The Influence Of Personality Traits And Associated Emotions On The "case" Sentencing

In order to explore whether the incidental emotion which caused by the case affects the measurement of penalty to the actor, and whether this kind of sentencing course is influenced by the actor’s personality characteristics during the judicial process, this study designs the Sentencing assignment sheet of the simulation case, choosing 44 criminal judges,46 prosecutors as test objects, inquiring their the assessments of their major emotions during the simulation sentencing, providing the simulation results, and finishing the personality questionnaires. The results showed that:(1) The samples of the judges differ from the samples of the prosecutors judging from the aspects of properties, directions and intensities. These aspects are expressed in the following cases:in the first case, there are significant differences in the major emotion characteristics of the main body of judicatures x2=8.668,p=0.013), their anger experiences towards the actors are stronger compared to their sympathetic experiences towards the victims (F=10.159, p=0.002,η2-=0.106); In the second case, there are very significant differences between the emotion orientations and the emotion characteristics of the main body of judicatures, in the independent frequency distributions of the Chi - square values of the directing objects and the emotion characteristics is 35.933.(2) Compared to the same cases, there are differences between the judges and prosecutors. It behaves as this:judges have more severe sentencing than the prosecutors in the first and second cases(F=16.782,p=0.000, η2=0.163; F=4.154, p=0.045, η2=0.046).(3) The associated emotions of the case have something to do with sentencing of the judicial subjects. The directing objects of the tested active emotions are edge correlated (r=0.207,p=0.051) to the case sentencing levels, the intensities of emotions is significantly correlated to the sentencing levels (r=0.213,p=0.044).(4) The related analysis of the personality characters and the case related emotions shows:the EPQ-E is significantly correlated to the emotion directing activated in the first case(r=0.219,p=0.038), the EPQ-P is significantly correlated to the intensities of emotions activated in the second case(r=0.209, p=0.035), EPQ-N is significantly related to the directing objects activated in the third case(r=0.222,p=0.035),while the EPQ-L is negative correlated (r=-0.238, p=0.024). The study’s conclusions:(1) The subjects of the judges do differ from the prosecutors judging from the aspects of properties, directions and intensities; this difference is closed related to the characteristics of the case itself. The emotions of the judges are more intensively on the actors of the case.(2) The job roles of the judicial subjects do affect the sentencing of the case, the sentencing levels of judges are more likely higher than the prosecutors.(3) The associated emotions of the judicial subjects do affect the results of sentencing. the bigger the intensity gap between the negative emotions pointed to the actors and the positive emotions pointed to the victims, the more severe the sentencing strength is.(4) Personality characteristics affect the directing and intensity of the related emotions, and these cases affect the result of the penalty.