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Empathy and Jurors' Decisions in Patricide Trials Involving Child Sexual Assault Allegations

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In a mock-trial paradigm, 205 participants considered a patricide trial in which a child defendant claimed the patricide was done in self-defense after years of sexual abuse. Participants in an empathy-induction condition were asked to take the perspective of the defendant and to detail how they would be thinking and feeling if they were the defendant. Control condition participants received no such instructions. Results indicated that, compared to jurors in the control condition, jurors who were asked to take the defendant's perspective had more empathy for the defendant (without feeling more similar to or more sympathy for the defendant), found the defendant less guilty and less responsible for the murder, and were more likely to consider abuse to be a mitigating factor in the killing. Overall, compared to men, women were more likely to believe the defendant's abuse allegations, find the defendant credible, and consider the defendant to be less responsible for the murder. Women in the empathy condition found the defendant less guilty than did all other jurors. Finally, child defendant gender was also varied, but this had few effects on case judgments overall. Jurors, however, were more likely to believe that the girl defendant was sexually abused than the boy defendant. We discuss theoretical implications for understanding the social psychological construct of empathy as well as implications for understanding jurors' decisions in cases involving child sexual assault allegations.
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Law and Human Behavior, Vol. 24, No. 4, 2000
Empathy and Jurors’ Decisions in Patricide Trials
Involving Child Sexual Assault Allegations
Tamara M. Haegerich
1
and Bette L. Bottoms
1,2
In a mock-trial paradigm, 205 participants considered a patricide trial in which a
child defendant claimed the patricide was done in self-defense after years of sexual
abuse. Participants in an empathy-induction condition were asked to take the perspec-
tive of the defendant and to detail how they would be thinking and feeling if they
were the defendant. Control condition participants received no such instructions.
Results indicated that, compared to jurors in the control condition, jurors who were
asked to take the defendant’s perspective had more empathy for the defendant (without
feeling more similar to or more sympathy for the defendant), found the defendant
less guilty and less responsible for the murder, and were more likely to consider
abuse to be a mitigating factor in the killing. Overall, compared to men, women were
more likely to believe the defendant’s abuse allegations, find the defendant credible,
and consider the defendant to be less responsible for the murder. Women in the
empathy condition found the defendant less guilty than did all other jurors. Finally,
child defendant gender was also varied, but this had few effects on case judgments
overall. Jurors, however, were more likely to believe that the girl defendant was
sexually abused than the boy defendant. We discuss theoretical implications for
understanding the social psychological construct of empathy as well as implications
for understanding jurors’ decisions in cases involving child sexual assault allegations.
Hundreds of parents are killed each year by their children. About one fourth of
these cases involve fathers and 15% involve mothers who are killed by children
under the age of 18 years (Heide, 1992). These children are often victims of child
maltreatment (Ewing, 1990; Heide, 1992). A salient example is the infamous parri-
cide perpetrated by the Menendez brothers in California (age 18 and 21 years),
who were convicted for murdering their parents even though they alleged that the
murder was a self-defensive reaction to years of sexual and physical abuse (Church,
1993). A similar case was recently tried in Chicago: A 14-year-old girl pled guilty
to second-degree murder after she murdered her allegedly sexually abusive father
(Warmbir, 1997).
1
Department of Psychology, The University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
2
To whom correspondence should be addressed; e-mail: bbottoms@uic.edu.
421
0147-7307/00/0800-0421$18.00/1 2000 American Psychology-Law Society/Division 41 of the American Psychology Association
422 Haegerich and Bottoms
Parricide cases involving claims of parental abuse are particularly interesting
because whether or not a juror believes a child defendant should be held responsible
for a parent’s murder should be influenced by whether or not the juror believes
the child defendant was abused and endangered. This would parallel decision-
making in cases in which battered women kill their abusive partners; that is, in
those cases, verdicts depend on jurors’ beliefs in a woman’s abuse claims (e.g.,
Follingstad et al., 1989; Schuller, Smith, & Olson, 1994). Even though parricide
cases occur with some frequency and attract a great deal of media attention, we
know of only one published study of lay people’s reactions to such cases. Stalans
and Henry (1994) examined people’s decisions concerning whether or not to transfer
juveniles charged with patricide to adult court. Participants were less likely to favor
the transfer of juveniles who claimed to have been abused as compared to juveniles
who evidenced no past abuse. Thus, as in battered woman cases, people appear to
be more positively disposed toward defendants who suffered past abuse.
There have been no studies of jurors’ reactions to patricide and matricide cases
involving abuse allegations. It is reasonable to assume that factors that influence
jurors’ decisions in nonparricide child sexual abuse cases might also influence jurors’
beliefs in such abuse allegations in parricide cases, and in turn, jurors’ verdicts. In
the present experiment, we investigated the influence of three such factors on
judgments in a patricide case. Specifically, mock jurors considered a trial in which
a 15-year-old sexual abuse victim killed her father and claimed that her actions
were a self-defensive reaction to years of sexual abuse. We expected that situation-
ally induced empathy for the teenager, defendant gender, and juror gender would
affect jurors’ beliefs in the abuse allegations, attributions of responsibility, and
verdicts. Next, we review psychological literature related to the variables we studied,
and formulate theoretically driven hypotheses.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSTRUCT OF EMPATHY
Empathy is a multidimensional construct, having both affective and cognitive
components. Specifically, Davis (1994) defines empathy as ‘‘the cognitive act of
adopting another’s perspective,’’ ‘‘a cognitively based understanding of others,’’
and ‘‘an affective reaction to the emotions of another’’ (p. 11). Importantly, the
construct of empathy is related to, but theoretically distinct from, the construct of
sympathy, which is defined by Eisenberg and Miller (1987b) as an ‘‘emotional state
or condition that is not identical to the other’s emotions, but consists of feelings
of sorrow or concern for another’’ (p. 292). Thus, one can sympathize with a person
without having empathy for him or her, which would entail experiencing the person’s
emotions and understanding his or her cognitive perspective.
Researchers have investigated both trait and state empathy. Trait empathy
refers to fairly stable individual differences in people’s general ability to empathize
with others. In contrast, state empathy is empathy that has been temporarily
prompted or elicited by a stimulus in the social environment (e.g., through perspec-
tive taking or actively engaging in role-playing behavior). In the current research, we
are primarily concerned with the effects of state empathy on individuals’ behavior.
Empathy and Decisions 423
Research on state empathy reveals that when individuals have empathy for victims
of negative events and individuals in need of assistance, they are less likely to
derogate those persons, and they are more likely to find them attractive, to value
their welfare, to help them, and to find them less responsible for misdeeds (Aderman,
Brehm, & Katz, 1974; Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, & Birch, 1981; Batson,
Turk, Shaw, & Klein, 1995; Eisenberg & Miller, 1987a; Krebs, 1975; Sulzer &
Burglass, 1968). Of particular interest for the present research, when individuals
have empathy for perpetrators of negative behavior, they are less likely to attribute
responsibility for the behavior to them (Sulzer & Burglass, 1968).
EMPATHY AND JUROR DECISIONS
We reasoned that the effects of empathy would extend to the courtroom. For
example, if empathy is induced for a participant in a trial, it might affect jurors’
decision-making behavior, just as induced empathy affects other social behavior.
If an attorney induces jurors’ empathy for a defendant, in turn, the jurors might
be more inclined to attribute causality for the crime to situational factors sur-
rounding the crime than to the defendant’s internal motives, and to hold the defen-
dant less responsible for his or her actions than they might otherwise. In fact, trial
attorneys intuitively reason that empathy has a powerful influence in the context
of the courtroom. To illustrate, in a handbook for attorneys, Hamlin (1985) writes,
‘‘The ability to actually experience, internally, what is at issue, to empathize and
put themselves in another person’s place, is something of which jurors are not
consciously aware. Yet this process is human and universal, and it is a powerful
inner voice in decision-making’’ (p. 315).
Both prosecuting and defense attorneys may purposely attempt to select jurors
whom they believe are the most likely to empathize with their clients. For example,
Hamlin (1985) proposes a list of questions to ask during voir dire to identify
generally empathic jurors (e.g., ‘‘Does anyone give blood?’’). Attorneys may also
actively attempt to shift the empathic tendencies of jurors in their cases (a state
empathy manipulation). According to Wright (1987), attorneys should try to manip-
ulate empathy during their opening statements, while questioning witnesses, and
in their closing statements. He asserts that in order for empathy to have an effect,
the jury must feel close to the attorney and defendant, know the defendant’s
thoughts and feelings, and understand the defendant’s motive. In their book on
courtroom communication strategies, L. J. Smith and Malandro (1985) instruct
attorneys on the importance of inducing empathy in the courtroom and detail
strategies for eliciting empathy from jurors:
Just describing an event, regardless of how great the tragedy or how dramatic the experi-
ence, will not automatically produce empathy. The verbal patterns and structure will
determine whether a true linking of empathy takes place between the jurors and client
. . . [the jurors must] not only hear the emotional message, but actually go through the
experience that the other individual had . . . When you are creating the experience for
the jurors you are not trying to tell a story. Rather you are trying to get the jurors to
experience the actual feelings that took place at that time . . . What we are trying to do is
direct the jurors’ perception so that they can feel and experience an emotion (pp. 373376).
424 Haegerich and Bottoms
Of course, it is believed that prosecutors may benefit from inducing empathy for
their clients as well.
There have been few investigations of the effects of situationally induced
empathy for defendants. An exception is a study conducted by Archer, Foushee,
Davis, and Aderman (1979, Experiment 1). Participants considered a mock trial
involving a stabbing, then delivered individual verdicts. Experimental-condition
participants were instructed by the defense attorney to imagine that they experi-
enced the same events as the defendant and to visualize how they would feel if
they were the defendant. Compared to control-condition participants, who were
only asked to concentrate on the facts of the case, individuals in the empathy
condition attributed less causal responsibility for the stabbing to the defendant and
found the defendant’s actions more lawful. There was a nonsignificant tendency
for jurors in the empathy condition to vote not guilty more often than guilty. The
researchers also found that a warning to consider only the facts and to be objective
eliminated the bias produced by the defense attorney’s empathy instructions.
Empathy may have a disproportionate influence in cases involving sexual abuse
allegations, because evidence of sexual abuse is often ambiguous, there are rarely
any witnesses except for the victim, and there is little, if any, physical evidence
(Myers, 1998). To our knowledge, no researchers have explored the effects of
situationally induced empathy in the context of trials involving child sexual abuse
allegations. Researchers have, however, considered the effects of trait empathy for
adult rape victims and child sexual assault victims in assault cases. For example,
Deitz, Blackwell, Daley, and Bentley (1982) found that individuals with high levels
of rape victim empathy made a variety of more ‘‘provictim’’ judgments, such as
recommending higher prison sentences, being more certain of the defendant’s guilt,
and attributing more responsibility to the defendant and less responsibility to the
victim (Deitz & Byrnes, 1981; Deitz et al., 1982; Deitz, Littman, & Bentley, 1984).
Bottoms (1993) found evidence of similar attributional processing in child sexual
abuse cases: The more ‘‘trait child victim empathy’’ mock jurors had for child
victims, the more credible and the less responsible they found a child victim, and
the more likely they were to find a defendant guilty.
It may be somewhat more ecologically valid to study situationally induced
empathy rather than trait empathy in the courtroom because it would be difficult
for legal counsel to prescreen jurors and identify those with certain preexisting
empathic tendencies. Instead, attorneys are likely to induce empathy throughout
the course of a trial. An experimental manipulation of empathy can provide insight
into how this trial tactic influences jurors. To date, no researchers have manipulated
empathy for victims or perpetrators in a child sexual abuse trial, but Coller and
Resick (1987) examined the effect of induced empathy on rape victim blame. They
found no effect of state empathy on victim blame; however, their null findings might
have resulted from their failure to successfully manipulate empathy. Specifically,
their manipulation was not very salient or involving, and it focused less on empathy
than on perceptions of similarity (a separate construct altogether).
In summary, no one has examined the effects of situationally induced empathy
for child victims, but results from studies of trait empathy for sexual abuse victims
and studies of decisions in other types of cases suggest that empathy can affect
Empathy and Decisions 425
credibility judgments, attributions of responsibility, and verdicts. Our study is the
first to examine the effects of situationally induced empathy for a child sexual abuse
victim. As discussed in detail later, the victim in our case was also the defendantthe
victim killed her father after allegedly suffering years of sexual and physical abuse.
Empathy was induced or not in the course of our mock trial and various case
judgments were examined. We expected more prodefendant judgments when jurors
were led to have empathy for the defendant.
GENDER AND JUROR JUDGMENTS
For several reasons, it is important to attend to abuse victim and juror gender
when attempting to understand judgments in a case involving sexual assault allega-
tions, especially when empathy is manipulated in that case. First, there may be
inherent differences in men’s and women’s general empathic tendencies and their
sensitivity to empathy manipulations. Compared to men, women appear to be better
able to ‘‘decode’’ others’ emotions and take the emotional perspective of others
(Eisenberg & Lennon, 1983). Therefore, in our study, we predicted that women
would be more engaged by an empathy manipulation than men would be.
Second, jurordefendant gender similarity may result in a similarity-leniency
bias which may modify the effect of an empathy manipulation. When jurors feel
similar to a defendant on a salient characteristic such as gender, jurors are sometimes
more lenient toward the defendant than they are otherwise (e.g., Amato, 1979;
Kerr, Hymes, Anderson, & Weathers, 1995; Stephan, 1974). Further, individuals
may be better able to empathize with others of the same gender (Archer et al.,
1979, Experiment 2). In our study, we systematically manipulated defendant gender
so that we could fully examine potential jurordefendant gender similarity effects.
Otherwise, for example, if the defendant in our case was always portrayed as a girl,
and we found that women jurors were more empathic and lenient toward the
defendant than men were, the finding could be attributed to either a similarity-
leniency bias or to women being more lenient and empathic toward abuse victims
in general.
Third, in cases where sexual abuse is used as a defense, juror gender is likely
to emerge as an influential factor independent of any empathy. On average, many
men view child sexual abuse as a less serious crime than women do (Corder &
Whiteside, 1988) and are significantly more likely to endorse what might be termed
‘‘child sexual abuse myths’’ such as ‘‘A child who does not display signs of distress
probably has not been a victim of sexual assault’’ (Morison & Greene, 1992, p.
604). Compared to women, men also tend to find child abuse victims less credible,
and they are less likely to convict defendants accused of child sexual abuse (e.g.,
Bottoms, 1993; Bottoms & Goodman, 1994, Experiments 2 and 3; Gabora, Spanos, &
Joab, 1993; Golding, Sanchez, & Sego, 1997; Nightingale, 1993; Schmidt & Brigham,
1996; see Schutte & Hosch, 1997, for a review). In addition, compared to men,
women are more likely to have trait empathy for child abuse victims (Bottoms,
1993). We expected to find similar main effects of juror gender in our study.
Specifically, we predicted that women would be more likely than men to believe a
426 Haegerich and Bottoms
claim of child sexual abuse, consider it to be a valid mitigating factor, and in turn,
be less likely to render guilty verdicts against the victim/defendant.
Finally, abuse victim gender may also affect credibility and guilt judgments in
trials where sexual abuse is used as a defense for murder, although findings from
previous studies examining this factor have been mixed. For example, case judg-
ments did not differ as a function of victim gender in studies examining the impact
of victim gender on juror verdicts in a child sexual abuse trial (Bottoms & Goodman,
1994; Scheiner, 1988). In contrast, Broussard and Wagner (1988) found that men,
but not women, found sexual abuse perpetrators less responsible when an abuse
victim was a boy than when the victim was a girl. This is consistent with research
that has revealed societal biases against the recognition of boys as true victims
(Finkelhor, 1984; Rogers & Terry, 1984). In light of these conflicting results, we
further investigated the effects of abuse victim gender on attributions of responsibil-
ity and case-relevant judgments in our study. We expected that any effects of abuse
victim gender would manifest as the girl defendant being believed more (and
therefore being judged less guilty) than the boy defendant.
OVERVIEW
Our experiment conformed to a 2 (empathy: situationally induced or not in-
duced) 2 (juror gender) 2 (defendant gender) between-subjects design. Partici-
pants read portions of the transcript from an actual trial in which a father was
murdered by his child allegedly after years of sexual abuse. Hence, the defendant
was also an alleged sexual abuse victim. For half of the participants, empathy
for the defendant was induced during the defense attorney’s opening and closing
statements in the trial. The remaining participants received no empathy induction.
After reading the transcript, participants made a variety of case judgments, including
verdict, defendant responsibility for the killing and for the alleged abuse, defendant
credibility, and beliefs about the abuse allegations and the degree to which the
abuse was a mitigating factor in the case. Participants also completed measures
assessing their feelings of empathy for, sympathy for, and similarity to the defendant.
We hypothesized that mock jurors in the empathy-induction condition (espe-
cially women) would have more defendant empathy (but not more defendant sympa-
thy or more feelings of similarity to the defendant) than those in the control
condition, and that they would, in turn, make more prodefendant case judgments.
In addition, we expected that gender effects found in previous studies of perceptions
of child sexual abuse cases described above would be replicated and be extended
to this unique type of case.
METHOD
Participants
One hundred and two men and 103 women undergraduates from The University
of Illinois at Chicago participated in return for course credit. All were jury-eligible
Empathy and Decisions 427
U.S. citizens over the age of 18 years (range 1842 years, M 20). The sample
was ethnically diverse: 22% Asian American, 15% Latino/Hispanic, 41% White,
18% African American, and 4% other. The participants’ median parental income
was in the range of $45,00059,999 per year (mode $30,00044,999 per year).
Materials
Demographic Questionnaire
An anonymous questionnaire assessed participants’ gender, age, ethnicity, pa-
rental income, and prior experience with child sexual abuse (i.e., participants were
asked if they ever experienced a variety of unwanted sexual acts, such as fondling
and intercourse) before the age of 18.
Trial Transcript
The trial transcript was excerpted from an actual patricide trial shown on Court
TV (American Lawyer/Court TV Video Library Service, 1992). After being edited
slightly for readability, the transcript was 20 single-spaced, typed pages long and
took approximately 3045 min to read. In the case, a 15-year-old girl murdered
her father, claiming she did so in self-defense to protect herself from her father’s
sexual abuse. The trial included opening and closing statements from the defense
and prosecuting attorneys, as well as testimony from the investigating police officer,
the defendant’s friend, a neighbor, the defendant’s aunt, the defendant’s half-
sister, the defendant’s mother, and the defendant. The defendant’s gender was
manipulated by changing the child’s name (Tracie or Tim), pronoun referents (e.g.,
she or he), the gender of the child’s best friend (to be congruent with the defendant’s
gender), and abuse details as appropriate (e.g., description of body parts touched).
In the trial, the prosecuting attorney portrayed the defendant as a spoiled brat who
hated her/his father and shot the father while he was sleeping out of spite and a desire
for inheritance money. In contrast, the defense attorney presented the defendant as
a chronically abused child, arguing that the father was attempting to rape and murder
the child at the time of the killing and thus the father was killed in self-defense.
3
Experimental-condition participants were given an empathy manipulation as
part of the defense attorney’s opening and closing statements (see Appendix A).
The induction engaged participants in active imagery concerning what happened the
night of the murder from the defendant’s perspective. Control-condition participants
read the original transcript without the induction. To ensure the salience of the
manipulation, jurors were asked to stop reading the transcript after the opening
statements and write a brief (half-page) essay. Jurors in the empathy condition
were instructed to ‘‘imagine what it would be like if you were [the defendant]. Put
yourself in [the defendant’s] shoes. Try hard to put yourself in [her/his] place and
really think hard about how you would be feeling in [her/his] situation. Try to
reflect upon the way you would feel if you were in these circumstances. In your
mind’s eye, perhaps you can visualize how it would feel for you to be [the defendant]
in this situation. How would you feel? What would you be thinking? How are you
3
Details about the trial transcript are available from the authors.
428 Haegerich and Bottoms
thinking and feeling right now, as [the defendant]? Please explain in the space
below your thoughts and feelings.’’ [Portions of these instructions were taken from
Archer et al.’s (1979) study.] Jurors in the control condition were instructed only
to ‘‘explain in the space below your thoughts and feelings.’’
Jury Instructions
A modified version of the Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions appropriate for the
charges accompanied the transcript and instructed jurors about the three possible
verdicts (not guilty, guilty of first-degree murder, and guilty of second-degree mur-
der), the role of mitigating factors in determining verdicts, and the burden of proof.
The instructions also admonished the jurors to apply the law to the facts of the
case and to not be influenced by sympathy or prejudice, and the instructions in-
formed jurors that neither opening statements nor closing arguments are evidence
and that any non-evidence-based arguments made by the attorneys should be disre-
garded. Because pilot work revealed that the actual Illinois Pattern Instructions were
incomprehensible, phrase changes were made to increase jurors’ comprehension and
a simple flow chart was added to help participants understand the verdict choices.
Further pilot testing revealed that the modified instructions were clear.
4
Case-Related Judgments
Mock jurors were given a packet containing various case judgments. First, they
chose among the three possible verdicts (guilty of first-degree murder, guilty of
second-degree murder, and not guilty). Jurors also gave a brief explanation for
their verdict. Next, participants rated the degree to which they blamed the defendant
for the shooting, felt the shooting was the defendant’s fault, and believed that the
defendant was responsible for the shooting on a series of 6-point scales ranging
from 1 (no: not at all) to 6 (yes: completely). A Killing Responsibility Scale was
constructed from these three items. In addition, responsibility was also measured
with a Killing Responsibility Allocation Item and an Abuse Responsibility Alloca-
tion Item. These items ranged from 1 (0% responsibility allocated to the defendant
and 100% allocated to the father) to 11 (100% responsibility allocated to the defen-
dant and 0% allocated to the father). (Participants were instructed to complete the
Abuse Responsibility Item only if they believed that abuse actually occurred.)
Credibility judgments for each witness were made on separate 7-point scales ranging
from 3 (totally unbelievable) to 3 (totally believable). (Only the defendant’s
credibility was of interest. For analysis purposes, this scale was converted to a scale
ranging from 1 to 7.) Separate 6-point scale items ranging from 1 (no: not at all)
to 6 (yes: completely) measured whether participants believed that sexual abuse
occurred and whether the alleged abuse was a mitigating factor in determining
4
It is unlikely that our modifications of the jury instructions jeopardized the integrity of the study. The
original instructions were simply incomprehensible (an unfortunate fact for jurors and defendants in
Illinois). Jury instructions must be comprehensible because they educate jurors about the law and how
to apply the law to a case, and in turn, they should reduce the effect of jurors’ individual biases on
verdicts (e.g., Diamond, 1993; V. L. Smith, 1993; Wiener, Habert, Shkodriani, & Staebler, 1991; Wiener,
Pritchard, & Weston, 1995). Our modifications made the instructions clearer, increasing the probability
that they reduced the impact of jurors’ biases. Thus, compared to using unmodified pattern jury
instructions, our use of modified instructions constituted a more stringent test of the effects of empathy.
Empathy and Decisions 429
guilt. Finally, on two separate scales ranging from 1 (no: not at all) to 6 (yes:
completely), participants were asked whether they believed that (a) the defendant
shot the father because she/he was a bad person (indicating a dispositional attribu-
tion), and (b) the defendant shot the father because of the situation the she/he was
in (indicating a situational attribution).
Manipulation Check
Participants were asked to indicate the age of the defendant so that we could
determine whether participants paid attention to the case and remembered the
immaturity of the defendant.
Defendant Empathy, Sympathy, and Similarity Measures
Three separate scales were constructed specifically to measure empathy, sympa-
thy, and similarity for the defendant. Details about the construction of these scales
and their psychometric properties are given in the results section (see also Table
1). The Defendant Empathy Scale was composed of six items that measured the
degree to which participants felt they could affectively and cognitively put them-
selves in the place of the defendant in this case. The Defendant Sympathy Scale
was composed of three items measuring how much participants sympathized with
Table 1. Factor Analysis on Items Measuring Defendant Empathy, Sympathy, and Similarity
Factor loadings
Factor 1: Factor 2: Factor 3:
Item Sympathy Empathy Similarity
I feel sorry for Tracie English, the defendant. (SY) .91 .14 .02
I have sympathy for Tracie English, the defendant. (SY) .88 .07 .14
I feel pity for Tracie English, the defendant. (SY) .87 .16 .07
I have empathy for Tracie English, the defendant. (EM)* .76 .21 .16
I can really imagine the thoughts running through .22 .83 .11
Tracie’s, the defendant’s, head. (EM)
I can really feel what Tracie, the defendant, must have .16 .71 .34
been feeling the night of the shooting. (EM)
I can experience the same feelings that Tracie English, .03 .67 .48
the defendant, experienced. (EM)
I can take the perspective of Tracie English, the .51 .57 .16
defendant, and understand why the shooting occurred. (EM)
I can really see myself in Tracie’s, the defendant’s, .12 .55 .47
shoes. (EM)
I feel like I can easily take the perspective of Tracie .44 .49 .42
English, the defendant. (EM)
I think I have a lot of things in common with Tracie .12 .12 .88
English, the defendant. (SI)
I know what it would be like to be Tracie English, the .07 .30 .78
defendant. (EM)*
I feel similar to Tracie English, the defendant. (SI) .11 .34 .77
Eigenvalue 5.91 2.35 .88
Note. The parenthetical notation SY denotes items that were originally designed to measure Defendant
Sympathy, EM denotes Defendant Empathy Scale items, and SI denotes Defendant Similarity Scale
items. An asterisk indicates items that were dropped from analyses due to unexpected factor loadings.
430 Haegerich and Bottoms
(felt sorry for) the defendant. The Defendant Similarity Scale was composed of
two items that measured how similar participants felt to the defendant in general
and how much they felt they had in common with the defendant.
Procedure
Men and women gave informed consent and were randomly assigned to the
boy/girl and experimental [empathy or control (no empathy)] versions of the trial
transcript, with the exception that an approximately equal number of men and
women received each version. There were 2527 participants per cell of the experi-
mental design. After being instructed about the importance of the research and the
seriousness of their role as jurors, participants read the trial transcript. Participants in
the experimental condition encountered the empathy manipulation embedded in
the transcript and wrote the empathy-inducing essay after reading the defense
attorney’s opening statements. Participants in the control condition simply wrote
about their thoughts and feelings related to the case. When finished reading the
transcript, all jurors read the jury instructions, then completed all remaining mea-
sures in turn: case-related judgments; the Defendant Empathy, Sympathy, and
Similarity scales; and the demographic questionnaire. Finally, participants were fully
debriefed, thanked for their participation, and given experimental course credit.
RESULTS
We begin by presenting the results of preliminary analyses (of the manipulation
check and the effects of sexual abuse history). Then, we then detail our main
analyses: 2 (empathy condition) 2 (juror gender) 2 (defendant gender) between-
subjects analyses of variance (ANOVAs) on (a) Defendant Empathy, Defendant
Sympathy, and Defendant Similarity, and (b) case-related judgments (guilt, respon-
sibility, credibility, person/situation attributions, and abuse allegation beliefs).
5
Preliminary Analyses
Manipulation Checks
Nearly all participants (93.7%) indicated the correct age of the defendant (15
years), 5.8% were within 1 year (older or younger), and only one participant gave
5
To ensure that empathy conditions were not confounded with preexisting differences in trait empathy,
we administered trait empathy measures during an en masse pretesting session 13 months prior to
the experiment. Specifically, we gave (a) the Child Victim Empathy Scale (CVES; Bottoms, 1993), a
measure of cognitive and affective components of trait empathy for child sexual abuse victims (alpha
reliability coefficients .70.72), and (b) the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980), a
measure of cognitive perspective taking and affective responding tendencies (alpha reliability .71.77).
Two separate 2 (empathy condition) 2 (juror gender) 2 (defendant gender) between-subjects
ANOVAs revealed no differences in CVES or IRI scores as a function of empathy condition, Fs(1,
197) .11, but women scored higher on the CVES (M 6.23) and the IRI (M 2.52) than men did
(Ms 5.86 and 2.25, respectively), Fs(1,197) 19.48, ps .001. Therefore, we recomputed all analyses
in which juror gender had a significant effect, using the CVES and IRI as covariates. Only one result
was modified (regardless of whether covariates were entered separately or simultaneously): The main
effect of juror gender on jurors’ belief that the defendant was abused became nonsignificant, F(1,192)
.56, p .45.
Empathy and Decisions 431
an age 2 years away from the actual year (17 years). We retained all participants
because they all remembered that the victim was a teenager, and there is no literature
to suggest that there would be differences in judgments within these child age ranges.
As another check on the integrity of our methods, we examined participants’
responses to the open-ended query about the reasons for their verdict choice.
Specifically, it could be argued that the essay-writing instructions in the empathy
condition caused jurors to think about, process, and remember the case evidence
more than did the instructions in the control condition. We coded responses for
mentions of the following: (a) elements of the crime (e.g., imminent danger, intent),
(b) standard of proof, (c) allegations about abuse and the father’s violence, (d)
strength of the defense and prosecution cases, (e) defendant believability, (f) specific
testimony and case facts, (g) defendant’s thoughts and emotions, (h) alternative
actions the defendant may have taken, and (i) responsibility attributions. Interrater
reliability was .87. There were no statistically significant differences between the
conditions with regard to the number of comments in any of these categories, all
Fs(1,196) 2.21, ps .14. In addition, there was no reliable difference in the
number of words written by participants in the two conditions, F(1,203) 1.91,
p .05. Finally, no jurors in either condition made errors in case facts recalled.
Thus, we found no evidence of differential case processing in the two conditions.
Sexual Abuse History
Consistent with past research (e.g., Epstein & Bottoms, 1998; Finkelhor, 1984),
15% of the sample indicated a history of sexual abuse (24% of women, 7% of men).
One might expect individuals with a history of sexual abuse to differ in their case
judgments from other participants because sexual abuse is the material issue in the
case. For this reason, during voir dire, attorneys in cases involving sexual abuse
may attempt to disqualify previously abused jurors from serving on the jury. Abused
jurors may remain on juries, however, because many sexual abuse victims never
disclose their abuse to anyone, and probably do not disclose their abuse when asked
during a public voir dire session. Even so, we recomputed all analyses reported
below (which include data from all participants) by excluding data from sexually
abused participants. All results were comparable, with two exceptions noted below.
Defendant Empathy, Sympathy, and Similarity
Before considering the effects of our independent variables on case judgments,
it was important to examine their relation to Defendant Empathy, Defendant
Sympathy, and Defendant Similarity scale scores.
6
Recall our prediction that the
empathy induction would affect empathy for the defendant without affecting feelings
of sympathy or similarity. Our first step in addressing the confounding of empathy,
sympathy, and similarity in other studies was to confirm the usefulness of our
measures of these theoretically separate (but related) constructs. Therefore, we
conducted a factor analysis on all items we originally constructed to measure defen-
6
Jurors also completed measures of empathy for, sympathy for, and similarity to the father. There were
no significant main effects of our empathy manipulation on any of these measures, illustrating that our
empathy manipulation affected jurors’ feelings for the defendant without affecting feelings for the father.
432 Haegerich and Bottoms
dant empathy (eight specially constructed items), sympathy (three items), and simi-
larity (two items). Given our a priori hypotheses that three factors would emerge,
we performed a factor analysis with varimax rotation, forcing three factors (see
Table 1).
The three emerging factors accounted for 70.4% of the total variance in the
data and generally supported our assumption that the three constructs are related,
but conceptually distinct. Specifically, the first factor, Defendant Sympathy, con-
tained our three sympathy items, yet it also contained one item that we assumed
would assess empathy: ‘‘I have empathy for Tracie English, the defendant.’’ This
item did not load strongly on the second factor, Defendant Empathy, which con-
tained six of our original empathy items. Note that this empathy item is the only
item which forces participants to understand the definition of the word ‘‘empathy.’’
All other items loading on the empathy factor describe the construct qualitatively.
The loading of this seemingly face valid item on the defendant sympathy scale
would result if lay people do not understand the precise definition of the term
‘‘empathy’’ and believe it to be synonymous with ‘‘sympathy,’’ which we believe is
very likely. Yet, even if people confuse specific terms, people can distinguish the
psychological phenomenon of feeling sorry for another from feeling as if one under-
stands the other’s thoughts and feelings. Finally, the third factor that emerged,
Defendant Similarity, contained the two items we constructed to measure similarity,
but also one empathy item: ‘‘I know what it would be like to be Tracie English,
the defendant.’’ Participants may have interpreted the item to mean ‘‘I am like
Tracie,’’ which connotates feelings of similarity.
The two empathy items that loaded strongly on the sympathy and similarity
factors were dropped from further analyses because of their theoretical incongru-
ence with those factors and statistical incongruence with the empathy factor. Using
the remaining items, we created multiitem scale measures of defendant empathy,
sympathy, and similarity. The psychometric properties of each scale were acceptable.
Specifically, the six-item scale measuring defendant empathy had an alpha of .85
and a mean interitem correlation of .49. The three-item defendant sympathy scale
had an alpha of .91 and a mean interitem correlation of .76. Finally, the two items
measuring general defendant similarity were significantly correlated at r .66,
p .001 (we decided to retain the two face-valid similarity items as a scale for
theoretical reasons, even though the eigenvalue for the similarity factor did not
explain a significant amount of variance in the data).
Defendant Empathy
A 2 (empathy condition) 2 (juror gender) 2 (defendant gender) between-
subjects ANOVA revealed that, as predicted, jurors in the empathy condition had
significantly more empathy for the defendant than did jurors in the control condition,
F(1,196) 9.58, p .01 (see Table 2). Thus, our experimental manipulation of
defendant empathy was successful. There was also a significant juror gender by
defendant gender interaction, F(1,196) 6.82, p .01. Simple effects analyses
revealed that men jurors had significantly more empathy for the boy defendant
than for the girl defendant, F(1,196) 9.73, p .01, but women’s ratings of empathy
for the girl and boy defendant did not differ, F(1,196) .39, p .10. No other
Empathy and Decisions 433
Table 2. Mean Defendant Empathy, Sympathy, and Similarity Scale Scores as a Function of Empathy Condition,
Juror Gender, and Defendant Gender
Mean scale scores
Defendant Defendant Defendant
empathy scale sympathy scale similarity scale
Empathy Control Marginal Empathy Control Marginal Empathy Control Marginal
Women jurors
Tracie 3.93 3.23 3.58 5.36 4.53 4.95 2.22 1.96 2.09
Tim 3.83 3.01 3.42 4.77 4.60 4.69 2.05 1.70 1.88
Marginal 3.88 3.12 3.49 5.07 4.57 4.82 2.14 1.83 1.99
Men jurors
Tracie 3.15 2.47 2.79
a
4.23 4.07 4.15
a
1.66 1.80 1.73
Tim 3.66 3.56 3.61
b
4.75 4.92 4.83
b
1.94 1.81 1.88
Marginal 3.41 3.02 3.19 4.49 4.50 4.50 1.80 1.81 1.81
Overall 3.64
a
3.06
b
4.78 4.53 1.97 1.82
marginal
Note. Scale items range from 1 to 7. Higher numbers indicate greater empathy, sympathy, and similarity. Means
with different superscripts in the same row or column are significantly different at p .05. ‘‘Tracie’’ indicates the
girl defendant condition; ‘‘Tim’’ indicates the boy defendant condition.
434 Haegerich and Bottoms
main effects, all Fs(1,196) 2.98, ps .09, or interactions, all Fs(1,196) .99,
ps .32, reached statistical significance.
Defendant Sympathy
Jurors in the empathy condition and control conditions did not differ in their
sympathy for the defendant, F(1,197) 1.24, p .27 (see Table 2), further support-
ing our theoretical assumption that the constructs of empathy and sympathy are
distinct and can be manipulated independently. There was a significant juror gender
by defendant gender interaction, F(1,197) 4.70, p .05. As with empathy, men
had more sympathy for the boy defendant than for the girl defendant, simple effects,
F(1,197) 4.95, p .05. Women were not affected by defendant gender, F(1,197)
.72, p .10. No other main effects, all Fs(1,197) 2.23, ps .14, or interactions,
all Fs(1,197) 1.35, ps .25, were statistically significant.
Defendant Similarity
Empathy had no significant effect on similarity, suggesting that empathy can
be manipulated without affecting similarity, F(1,196) 1.64, p .20 (see Table 2).
No other main effects, all Fs(1,196) 1.07, ps .30, or interactions, all Fs(1,196)
3.30, ps .14, were significant.
Essay Coding
To bolster our argument that empathy, sympathy, and similarity are conceptu-
ally distinct, but related constructs, and that empathy can be affected apart from
sympathy or similarity, we coded the essays that participants were instructed to
write after the defense attorney’s opening statements. The essays were broken
down into individual thought units and coded for expressions of (a) empathy (e.g.,
‘‘I can understand what the defendant is going through’’), (b) sympathy (e.g., ‘‘I
feel bad for the defendant’’), (c) similarity (e.g., ‘‘I think I have a lot of things in
common with the defendant’’), (d) the reverse of empathy (e.g., ‘‘I can’t imagine
what it would be like’’), (e) the reverse of sympathy (e.g, ‘‘I don’t feel sorry for
the defendant at all’’), and (f) the reverse of similarity (e.g., ‘‘I am not like the
defendant’’). Two independent coders (both blind to experimental condition) coded
20% of the essays. Because their proportion of agreement was high (.97), one of
them coded the remaining essays. As expected, participants in the empathy condition
expressed far more empathy thoughts (M 5.34) than did participants in the control
conditon (M .14), F(1,197) 231.35, p .05. Very few participants in either
condition expressed thoughts considered to be the reverse of empathy, but more
of these thoughts were expressed in the empathy condition (M .21) than in the
control condition (M .02), F(1,197) 8.31, p .05. Few jurors expressed feelings
of sympathy, but slightly more sympathy was expressed in the control condition
(M .08) than in the empathy condition (M .02), F(197) 4.94, p .05. There
were no significant differences between the experimental conditions in terms of
thoughts reflecting the reverse of sympathy (empathy M .01, control M .05),
F(1,197) 1.37, p .05. Finally, no jurors made comments reflecting similarity or
the reverse of similarity.
Thus, our coding of participants’ essays supports our factor-analytic results
Empathy and Decisions 435
and serves as an assurance that our empathy manipulation was successful. Jurors
in the empathy condition expressed more empathic thoughts, but no more thoughts
of sympathy or similarity, than did jurors in the control condition. This supports
our contention that our manipulation induced empathy, not feelings of sympathy
or similarity, and that these three constructs are indeed conceptually different, as
reflected in our three scales.
Case-Related Judgments
Verdict Preference
Verdicts were combined into two categories: ‘‘Guilty’’ (composed of ‘‘Guilty of
First-Degree Murder’’ and ‘‘Guilty of Second-Degree Murder’’) and ‘‘Not Guilty.’’
Because both of our independent and dependent variables were dichotomous, we
used Logit modeling to examine our data (Simonoff, 1998). Empathy condition,
juror gender, defendant gender, and all possible two-way interactions were entered
as predictors in the model. The overall model did not significantly differ from
chance, LR
2
(1) 1.54, p .21, indicating that the proposed model adequately fit
the data. As predicted, the empathy condition by verdict association was significant,
z ⫽⫺2.91, with jurors in the empathy condition finding the defendant guilty less
often than did jurors in the control condition (see Table 3 for verdict percentages).
Also, as expected, the juror gender by verdict association was significant, z ⫽⫺2.22,
with women jurors finding the defendant guilty less often than did men jurors. No
other associations were statistically significant, zs 1.31.
Defendant Credibility
Women jurors rated the defendant as significantly more credible (M 4.27)
than men jurors did (M 3.62), F(1,196) 7.65, p .01. Defendant credibility
did not vary as a function of empathy condition, however: Jurors in the empathy
condition (M 4.00) found the defendant as credible as did those in the control
condition (M 3.90), F(1,196) .16, p .69. Credibility was also not affected by
defendant gender: girl defendant, M 3.94; boy defendant, M 3.97; F(1,196)
.02, p .90. No interactions reached statistical significance, Fs(1,196) .47,
ps .50.
Table 3. Guilt Judgments as a Function of Empathy Condition and Juror Gender
Percentage of Percentage of
Percentage of not- Percentage of first-degree second-degree
Condition guilty verdicts guilty verdicts
a
murder verdicts murder verdicts
Empathy condition
Empathy 41 59 17 42
Control 24 76 21 55
Juror gender
Women 40 60 15 45
Men 25 75 23 52
a
First- and second-degree combined.
436 Haegerich and Bottoms
Killing Responsibility
We analyzed two measures of mock jurors’ perceptions of responsibility for
the murder: (a) the three-item Killing Responsibility Scale and (b) the Killing
Responsibility Allocation item. The Killing Responsibility Scale had acceptable
internal consistency (alpha .87, mean interitem correlation .70). There was a
significant main effect of empathy condition on the Killing Responsibility Scale,
F(1,195) 4.06, p .05. Jurors in the empathy condition (M 3.82) found the
defendant less responsible than did jurors in the control condition (M 4.20).
Further, women found the defendant significantly less responsible (M 3.81) than
did men (M 4.21), F(1,195) 4.54, p .05. There was no significant main effect
of defendant gender, F(1,195) .002, p .97, nor any significant interactions, all
Fs(1,195) 2.07, ps .15.
There was also a significant main effect of empathy condition on the Killing
Responsibility Allocation item, F(1,196) 9.09, p .01. Jurors in the empathy
condition allocated less responsibility to the defendant for the killing (M 5.57,
corresponding to approximately 46% responsibility) than did jurors in the control
condition (M 6.71, corresponding to approximately 57% responsibility). No other
main effects, all Fs(1,196) 2.06, ps .15, or interactions, all Fs(1,196) 1.19,
ps .32, were statistically significant.
Abuse Responsibility
Unexpectedly, there were no significant main effects, all Fs(1,137) 2.46,
ps .12, nor interactions of the independent variables, all Fs(1,137) 1.83, ps
.18, on perceived responsibility for the alleged sexual abuse. The null findings may
reflect a restricted range of responses. On average, jurors who believed that sexual
abuse occurred found the child defendant only 7% responsible for the sexual abuse
(corresponding to a mean of 1.69 on the 11-point scale).
Dispositional and Situational Attributions
Next, analyses considered participants’ separate ratings of person and situation
attributions for the murder. There was a significant main effect of defendant gender
on the belief that the defendant shot his/her father because the defendant was a
bad person, F(1,196) 7.98, p .01. Compared to the girl defendant (M 2.39),
the boy defendant (M 2.95) was more likely to be seen as a ‘‘bad person’’ for
shooting his father. There were no other significant main effects, all Fs(1,196)
1.66, ps .20, nor interactions, all Fs(1,196) 1.51, ps .22. Men’s (M 2.80)
and women’s (M 2.55) ratings did not differ significantly, and ratings of jurors
in the empathy condition (M 2.74) did not differ significantly from those in the
control condition (M 2.60).
Contrary to hypotheses, there was no significant main effect of empathy condi-
tion on the belief that the defendant shot his/her father because of the situation,
F(1,196) 2.23, p .05 (empathy M 4.58, control M 4.33). There was a
significant empathy condition by defendant gender interaction on this belief, how-
ever, F(1,196) 3.94, p .05. Simple effects analyses revealed that jurors who
read about the boy, Tim, were unaffected by the empathy manipulation, F(1,196)
Empathy and Decisions 437
.16, p .10 (empathy M 4.31, control M 4.41). But among jurors who read
about Tracie, those in the empathy condition were more likely to believe that she
killed because of situational factors (M 4.86) than jurors in the control condition
(M 4.25), F(1,196) 6.01, p .05. This effect became marginally significant,
however, when sexually abused participants were excluded from the analysis,
F(1,169) 3.43, p .07 (perhaps reflecting the loss of degrees of freedom). Further,
the main effect of empathy condition became statistically significant when sexually
abused participants were excluded, with jurors in the empathy condition being more
likely to believe that the defendant shot his/her father because of the situation
(M 4.67) than jurors in the control condition (M 4.48), F(1,169) 4.68, p
.05. No other main effects, Fs(1,196) 1.28, ps .26, or interactions, Fs(1,196)
.68, ps .41, were significant.
Abuse Beliefs
Finally, we considered jurors’ beliefs about the sexual abuse allegation and its
implications. First, jurors were more likely to believe that the girl defendant was
abused (M 4.29) than the boy defendant (M 3.86), F(1,194) 4.56, p .05.
This effect became nonsignificant, however, when sexually abuse participants were
excluded from the analysis, F(1,169) 1.89, p .10. There was also a significant
main effect of juror gender: Women were more likely to believe that the defendant
was abused (M 4.27) than men were (M 3.88), F(1,194) 3.78, p .05.
Contrary to hypotheses, there was no significant main effect of empathy condition,
F(1,194) .20, p .66 (empathy M 4.03, control M 4.12), nor were there any
significant interactions, Fs(1,194) .90, ps .34.
Second, there was a significant main effect of empathy condition on jurors’
tendency to consider sexual abuse as a mitigating factor in determining the defen-
dant’s guilt, F(1,194) 6.91, p .01. Jurors in the empathy condition (M 4.02)
were more likely than those in the control condition (M 3.42) to believe that
sexual abuse was a mitigating factor. No other main effects, all Fs(1,194) .38,
ps .54, or interactions, all Fs(1,194) 1.27, ps .26, were significant.
DISCUSSION
For the first time, we investigated the impact of an empathy manipulation on
juror decision making in a patricide case involving child sexual abuse allegations.
Our findings clearly demonstrate that jurors’ case-related judgments are affected
when an attorney asks them to identify affectively and cognitively with a defendant.
As predicted, compared to jurors in the control condition, jurors in the empathy
condition had more empathy for the defendant, were more lenient in their guilt
judgments, considered the defendant to be less responsible for the killing, and were
more likely to think abuse was a mitigating factor in the trial. Next, we discuss our
main findings and consider the basic and applied contributions our study makes to
the literature on empathy and on juror decision making in cases involving child
sexual abuse allegations.
438 Haegerich and Bottoms
Empathy
Although most previous research has confounded empathy, sympathy, and
similarity because of the difficulty of separating them empirically, the theoretical
distinctions among these psychological constructs are important (Davis, 1996). The
constructs of empathy, sympathy, and similarity are not independent or orthogonal,
as suggested by some overlap in the item loadings in our factor analysis. They do
correlate with each other, just as do other related, but different concepts such as
intelligence and need for cognition. They are, however, conceptually distinct. As
we noted earlier, empathy is an active process of cognitive and affective perspective-
taking, but sympathy entails more passive affective responding. Thus, according to
Wispe
´
(1986), sympathy is the ‘‘heightened awareness of another’s plight as some-
thing to be alleviated,’’ but ‘‘empathy refers to the attempt of one self-aware self
to understand the subjective experiences of another self. Sympathy is a way of
relating. Empathy is a way of knowing’’ (p. 314). Further, as Davis (1996) has noted,
it is also important to distinguish empathy from feelings of similarity, which are
also closely related. Having empathy for another involves understanding what it
would be like to be in the other’s place, which may lead to feelings of similarity
with the other person. In our study, we were able to measure feelings of defendant
empathy, sympathy, and similarity with statistically reliable scales, and we were
able to manipulate feelings of empathy without affecting feelings of sympathy or
similarity. Specifically, compared to participants in the control condition, partici-
pants in the empathy condition expressed more empathic thoughts in their essays,
but no more thoughts of sympathy or similarity. Further, on our scale measures,
participants in the empathy condition reported feeling more empathy for the defen-
dant, but they did not report feeling more sympathy for or similarity to the defen-
dant. These results are a noteworthy contribution to the basic social psychological
literature on empathy and sympathy.
It is important to note that although the empathy induction affected empathic
feelings, guilt judgments, responsibility judgments, and jurors’ belief that abuse was
a mitigating factor as we predicted, empathy did not affect jurors’ perceptions of
the defendant’s credibility nor their beliefs that the alleged abuse occurred. Thus,
jurors can feel empathic and less punitive toward a defendant without necessarily
believing the defendant more or less. To gain more insight about this, we inspected
the reasons that jurors in the empathy condition gave in response to the open-
ended query about the reason for their verdicts. Thirty percent of the jurors in the
empathy condition who found the defendant not guilty because of self-defense
indicated that they chose that verdict because of the defendant’s past history of
abuse and the father’s alcoholism. For example, a juror in the empathy condition
wrote, ‘‘I believe he [Tim] probably wasn’t in ‘immediate danger,’ but the acts his
father had committed in the past justify a not guilty verdict.’’ Thus, such jurors
may have doubted the defendant’s claim of being in imminent danger at the moment
of the shooting, but believed that the past abuse was a sufficient excuse for killing
the father, nullifying the law instructing them to acquit only if the defendant felt
she/he was in imminent danger at the exact moment of the killing.
We predicted that jurors in the empathy condition would see the world from
Empathy and Decisions 439
the defendant’s perspective and, in turn, be more likely to attribute the cause of
the murder to situational factors (the abuse) than to dispositional factors (the
defendant’s tendencies) and vote more leniently. Even though the only direct attri-
butional measure affected by the empathy manipulation was the situational attribu-
tion item for jurors evaluating the girl defendant, there was other evidence for the
attributional process we predicted. Specifically, the empathy induction affected
verdicts, which were defined in terms of situational versus dispositional attributions
for the defendant’s actions. That is, not-guilty verdicts are by law supposed to be
rendered when a juror believes that a defendant’s actions are caused, in part, by
the situation. In fact, jurors in the empathy condition were more likely than those
in the control conditions to render not-guilty verdicts than guilty verdicts. Further,
empathic jurors were also more likely to indicate that they considered abuse to be
a mitigating factor in the case.
Juror and Defendant Gender
As predicted, there were a number of main effects associated with juror gender.
Compared to men, women were more lenient in their verdicts and considered the
defendant more credible and less responsible for the murder. Women were also
more likely to believe that sexual abuse occurred and that the defendant was in
danger at the time of the killing. These results are consistent with findings from a
growing number of studies examining judgments in child sexual abuse cases (e.g.,
Bottoms, 1993; Bottoms & Goodman, 1994; Golding et al., 1997; Schmidt & Brig-
ham, 1996). Contrary to hypotheses, however, women were no more likely than
men to believe that the abuse was a mitigating factor. As discussed above, we
believe this reflects men’s and women’s equal skepticism about abuse on the night
of the killing, but a tendency for women to be more likely than men to feel that
abuse had occurred previously and was serious enough to warrant a lenient verdict.
Our study makes a unique contribution to the literature on gender differences
in reactions to sexual assault allegations: We provide the first evidence that women
are more pro-abuse victim than men even when the abuse victim is accused of
murder. This is similar to effects of juror gender found in research investigating
jurors’ reactions to cases in which battered women kill their abusive husbands:
Women find the defendant less responsible (Schuller et al., 1994) and less guilty
(Schuller & Hastings, 1996) than men do. In both types of cases, the defendant
claims self-defense against severe abuse. Women appear to be more likely than
men to believe that chronic abuse (either against children or against romantic
partners) is serious enough to justify the use of deadly force in self-defense. Among
other things, this surely reflects the large difference in rates of sexual abuse and
spousal battering victimization among women and men in our society, and women’s
internalization of their differential vulnerability and all its implications.
We also manipulated defendant gender in our study. Although the effects of
this variable were not pervasive, we demonstrated for the first time in the scientific
literature that, overall, jurors were more likely to believe that a girl victim was
sexually abused than a boy victim. This is consistent with research illustrating
cultural biases against boy victims (Finkelhor, 1984; Rogers & Terry, 1984). Previous
440 Haegerich and Bottoms
studies have found no effect at all (Bottoms & Goodman, 1994; O’Donohue, Elliott,
Nickerson, & Valentine, 1992) or interactions between juror gender and child victim
gender (e.g., Broussard & Wagner, 1988; Quas, Bottoms, Haegerich, & Nysse,
1999). Defendant gender also affected dispositional attributions for the killing.
Specifically, the boy defendant was considered to have been more likely than the
girl defendant to have killed his father because the boy was a bad person. The girl
defendant was perceived as less likely to have killed because of such an inherent
disposition. There was also an unexpected significant interaction between empathy
condition and defendant gender on our direct measure of situational attributions.
Specifically, the empathy induction did not affect attributions about the boy defen-
dant’s behavior, but jurors in the empathy condition were more likely than jurors
in the control condition to attribute the girl’s actions to the situation. This may
reflect the commonly held stereotype that females are more intensely emotional
than males are (Robinson & Johnson, 1997) as well as the belief that boys are not
as harmed by sexual abuse as girls are (Eisenberg, Owens, & Dewey, 1987; Fin-
kelhor, 1984). That is, jurors may have felt that Tracie was more emotionally affected
by the abuse than Tim was, which may have led jurors to attribute Tracie’s (but
not Tim’s) motivation to the trauma of abuse. There were no other effects associated
with defendant genderthe biases we uncovered were not strong enough to influ-
ence guilt judgments, responsibility judgments, or other abuse beliefs.
Finally, note that we found little support for similarity-leniency biases in judg-
ments (e.g., Kerr et al., 1995) or for a competing male antihomosexuality bias (that
men would react more negatively to male-perpetrated abuse of boys than to male-
perpetrated abuse of girls). Jurors’ similarity scale ratings indicate that women
jurors felt no more similar to the girl defendant than to the boy defendant, and
men jurors felt no more similar to the boy defendant than to the girl defendant.
Further, men were no more lenient toward the boy defendant than the girl defendant
in terms of verdicts, and women jurors were no more lenient toward the girl
defendant than the boy defendant. However, one finding is potentially consistent
with the similarity-leniency bias: As discussed above, men in the empathy condition
reported feeling more empathy and sympathy for the boy defendant than for the
girl defendant. More research is needed before we can understand the significance
of that finding.
IMPLICATIONS, CAVEATS, AND CONCLUSIONS
Our research makes a significant contribution to the social psychological litera-
ture on empathy by enhancing our understanding of (a) the methods by which one
can elicit empathy in individuals, (b) the effects of empathy on social behavior, and
(c) the distinctions among empathy, sympathy, and similarity. The research also
makes contributions to the literature on juror decision making, particularly juror
decision making in murder cases in which the defense theory is linked to claims of
child sexual abuse. Our findings imply that, as attorneys have intuitively suspected,
jurors’ case judgments are influenced by empathy, that empathy can be induced
during the course of a trial through appropriate empathy induction techniques, and
Empathy and Decisions 441
that empathy can influence beliefs that a defendant’s past abuse can mitigate an
act of murder.
We took care to design our study in a manner that would make generalizations
to the legal arena possible. For example, the ecological validity of our study is
increased by our use of a transcript from an actual trial rather than artificial
stimuli such as a brief summary of a fabricated case, or slide or film presentations
of mock trials in which actors pose as trial participants, which can appear
contrived. Thus, attorneys’ opening and closing statements and all witnesses’
testimony were realistic. We also used the actual jury instructions that would
be used in such a case in the state of Illinois (yet we did have to modify these
instructions to make them comprehensible, a detail that is interesting itself apart
from the central aspects of this study). We assured that our mock jurors were
over the age of 18, U.S. citizens, and ethnically diverse, as an actual jury pool
would be. We took care to impress upon our mock jurors the seriousness of
the research, and our observations confirmed that our participants were very
engaged in the task and interested in the case.
Even so, there are always reasons to be cautious in generalizing the results of
laboratory research to actual cases. Our jurors knew their judgments would not
have an impact on a defendant’s life. Further, our jurors did not view the case
unfolding live before them: They read a transcript, thus removing them somewhat
from the drama and realism of the case. Nonetheless, research has revealed little
difference between mock jurors’ decisions in reaction to written scenarios involving
child witnesses versus more elaborate videotaped testimony (e.g., Goodman, Gol-
ding, & Haith, 1984; Goodman, Golding, Helgeson, Haith, & Michelli, 1987). Fur-
ther, using videotaped trial stimuli to examine the effects of defendant gender could
have costly tradeoffs. That is, boy and girl actors on such videotapes would differ in
many aspects other than strictly gender. Differences in the defendants’ appearance,
attractiveness, action, etc., would be difficult to control. Written scenario methodol-
ogy allows us to have the experimental control necessary to draw cause and effect
conclusions about our gender variable before moving on to more elaborately staged
research investigating the pattern of results found here.
We also did not ask the mock jurors to deliberate before reaching a verdict.
Decisions made by individual jurors might not mirror decisions made by a jury in
the same case (Diamond, 1997; Weiten & Diamond, 1979). Group discussion might
serve to dampen jurors’ extralegal biases, or, through a process of attitude polariza-
tion (e.g., Levine & Moreland, 1998), deliberation might actually augment empathic
predeliberation tendencies. Also, although our sample was more ethnically diverse
and older than many college freshman samples, our jurors were university under-
graduates who may not render the same decisions as community jurors. Even so,
a recent meta-analysis by Bornstein (1999) reveals few differences in the mock-trial
judgments of undergraduates and community members (see also Cutler, Penrod, &
Dexter, 1990; Isquith, 1988; Lind & Walker, 1979). Nevertheless, it would be advis-
able to replicate this study with community-member participants.
Finally, essay writing would not be used by attorneys in actual cases to manipu-
late empathy. It was done so in this case to assure that the empathy induction was
salient to mock jurors. Essay writing should not be necessary in a real trial setting
442 Haegerich and Bottoms
in which the impact of an attorney’s empathy induction statements will be enhanced
by the impact of the real courtroom environment. Even though the essay writing
may be viewed as artificial, we needed to ensure that the empathy manipulation
was successful so that the psychological theory about empathy could be tested.
Future research should involve mock jurors evaluating a case in which the empathy
induction is delivered solely by the attorneys to enhance the ecological validity of
the research.
In summary, exploring the effect of variables on jurors’ decisions in a
laboratory setting represents an important first step in a line of research designed
to examine juror decision making (Diamond, 1997), but only the first step. The
next step will be to determine the degree to which these findings generalize in
more realistic settings.
As we have shown, parricide cases and other cases involving abuse allegations
involve a number of complex, psychologically interesting issues that can be examined
experimentally, producing results of significance to the basic psychological literature
as well as results that can inform the legal system about issues of applied significance.
Future research should continue to explore factors that affect decisions in such
cases. For example, we were successful in inducing empathy for a defendant in a
patricide case. Would it be possible to have jurors take the emotional and cognitive
perspective of an abuser (in this case, the murdered father)? If so, would the defense
attorney’s attempts to induce empathy for the defendant be neutralized by the
prosecutor’s attempts to induce empathy for the murder victim? In the actual trial,
the prosecutor did not try very hard to encourage empathy for the father (in our
estimation) and even acknowledged that although the father didn’t deserve to be
killed, he may have been the ‘‘meanest, baddest, son-of-a-bitch in town.’’ Was this
an irresponsible or realistic defense? We suspect it would be quite difficult to induce
empathy for victims and defendants involved in some types of crimes, a suspicion
that could easily be explored in future research. To address an issue of basic
theoretical interest, further research might also be aimed at determining whether
cognitive and affective components of empathy have differential impacts on behav-
ior. Other research might examine potential mediators of the effect of empathy.
That is, by demonstrating empirically the effect of empathy on judgments, we have
taken the necessary first step in investigating attorneys’ intuitions about their ability
to induce empathy in jurors and about the effect of empathy on judgments, but
future work should also examine the psychological processes underlying the effect
of empathy.
In conclusion, jurors’ biaseseither preexisting biases or those induced by
trial circumstancesmay overshadow what little hard evidence is presented in
cases involving child sexual abuse allegations and threaten the integrity of the
judicial system by hindering fair, impartial trials for defendants and victims. As
a framework for understanding biases in decision making in cases involving child
sexual abuse allegations, the present discussion has considered gender and
empathy as determinants of perceptions, evaluations, and case judgments. Findings
of such research may eventually lead to a more educated courtroom, one where
fact finders are aware of potential biases and ways to avoid biases when making
consequential judgments.
Empathy and Decisions 443
APPENDIX OPENING AND CLOSING STATEMENTS OF THE DEFENSE
ATTORNEY
The opening and closing statements of the defense attorney are detailed below.
Participants in the empathy condition read the arguments as presented below.
Participants in the control condition read the same arguments, but without the
sections marked in bold.
Defense Attorney’s Opening Statement
This is the part where we get to tell you what the truth is. You will hear from
many sources that physical and emotional abuse was a long-standing thing in the
English home. Bill would drink heavily and threaten to abuse people, keeping them
in fear for their safety on a regular basis. Tracie will tell you that on three or four
occasions he sexually abused her, with the abuse ranging from fondling her to
getting her down and trying to get into her panties, even asking her to perform
oral sex on him. All Tracie could do is run away and wait until it died down to
come back home. What kept this cycle going is that Bill would promise, ‘‘This is
not going to be like that anymore, Tracie. Things are going to change.’’ Bill would
make her think it was her fault and she would always come back and it would
always turn out the same way.
Well, on July 1, 1996, it did not turn out the same way. As usual, Bill came in
drinking and pitched his usual fit. Tracie left him alone and went to her room. Then
Dad came into her room and tried to force himself on her. They got into a struggle.
Bill English grabbed her by the hair and pulled her into his bedroom. Tracie found
one of Bill’s guns during the struggle and squeezed off one shot, striking him, and
knocked him back on his bed. She didn’t see any blood, she didn’t know what
happened. She ran next door to Mr. Schneider’s house, hysterical, screaming and
crying. Mr. Schneider took Tracie to her mother’s house. Tracie’s mother will tell
you that when she got there Tracie was still hysterical. The only thing Tracie knows
is that when she resisted her father that night, he came at her in such a way that
she was convinced that she would suffer serious physical injury or death.
At this point the police were called. Tracie will tell you that she doesn’t
remember much about her conversation with Detective Burbrink. It took a month
for her to even remember what happened.
Tracie is the only witness to this incident. What determines this case is whether
or not you believe Tracie’s testimony about what happened. It will be powerful. It
will probably be upsetting to you. But this little girl is going to have to tell you
what happened. She’ll tell you that the sexual abuse had been going on for a while.
Now, imagine if this were you in this situation. Put yourself in Tracie English’s
adolescent shoes and try hard to really think about how you would be feeling and
thinking in her situation. Think long and hard about how you would react. Your
alcoholic father repeatedly sexually and physically abused you, constantly manipu-
lated your feelings, making you feel guilty if you ever tried to leave home. You
had tried to leave on numerous occasions, but couldn’t because you always thought
the abuse was your fault. Now imagine that your father is chasing you down the
444 Haegerich and Bottoms
hall, to abuse you once again. You fear being raped. You fear being killed, because
your father is angrier and more aggressive than usual. You have been abused
throughout life, you feel constantly in danger, you feel helpless, and the only way
to get away is to kill this abusive, alcoholic monster. You are in a struggle, you
reach up to try and get away, and there is a gun. A gun right in your hand. Now
I ask you ladies and gentlemen of the jury, how would you have been thinking and
feeling if this was you? What would your reaction have been?
I hope that after you hear Tracie’s testimony you will be sure that she was
forced to defend herself from either serious physical injury or death while defending
herself from rape from her father. I hope you’ll find that this shooting was justified
as self-defense, and that you will acquit her of all charges. You will acquit her
especially after you imagine yourself in this situation. I am sure that you would
understand if you emotionally and thoughtfully put yourself in Tracie’s shoes.
Thank you.
Defense Attorney’s Closing Argument
You heard Tracie’s testimony. She told you that for the last couple of years
her father had taken sexual liberties with her. Rubbing her breasts, going down
into her pants, these things have happened repeatedly. She also tells you that it
was nothing for him to threaten to kill her. This happened twenty, thirty times.
But she also tells you that on July 1, 1996 everything went to a new level. Her
father came in screaming and hollering. She didn’t want any part of it. She went
into her room and the man came in and started rubbing on her, threw her to the
floor, started rubbing on her breasts, going down inside of her pants. She tried to
escape, but he caught her at the back door. She couldn’t get out. He then dragged
his daughter into his bedroom by her hair. A struggle occurred and in the struggle,
she took one shot, hit him, and we have this case today.
You can see, I hope, through her mother’s testimony how bad Tracie’s life
was. Her mother pretty much left her to do what she wanted to do. Her father
physically abused all the family members except her half sister.
Tracie had an alcoholic, abusive father that she just kept going back to, but
the man never changed. She always thought he would change.
You have to understand about sexual abuse that it’s a crime that nobody
seesnobody takes their kids in the front yard or the fairgrounds and sexually
abuses them. It always happens behind closed doors. There’s no witness. And it
just keeps on happening.
Now, try and imagine what Tracie was thinking and feeling the night of Bill’s
death. Better yet, imagine that you are Tracie English and reflect on what you are
thinking and feeling. You are in a hopeless situation. You have been sexually abused
your whole life by an alcoholic father, who has manipulated your feelings again
and again. He is becoming more and more abusive. And then, your father is out
of control. He is screaming at you and pulling you down the hall by your hair, all
in an attempt to molest you. You think, ‘‘Is this ever going to end?’’ You know he
is going to rape you. You feel that your life is at stake if you resist. You start to
Empathy and Decisions 445
struggle, your heart is beating, your mind is racing, and all of a sudden. . . a gun.
And in a rush of panic you grab the weapon and end your suffering.
You promised that you would uphold the law just as vigorously by delivering
a verdict of ‘‘not guilty’’ as you would delivering a verdict ‘‘guilty’’ if the evidence
indicates it. There is a privilege to use deadly force in self defense if one is under
the immediate threat of serious physical injury, death, or rape. When you look at
the evidence I hope you’re going to decide that the facts indicate that this young
girl was in danger of rape or serious physical injury or death and you will acquit
her of all charges. You will acquit her especially after you imagine yourself in this
situation. I am sure that you would understand if you emotionally and thoughtfully
put yourself in Tracie’s shoes. Thank you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by a grant to Tamara M. Haegerich from the
American Psychology-Law Society Grants-in-Aid program and by The University
of Illinois at Chicago Department of Psychology thesis enhancement funds. Erika
Cheng, Jessica Dilley, Koren Ganas, Jodie Pasternak, Kelly Ricketts, and Lisa
Tockman provided valuable research assistance. We thank Shari S. Diamond and
Linda J. Skitka for their helpful comments on previous drafts of the manuscript
and Rebecca M. Campbell for statistical consultation. Finally, thanks to Sandy
Kleinfeld and Court TV for graciously donating the videotape of the trial from
which the stimulus trial transcript was constructed, and to Helen Haegerich for
transcribing the trial.
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... Participants high in empathy report less negative reactions to crimes (Haegerich and Bottoms, 2000;Sj€ oberg, 2015). For example, Sj€ oberg (2015) found that compared to mock jurors lower in empathy, mock jurors higher in empathy made less stringent sentence recommendations for crimes. ...
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... Finally, the child's gender may be an important factor to consider in credibility assessments, though previous research has inconsistently found effects of gender. Some evidence suggests that boys may be more credible than girls (Bornstein & Muller, 2001;Esnard & Dumas, 2013), while other evidence suggests that girls may be considered more credible than boys (Cross et al., 2005;Haegerich & Bottoms, 2000;Nunez et al., 2011;Wyman et al., 2018). In contrast, a recent meta-analysis examining how the victim's gender impacts credibility ratings found that the majority of studies examining gender of child sexual abuse victims did not find a significant effect of gender on credibility ratings (Voogt & Klettke, 2017). ...
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