy‐inducing appeal) or to pay close attention to evidence (nonempathy appeal). Later the judge delivered only general instructions or, in addition, charged jurors to give consideration only to the facts presented. When there was no Fact‐focused judge's charge, juror‐subjects who heard the empathy‐inducing appeal rated the defendant's actions as more lawful and attributed less of the cause for the incident to his personality than did their counterparts in the nonempathy condition. Experiment II included individual differences in the tendency to empathize as an additional mediating variable. The original pattern of effects found for the manipulated variables in Experiment I appeared again, but were overshadowed by the stronger effects of the individual difference variable and of subject sex. Subject‐jurors who scored high on the empathy individual difference measure rated the defendant less guilty, assigned less cause to him, and showed corresponding mood shifts when they heard the empathy‐inducing appeal. In addition, male subjects empathized more strongly with the male defendant and viewed him more favorably.

Effects of perspective taking on courtroom decisions

“…For example, our findings align with work showing that perspective taking leads perceivers to value targets more than control participants (e.g., Batson et al, 2007). Our findings also provide further evidence that perspective taking increases empathetic feelings that result in greater sensitivity to the plight of the target (Archer et al, 1979;Batson et al, 2005;Clore & Jeffrey, 1972). In addition, the current studies are consistent with the idea that jurors may bias their perceptions of culpability, recidivism, and guilt based on whose perspective has been taken in the courtroom (Catellani & Milesi, 2001;Frantz & Janoff-Bulman, 2000).…”

“…The four experiments reported here provide an applied and theoretical addition to the literature on perspective taking, fitting in with and extending past research that shows how taking the perspective of a target often—but not always—leads to viewing the target more favorably (e.g., Archer et al., ; Batson et al., ; Clore & Jeffrey, ; McCullough et al., ). In the experiments reported here, taking the perspective of a criminal defendant led to seeing the defendant as less culpable than not taking the defendant's perspective, which led to perceptions of the defendant as less guilty and less likely to recidivate.…”

“…While we believe that our studies provide a solid foundation and contribute to our understanding of how perspective taking can operate to influence real‐world outcomes, we also acknowledge that future research can extend this work by addressing some of these real‐world issues. For instance, studies could investigate how the effects of perspective taking work during juror deliberations (e.g., Bornstein, ; Nuñez, McCrea, & Culhane, ), perhaps using videotaped trial proceedings (Archer et al., ), and recruiting from a more diverse pool of jurors. In addition, future research should examine what happens when jurors are asked to perspective take with both the defendant and the victim—a possibility that might actually occur in the dynamic nature of the courtroom.…”

“…The current research seeks to close this gap by examining how perspective taking influences courtroom decisions. Because of the robustness of findings linking perspective taking, through empathy, to a variety of outcomes (e.g., Archer et al, 1979;Batson, 1991;Batson, Polycarpou, et al, 1997), we predict that empathy should in part explain the link between perspective taking and outcomes, working to increase favorability toward the defendant when the defendant serves as a target, but working to decrease favorability toward the defendant when the victim serves as a target.…”

“…For instance, one sociological study investigated role-playing on jury behavior, but found no significant differences on any variables (Kerr, Nerenz, & Herrick, 1979). Another study investigated the effects of empathizing with the defendant and found that empathy influenced perceptions of the defendant, but only when jurors were not instructed to focus on the facts of the case (Archer, Foushee, Davis, & Aderman, 1979). In other words, thinking about the facts of the case "overruled" empathy felt for the defendant.…”