The effects of defendant remorse on mock juror decisions in a malpractice case

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to observe the effects of defendant remorse on monetary damages awarded to a plaintiff in a malpractice case. In two experiments, the physician‐defendant expressed remorse at the time of the incident and again at trial, expressed remorse at trial, explicitly demonstrated a lack of remorse at trial, or made no mention of remorse (or a lack thereof). Participants decided how much money to award to the plaintiff and evaluated both the plaintiff and the defendant on several dimensions. Participants awarded greater compensation when the physician expressed remorse at the time of the incident than in the other conditions, both when the plaintiff was the injured patient's spouse in a wrongful death suit (experiment 1) and when the patient sued on his own behalf (experiment 2). This effect of remorse was greater for males than for females (experiment 1) and for relatively severely injured plaintiffs (experiment 2). Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Modelling perceptions of criminality and remorse from faces using a data-driven computational approach

“…Remorse also goes along with "a desire to atone or make PERCEIVED CRIMINALITY AND REMORSE 2 reparation by, for example, expressing remorse, making restitution to the person harmed, undergoing penance, or behaving differently in the future" (Proeve & Tudor, 2010, p. 107). The character of remorseful defendants is rated more positively (Darby & Schlenker, 1989;Robinson, Smith-Lovin, & Tsoudis, 1994;Taylor & Kleinke, 1992;Tsoudis & Smith-Lovin, 1998); and remorseful defendants are rated as less likely to recommit the offense and as deserving of less punishment (Bornstein, Rung, & Miller, 2002;Gold & Weiner, 2000;Pipes & Alessi, 1999;Rumsey, 1976). Consequently, the legal codes of many countries (e.g., Australia, Canada, England and Wales, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United States of America) include remorse as a potential mitigating factor in sentencing decisions (for a list of legal references see, e.g., Proeve & Tudor, 2010, Appendix Chapter 6).…”

Apologies and Medical Error

“…Second, as noted previously, there is evidence that apologies tend to diminish blame and make injured patients less likely to sue and more willing to settle when they do. Third, although there has been little empirical examination of how apologies play out at trial [4], imagine the consequences of an apology for cases that still result in a trial: ''The long painful, shameful spectacle of the plaintiff lawyer trying to prove in public that the physician is negligent, a bad person, will not take place. The court's role will be limited to establishing just compensation.…”

Legitimacy Concerns in Animal Advocacy Organizations during the Michael Vick Dogfighting Scandal

“…The way in which someone presents an apology, for example, actually matters in determining its effectiveness (Scher & Darley, 1997). The inclusion of explanations and atonement has been shown to reduce the determination of harmed parties to seek redress (Hov^^ley, 2009) and for arbiters of redress to reduce the redress required (Bornstein, Rung, & Miller, 2002). In the case of Vick, the redress was continuing stigma for past abuses, and the arbiters were the advocacy organizations (proximately) and the public at large (distantly).…”