Collaborative Research: Victim Impact Statements in Capital Trials: Examining the Differential Influence of Anger and Sadness on Juror Sentencing Decisions

合作研究：死刑审判中的受害者影响陈述：检验愤怒和悲伤对陪审员量刑决定的不同影响

• 批准号: 0851004
• 负责人: Narina Nunez
• 金额: $ 30.34万
• 依托单位: University of Wyoming
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-06-01 至 2013-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0851004&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Victim; Impact; Statements

The U.S. Supreme Court has warned that the inflammatory nature of victim impact statements (VIS) could lead to capricious sentencing judgments and the purpose of the research is to examine conditions under which the emotional VIS affects sentencing decisions in capital cases. Basic research on emotion suggests that negative emotions do not uniformly affect decision making. While anger can reduce depth of information processing and promote biased decisions, sadness can promote systematic processing and facilitate objective decision making. Thus, the potential for VIS to influence juror sentencing decisions might depend on whether jurors experience sadness or anger in response to VIS. The first study examines VIS from actual capital cases. For descriptive analyses, method of VIS delivery, number length of VIS testimony, and emotional content of VIS will be examined. Content analysis of VIS will be done to assess the emotions typically expressed by victims, and whether angry or sad VIS predicts sentencing decisions. The second study manipulates sadness and anger (using VIS obtained in Study 1) and measures the effect of these specific emotions on sentencing decisions and information.Little research has examined the effects of specific negative emotions on juror information processing and decision making. The results of these studies will contribute to basic theory on the effects of emotions on decision making. Furthermore, results will inform the applied field of psycho-legal science and aid in understanding of how non-legal factors influence jury decision making.Results will shed light on how and when victim impact statements lead to biased decisions, and may provide the courts with information to guide how they accept VIS in their jurisdictions. Research results will be disseminated broadly, and a large database of capital sentencing transcripts will be created and made available to other researchers.

美国最高法院警告说，受害者影响陈述（维斯）的煽动性可能导致反复无常的量刑判决，这项研究的目的是检查情感维斯影响死刑案件量刑决定的条件。对情绪的基础研究表明，负面情绪并不总是影响决策。虽然愤怒会降低信息处理的深度，促进有偏见的决策，但悲伤可以促进系统处理，促进客观决策。因此，维斯影响陪审员量刑决定的潜力可能取决于陪审员对维斯的反应是悲伤还是愤怒。第一项研究审查了实际死刑案件中的维斯。对于描述性分析，将检查维斯交付方法、维斯证词的数量长度和维斯的情感内容。将对维斯进行内容分析，以评估受害者通常表达的情绪，以及愤怒或悲伤的维斯是否能预测量刑决定。第二个研究操纵悲伤和愤怒（使用研究1中获得的维斯），并测量这些特定的情绪对量刑决定和信息的影响。这些研究的结果将有助于情绪对决策影响的基础理论。此外，研究结果将告知心理法律科学的应用领域，并帮助了解非法律因素如何影响陪审团的决策。研究结果将阐明受害者影响陈述如何以及何时导致有偏见的决定，并可能为法院提供信息，指导他们如何在其管辖范围内接受维斯。研究结果将广泛传播，并将建立一个关于死刑判决记录的大型数据库，供其他研究人员使用。