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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Cognit.
Sec. Reason and Decision-Making
Volume 3 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcogn.2024.1430999
This article is part of the Research Topic Applying cognitive and social psychology to the legal system: What we know today and what is next View all 7 articles

Victim Impact Statements Limit the Effects of Perspective Taking on Juror Decisions

Provisionally accepted
Jeanine L. Skorinko Jeanine L. Skorinko 1*Sean Laurent Sean Laurent 2Emily Bendremer Emily Bendremer 1Kaitlyn Schneider Kaitlyn Schneider 1Valicia Hale Valicia Hale 1Alisionna Iannacchione Alisionna Iannacchione 1Melissa Paris Melissa Paris 1Gizem Demircioglu Gizem Demircioglu 1Kyla Wesley Kyla Wesley 1Julia LaValley Julia LaValley 1Angelica DeFreitas Angelica DeFreitas 1Jeremy Blumenthal Jeremy Blumenthal 3
  • 1 Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, United States
  • 2 The Pennsylvania State University (PSU), University Park, Pennsylvania, United States
  • 3 College of Law, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Past work suggests that victim impact statements (VIS) encourage jurors to take victims' perspectives, but this has not been explored empirically. Across four experiments (total N = 881), the present research examines the effects of perspective taking and the impact of the crime expressed in VIS on juror perceptions of defendants. In Experiment 1, mock jurors read a capital murder case that prompted them to perspective take (or not) and included VIS that was high or low in impact of the crime on the victims. Results indicate that the impact of the crime expressed in VIS influenced perceptions of culpability for the defendant, but perspective taking did not.Experiment 2 used an armed robbery case, and the results again showed that the higher impact in the VIS led to seeing the defendant as more culpable, but perspective taking did not. Experiment 3 examined whether the type of perspective taking mattered (imagining self vs. defendant) when VIS were also presented. Those using the self during perspective taking found the defendant less culpable compared to non-perspective takers. Experiment 4 examined whether priming perspective taking influenced decisions. While high-impact VIS resulted in greater death penalty sentences than low-impact VIS, priming perspective taking did not. Overall, the impact of the crime expressed in VIS typically influenced perceptions of defendants. In contrast, perspective taking had limited effects. These findings contribute to our understanding of VIS in the courtroom and may be useful for attorneys when presenting cases and advising clients.

    Keywords: victim impact statements, perspective taking, mock jurors, decision making, death penalty

    Received: 11 May 2024; Accepted: 31 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Skorinko, Laurent, Bendremer, Schneider, Hale, Iannacchione, Paris, Demircioglu, Wesley, LaValley, DeFreitas and Blumenthal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jeanine L. Skorinko, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.