Criminal Practical

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Aim: To investigate whether people are biased by facial attractiveness when deciding how likely someone is to commit a crime.

Hypothesis: the attractiveness ratings will have an effect on the likelihood of crime ratings (non-directional)

Background

Halo Effect - the perceptions of attractiveness affect judgments tied to personality traits.

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Method/ Procedure

Survey with 5 images displaying a female face - asked to rate their likelihood of committing a crime on a scale of 1-10.

Next asked to rate their attractiveness on a scale of 1-10.

Repeated measures design

Consent form and debrief sheet

Pilot survey - asked 3 people for feedback

Then gave survey to 14 ppts selected using opportunity sampling at our school

Didn't tell them the aim of the experiment

Then using the data, we made a graph and did a Chi-square inferential test to establish a significant difference

Then drew conclusions

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Conclusions

The Chi Square showed no significant difference suggesting that attractiveness does not affect people's perceptions of someone's likelihood of committing a crime.

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Evaluation

Strengths

Lab experiment

Standardised procedure

High levels of control

Good application - JDM

Ethical

Weaknesses

Small sample - 14 ppts - opportunity sampling

Repeated measures - order effects - demand characteristics

Self-report = social desireability

Task is artificial - low mundane realism