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Belief in a Just World and Jury Decisions in a Civil Rape Trial
Author(s) -
Foley Linda A.,
Pigott Melissa A.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2000.tb02504.x
Subject(s) - plaintiff , blame , damages , just world hypothesis , jury , psychology , verdict , social psychology , jury trial , law , political science
When people's belief in a just world (BJW) is challenged, it can be restored by attributing blame to the victim or alleviating the victim's suffering. In criminal cases, jurors can attribute responsibility to victims, but cannot alleviate suffering. Participants ( n = 106) heard a taped civil rape case. The effect of age of plaintiff, gender of participant, and type of participant on mock jurors' reactions to a plaintiff were examined. Participants evaluated responsibility of plaintiff and awarded monetary damages. It was hypothesized that, given this opportunity to compensate the victim, jurors would be less likely to derogate the victim. As hypothesized, women with high and low BJW attributed the same level of responsibility to the plaintiff but those with a high BJW awarded more monetaly damages. Men with high BJW awarded much less in damages than did men with low BJW. The just‐world theory appears to explain many of the decisions made by mock jurors.