The influence of contextual factors in the assessment of guilt in committing the offense

Bodolović, Nikolina. (2011). The influence of contextual factors in the assessment of guilt in committing the offense . Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology. [mentor Ivanec, Dragutin and Ljubin Golub, Tajana ].

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Abstract

The goal of this research was to investigate the influence of contextual variables in interaction with authoritarianism on judgment making and perception of the offender. We explored the impact of perceived morality of the defendant’s course of conduct, as well as the influence of ignorance of the law and authoritarianism on several dependant variables: the perception of defendant as good or bad person, degree of guilt, seriousness of offense, responsibility for offense, excuse for the offender and deserve penalty. The design of this research was independent, 2x2x2 design where the participants (N=147) had task to read the given vignettes and fulfill the following questionnaire. The results confirmed the main effect of perceived morality of the defendant’s course of conduct for all dependant variables except for the responsibility for offense. Moral offender was perceived as better person and less guilty for the crime than immoral motivated offender, they received more lenient penalty and crime done by morally motivated offender was perceived less serious and more excusable for the offender. Opposite to our expectations, the results did not confirm the impact of the ignorance of the law on dependant variables nor the main effect of authoritarianism. The expected triple interaction was not found, but some double interactions suggest interesting findings. These findings show by which principles have been lead laypeople in judgment making.

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