Punishment without reason: Isolating retribution in lay punishment of criminal offenders

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law

Volumn 18, Issue 4, 2012, Pages 599-625

  Aharoni, Eyal ^a   Fridlund, Alan J ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Deterrence; Heuristic; Intention; Moral reasoning; Punishment; Retribution; Sentencing

Indexed keywords

EID: 84874724915     PISSN: 10768971     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1037/a0025821     Document Type: Article

References (75)

1. Aguiar, F., Brañas-Garza, P., & Miller, L. M. (2008). Moral distance in dictator games. Judgment and Decision Making, 3, 344-354. http://journal.sjdm.org/.
2. Aharoni, E. (2009). Why do we punish? Studies of lay judgments against criminal offenders. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Psychology, UCSB. Santa Barbara, CA.
3. Baron, J., & Ritov, I. (1994). Reference points and omission bias. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 59, 475-498. doi:10.1006/obhd.1994.1070.
4. Baron, R., & Richardson, D. (1994). Human aggression. New York, NY: Plenum Press.
5. Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.51.6.1173.
6. Beccaria, C. (1986). On crimes and punishments, (D. Young, Trans.) Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. (Original work published in 1764).
7. Bentham, J. (1789/1988). An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation, New York, NY: Prometheus Books.
8. Bickle, G., & Peterson, R. (1991). The impact of gender-based family roles on criminal sentencing. Social Problems, 38, 372-394. doi:10.1525/sp.1991.38.3.03a00050.
9. Blum West, S. R. (1985). The seriousness of crime: A study of popular morality. Deviant Behavior, 6, 83-98. doi:10.1080/01639625.1985.9967661.
10. Bohm, R. (1992). Retribution and capital punishment: Toward a better understanding of death penalty opinion. Journal of Criminal Justice, 20, 227-236. doi:10.1016/0047-2352(92)90047-D.
11. Bornstein, B. H. (1999). The ecological validity of jury simulations: Is the jury still out? Law and Human Behavior, 23, 75-91. doi:10.1023/A:1022326807441.
12. Brehm, J. W., & Himelick Cole, A. (1966). Effect of a favor which reduces freedom. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3, 420-426. doi:10.1037/h0023034.
13. Brehm, J. W., & Mann, M. (1975). Effect importance of freedom and attraction to group members on influence produced by group pressure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 816-824. doi:10.1037/h0076691.
14. Carlsmith, K. M. (2006). The roles of retribution and utility in determining punishment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 437-451. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2005.06.007.
15. Carlsmith, K. M., Darley, J. M., & Robinson, P. H. (2002). Why do we punish? Deterrence and Just Deserts as motives for punishment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 284-299. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.83.2.284.
16. Chen, M. K., & Shapiro, J. M. (2007). Do harsher prison conditions reduce recidivism? A discontinuity-based approach. American Law and Economics Review, 9, 1-29. doi:10.1093/aler/ahm006.
17. Cid, J. (2009). Is imprisonment criminogenic? A comparative study of recidivism rates between prison and suspended prison sanctions. European Journal of Criminology, 6, 459-480. doi:10.1177/1477370809341128.
18. Costanzo, P. R., Coie, J. D., Grumet, J. F., & Farnill, D. A. (1973). Reexamination of the effects of intent and consequences of children's moral judgments. Child Development, 44, 154-161. doi:10.2307/1127693.
19. Cottingham, J. (1979). Varieties of retribution. The Philosophical Quarterly, 29, 238-246. doi:10.2307/2218820, doi: 10.2307/2218820.
20. Daly, K., & Bordt, R. (1995). Sex effects and sentencing: An analysis of the statistical literature. Justice Quarterly, 12, 43-177. doi:10.1080/07418829500092601.
21. Daly, M., & Wilson, M. (1988). Homicide. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.
22. Darley, J. M., Carlsmith, K. M., & Robinson, P. H. (2000). Incapacitation and just deserts as motives for punishment. Law and Human Behavior, 24, 659-683. doi:10.1023/ A:1005552203727.
23. Darley, J. M., Klosson, E. C., & Zanna, M. P. (1978). Intentions and their contexts in the moral judgments of children and adults. Child Development, 49, 66-74. doi:10.2307/ 1128594.
24. Denes-Raj, V., & Epstein, S. (1994). Conflict between intuitive and rational processing: When people behave against their better judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 819-829. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.66.5.819.
25. Dillard, J., & Shen, L. (2005). On the nature of reactance and its role in persuasive health communication. Communication Monographs, 72, 144-168. doi:10.1080/ 03637750500111815.
26. Garner, B. A. (Ed.). (2004). Black's law dictionary, 8. St. Paul, MN: West.
27. Gazzaniga, M. S. (1998). The mind's past. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
28. Gazzaniga, M. S. (2000). Cerebral specialization and interhemispheric communication: Does the corpus callosum enable the human condition? Brain, 123, 1293-1326. doi:10.1093/brain/123.7.1293.
29. Geen, R. (1968). Effects of frustration, attack and prior training in aggressiveness upon aggressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9, 316-321. doi:10.1037/h0026054.
30. Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P. M., & the ABC Research Group. (1999). Simple heuristics that make us smart. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
31. Gilovich, T., & Douglas, C. (1986). Biased evaluations of randomly determined gambling outcomes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 22, 228-241. doi:10.1016/ 0022-1031(86)90026-0.
32. Greene, J., & Cohen, J. (2004). For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, 359, 1775-1785.
33. Greene, J. D., Nystrom, L. E., Engell, A. D., Darley, J. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2004). The neural bases of cognitive conflict and control in moral judgment. Neuron, 44, 389-400. doi:10.1016/j.neuron. 2004.09.027.
34. Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral Judgment. Science, 293, 2105-2108. doi:10.1126/science.1062872.
35. Greenwell, J., & Dengerink. H. (1973). The role of perceived versus actual attack in human physical aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 26, 66-71. doi:10.1037/h0034223.
36. Grogger, J. (1991). Certainty vs. severity of punishment. Economic Inquiry, 29, 297-309. doi:10.1111/j. 1465-7295.1991.tb01272.x.
37. Haggard, P. (2005). Conscious intention and motor cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 290-295. doi:10.1016/j.tics. 2005.04.012.
38. Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108, 814-834. doi:10.1037/0033-295X. 108.4.814.
39. Haidt, J., Bjorklund, F., & Murphy, S. (2000). Moral dumbfounding: When intuition finds no reason. (Unpublished manuscript, University of Virginia).
40. Haley, K. J., & Fessler, D. M. T. (2005). Nobody's watching? Subtle cues affect generosity in an anonymous economic game. Evolution and Human Behavior, 26, 245-256. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2005.01.002.
41. Hamilton, V., & Rytina, S. (1980). Social consensus on norms of justice: Should the punishment fit the crime? American Journal of Sociology, 85, 1117-1144. doi: 10.1086/227127.
42. Harlow, R. E., Darley, J. M., & Robinson, P. H. (1995). The severity of intermediate penal sanctions: A psychophysical scaling approach for obtaining community perceptions. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 11, 71-95. doi:10.1007/BF02221301.
43. Intercollegiate Studies Institute. (2009). The shaping of the American mind: The diverging influences of the college degree & civic learning on American beliefs. Wilmington, DE: American Civil Literacy Program.
44. Janis, I. L. (1972). Victims of groupthink: A psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes. Oxford, England, U.K.: Houghton Mifflin.
45. Kant, I. (1952). Kant's critique of judgment, (J. C. Meredith, Trans.) Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press. (Original work published in 1790).
46. Kant, I. (1998). Kant's groundwork of the metaphysics of morals: Critical essays. P. Guyer (Ed.). Lantham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. (Original work published in 1785).
47. Karniol, R. (1978). Children's use of intention cues in evaluating behavior. Psychology Bulletin, 85, 76-85. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.85.1.76.
48. Keller, L. B., Oswald, M. E., Stucki, I., & Gollwitzer, M. (2010). A closer look at an eye for an eye: Laypersons' punishment decisions are primarily driven by retributive motives. Social Justice Research, 23, 99-116. doi:10.1007/s11211-010-0113-4.
49. Kurzban, R., DeScioli, P., & O'Brien, E. (2007). Audience effects on moralistic punishment. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 75-84. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2006.06.001.
50. Lepper, C. A., Anders, M. R., & Ross, L. (1980). Perseverance of social theories: The role of explanation in the persistence of discredited information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1037-1049. doi:10.1037/h0077720.
51. McCullough, M. E. (2008). Beyond revenge: The evolution of the forgiveness instinct. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
52. McFatter, R. (1982). Purposes of punishment: Effects of utilities of criminal sanctions on perceived appropriateness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67, 255-267. doi:10.1037/ 0021-9010.67.3.255.
53. Miller, D. T., & Vidmar, N. (1981). The social psychology of punishment reactions. In M. Lerner and S. Lerner (Eds.), The justice motive in social behavior. Model Penal Code § 1.02(2) (1962).
54. Monahan, J., & Hood, G. L. (1976). Psychologically disordered and criminal offenders: Perceptions of their volition and responsibility. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 3, 123-133. doi:10.1177/009385487600300202.
55. Moore, M. (1997). Placing blame. New York, NY: Clarendon Press.
56. Packer, H. L. (1968). The limits of the criminal sanction (pp. 19-23). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
57. Piaget, J. (1948). The moral judgment of the child. New York, NY: Free Press.
58. Piazza, J. (2008). The effects of perceived anonymity on altruistic punishment. Evolutionary Psychology, 6, 487-501.
59. Price, M., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2002). Punitive sentiment as an anti-free rider psychological device. Evolution and Human Behavior, 23, 203-231. doi:10.1016/ s1090-5138(01)00093-9.
60. Rappaport, A. (2003). Rationalizing the commission: The philosophical premises of the U.S. sentencing guidelines. Emory Law Journal, 52, 557-652. http://www.law.emory.edu/index.php?id=4158.
61. Robinson, P. H., & Darley, J. M. (1995). Justice, liability, and blame (pp. 14-28). Boulder, CO: Westview Press, Inc.
62. Robinson, P. H., & Darley, J. M. (1997). The utility of desert. Northwestern University Law Review, 91, 453-499. http://www.law.northwestern.edu/lawreview/.
63. Rose, G., & Ogloff, J. (2001). Evaluating the comprehensibility of jury instructions: A method and an example. Law and Human Behavior, 25, 409-431. doi:10.1023/A: 1010659703309.
64. Rucker, D., Polifroni, M., Tetlock, P., & Scott, A. (2004). On the assignment of punishment: The impact of general-societal threat and the moderating role of severity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 673-684. doi:10.1177/ 0146167203262849.
65. Steffensmeier, D., Kramer, J. H., & Streifel, C. (1993). Gender and imprisonment decisions. Criminology, 31, 411-446. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.1993.tb01136.x.
66. Sunstein, C. R., Schkade, D., & Kahneman, D. (2000). Do people want optimal deterrence? The Journal of Legal Studies, 29, 237-253. doi:10.1086/468069.
67. Surber, C. F. (1977). Developmental processes in social inference: Averaging of intentions and consequences in moral judgment. Developmental Psychology, 13, 654-665. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.13.6.654.
68. Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35-57. doi:10.1086/406755.
69. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124-1131.
70. Tyler, T. R., & Boeckmann, R. J. (1997). Three strikes and you are out, but why? The psychology of public support for punishing rule breakers. Law and Society Review, 31, 237-265. doi:10.2307/3053926.
71. Vidmar, N. (2000). Retribution and revenge. In J. Sanders J. & V. L. Hamilton (Eds.), Handbook of justice research in law. New York, NY: Kluwer/Plenum Press.
72. Viney, W., Parker-Martin, P., & Dotten, S. D. H. (1988). Beliefs in free will and determinism and lack of relation to punishment rationale and magnitude, The Journal of General Psychology, 115, 15-23. doi:10.1080/00221309.1988.9711084.
73. Warr, M., Meier, R., & Erickson, M. (1983). Norms, theories of punishment, and publicly preferred penalties for crimes. The Sociological Quarterly, 24, 75-91. doi:10.1111/ j.1533-8525.1983.tb02229.x.
74. White, G. F. (1975). Public responses to hypothetical crimes: Effect of offender and victim status and seriousness of the offense on punitive reactions. Social Forces, 53, 411-419. doi:10.2307/2576583.
75. Wilson, D., & O'Gorman, R. (2003). Emotions and actions associated with norm-breaking events. Human Nature, 14, 277-304. doi:10.1007/s12110-003-1007-z.