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Effects of theft stereotype on bystander recall, interpretation, and punishment for male and female juvenile thieves
Author(s) -
Shapiro Lauren R.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.3842
Subject(s) - bystander effect , psychology , punishment (psychology) , intimidation , recall , social psychology , interpretation (philosophy) , stereotype (uml) , juvenile , criminology , poison control , injury prevention , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , medical emergency , medicine , biology , computer science , genetics , programming language
Summary Sex disparities in the incidence‐arrest statistics for juvenile thieves may stem from preconceived stereotypes impacting bystanders' social‐cognitive processing of a bicycle theft. After reading vignettes describing a bicycle theft, bystanders' reliance on male‐as‐juvenile‐thief stereotypes enhanced their recall of crime and appearance features for the male thief and in their interpretation of his intimidation of a child victim. Bystander sex also affected the results by enhancing appearance recall for the same sex thief. Women interpreted the intentions of the adolescent thieves as stealing, whereas men interpreted the intentions as borrowing. Bystanders endorsed the decision for the father to bring the stolen bicycle to the attention of the police, especially when the victim was a girl, and agreed the police should be involved. The bystanders would be credible witnesses as they could provide the actus reus and mens rea to support a case of larceny‐theft and describe the thief.