Effects Of Defendants' Attractiveness And Trustworthiness On Simulated Judicial Decisions In Two Different Swindles

Judicial decisions are closely related to personal benefits,so it is of great importance for judges to make impartial decisions based on admissible evidence.However,many studies have demonstrated that judges and jurors were also affected by various extra-legal factors,including facial attractiveness and trustworthiness.These two facial features of defendants are likely to affect judges unconsciously.Studies have shown that the type of crimes might modulate the facial effects on judicial judgments.However,it remains controversial whether it is advantageous for defendants to have attractive faces in swindle cases.Additionally,the detailed circumstances of different types of swindles(such as the blind date swindle and telecommunication swindle)may also affect the impact of facial features on legal decision-making.Meanwhile,previous studies have focused on the impact of attractiveness or trustworthiness on trial decisions independently.But examining one without controlling the other may produce confounding variables because there is an interaction between facial attractiveness and trustworthiness.Moreover,no consensus has been reached on gender differences of facial attractiveness in legal decision-making.Basing on the above three questions,the present study aimed to examine the effects of male and female defendants' facial features(attractiveness and trustworthiness)on simulated judicial decisions in two different swindles.We selected the following four categories of faces by manipulating facial attractiveness and trustworthiness simultaneously: the attractive and trustworthy face;the attractive but untrustworthy face;the unattractive but trustworthy face;and the unattractive and untrustworthy face.In Study 1,we examined the impact of facial attractiveness and trustworthiness of male defendants(Experiment 1)and female defendants(Experiment 2)on simulated penalty decisions(convictions and sentencing)in blind date swindles and the underlying cognitive mechanisms.We adapted a 2(attractiveness: high,low)* 2(trustworthiness: high,low)* 2(participant gender: male,female)between-subjects design in the two experiments.Participants in each experiment were randomly assigned to one of four conditions and were required to make a simulated conviction and sentencing judgment after reading the criminal case.We found a “beauty penalty” for physically attractive defendants among females in experiment 1.Specifically,female participants were more likely to make a guilty verdict to better-looking male defendants.Additionally,this “beauty-penalty effect” was merely observed in the untrustworthy condition.Additionally,we found that female participants tend to impose higher punishment intensity for the good-looking defendant.In general,we did find that facial attractiveness was an advantage for a male defendant when the mock jurors were female in Experiment 1.Experiment 2 revealed an interaction effect between facial attractiveness and trustworthiness when participants made confidence judgments.Specifically,when a face was untrustworthy,females were significantly more confident in convicting a defendant with an attractive face than those with an unattractive face.We did not find significant results in mock conviction and sentencing in Experiment 2.In Study 2,we examined the impact of facial attractiveness and trustworthiness of male defendants(Experiment 3)and female defendants(Experiment 4)on simulated penalty decisions(convictions and sentencing)and their cognitive mechanisms in a telecommunication swindle.No main or interaction effect of facial attractiveness and trustworthiness was found in Experiment 3.However,the facial trustworthiness,criminal appearance,and the disgust emotion could significantly predict sentencing decisions,demonstrating that the facial trustworthiness did have a “leniency-effect” in a telecommunication swindle.Further analysis of the mediation effect revealed that the disgust might partially mediate the relationship between facial trustworthiness and sentencing judgements.In Experiment 4,we did not find any main or interactive effect on facial attractiveness and trustworthiness in decision-making.However,facial attractiveness was significantly correlated with conviction judgements;disgust emotions evoked by the face significantly predicted sentencing decisions.Above all,these findings indicated that facial attractiveness and trustworthiness exert different influences on different swindles.First,we found a beauty-penalty effect in attractiveness-related cases—a blind date swindle.This might be because the romance-related criminal circumstances easily activated people's stereotypes that lead them to believe that the more attractive a defendant is,the more dangerous he might be in a romance-related swindle.Second,we found a leniency-effect of facial trustworthiness on criminal judgments by the male defendants in a telecommunication swindle.Moreover,exploratory analyses revealed that the disgust emotion evoked by the faces partially mediated the relationship between facial trustworthiness and the assignment of criminal penalties.Taken together,this study indicated that the effect of facial features on judicial decisions differed as the detailed criminal circumstances of the offenses and the gender of defendants changed,revealing the necessity of manipulating two facial features at the same time.