Rodney King and O. J. Revisited: The Impact of Race and Defendant Empathy Induction on Judicial Decisions

Abstract

White university students participated in a study to investigate the impact of defendant race and empathetic induction on a subsequent juror decision‐making task. Participants read a passage involving a Black or a White defendant in a criminal case. They were subsequently induced to feel no empathy, low empathy, or high empathy for the defendant. When compared to participants in the low‐ and control empathy conditions, those in the high‐empathy condition reported greater target empathy, made attributions that were more situational, and assigned more lenient punishments. The results also indicate that group membership can moderate the impact of empathetic induction. When compared to the participants in the Black defendant condition, those in the White defendant condition reported greater target empathy, made attributions that were more situational, and assigned more lenient punishments. Implications for both empathy and judicial decision‐making research are discussed.

A Less Attractive Feature of Empathy: Intergroup Empathy Bias

“…Unfortunately, this categorization also maximizes diferences between groups, leading people to more readily distrust, fear, and discriminate against outgroup members and to instinctively favor or side with members of social groups with which they identify [32].…”

Trials and Tribulations: Psychopathic Traits, Emotion, and Decision-Making in an Ambiguous Case of Sexual Assault

“…These characteristics have particular consequences for decisions involving morality and emotional empathy, such as those commonly confronted by jurors. Research has demonstrated that when empathy is induced in non-psychopathic individuals, the feeling of empathy is associated with greater resource allocation (Batson, Klein, Highberger, & Shaw, 1995), situational attributions of defendant responsibility, and more lenient sentencing outcomes (Johnson et al, 2002).…”

Do You Feel My Pain? Racial Group Membership Modulates Empathic Neural Responses

“…Perception of others in pain or distress generates empathic concerns that provide a proximate mechanism selected by evolution that motivates altruistic behaviors (Batson, 1991;de Waal, 2008). Empathy may influence social behaviors by changing people's attitudes toward a target (Batson et al, 1997a), which sometimes produces serious consequences such as when making judicial decisions on a defendant (Johnson et al, 2002).…”

“…The evidence supporting this hypothesis comes from research that measured subjective reports of empathic concern. Johnson et al (2002) asked White university students to read a passage involving a Black or a White man who was charged with a criminal act. Participants were induced to feel no empathy, low empathy, or high empathy for the defendant and then evaluate punishments applied to the defendant.…”