| A person's physical appearance is the most accessible characteristic to others in social interactions. The present experiment was designed to determine whether the facial attractiveness of both a criminal defendant and a victim could have any effect on the length of sentence an individual receives in a vehicular homicide case. It was hypothesized that attractive defendants would be given a lesser sentence then the unattractive defendants, and that defendants whose victim was attractive would receive longer sentences than if their victims were unattractive. A total of 203 subjects (52% male, 48% females) participated in the study. The results indicate that attractive defendants receive shorter sentences than unattractive defendants. Reasons for these findings are discussed. |
