PSYX320_paper2

Running head: ATTRACTIVENESS AND PUNISHMENT 1
Effects of Attractiveness on Length of Punishment in Differing Crime-Type
Brianna D. Burgess
University of Montana

ATTRACTIVNESS AND PUNISHMENT 2
Abstract
The present investigation evaluated the effects that offender attractiveness has on judgment of
punishment in a swindle or burglary crime. Eighteen psychology students at the University of
Montana participated in a 3 x 2 mixed-subjects experiment across two days. Participants were
asked to assign a man suspected of stealing a large sum of money to a prison sentence between
1-15 years. The level of attractiveness was manipulated between subjects (attractive,
unattractive, control) and judgement of punishment was recorded for each crime (swindle and
burglary). Multiple ANOVAs were conducted and found no statistically significant effects or
interactions between attractiveness and offense type. This finding is inconsistent with previous
research examining the effects of defendant characteristics on juridic decisions (Sigall &
Ostrove, 1975), suggesting a variable effect of attractiveness on punishment length.
Keywords: attractiveness, punishment, crime, personality, judgment

Effects of Attractiveness on Length of Punishment in Differing Crime-Type
Throughout the social scientific world, a particular phenomenon called the “beauty bias”
has puzzled psychologists for decades. For many years it has been observed that beautiful
people seem to do better in life in a variety of areas compared to their less attractive counterparts.
Beautiful people find more success in their careers, finances, marriages, and other personal
relationships. It seems that beautiful people often tend to be more intelligent and possess a
plethora of other pleasing characteristics. As noted in Sigall and Ostrove (1975), good-looking
people seem to have greater potential in the eyes of unrelated individuals. Assuming that
attractiveness is indeed related to judgment about future success, what happens when an
attractive person is brought to trial for a crime? We seek to find out if an attractive offender
would receive a more lenient sentence compared to a less attractive offender for the same crime.
In order to further tease this question apart, this study aims to determine if attractiveness leads to
a harsher sentence for a crime that is related to attractiveness and if the opposite is true for a
crime that is attractiveness-unrelated.
Sigall and Ostrove (1975) addressed this proposition by conducting an experiment that
sought to support a “cognitive explanation for the relationship between the physical
attractiveness of defendants and the nature of the judgments made against them.” Specifically,
Sigall and Ostrove (1975) hypothesized that attractive people would receive a more lenient
sentence for a crime unrelated to attractiveness (burglary) and a harsher sentence for a crime
related to attractiveness (swindle). Sigall and Ostrove (1975) believed that attractive people
receive a harsher sentence for a swindle offense because they use their good-looks as a way to
advance an agenda and manipulate people. Potential jurors see the behavior of beautiful people
in instances such as these as worse than unattractive people committing the same crime.

In a similar experiment, Dion (1972) had adult participants read accounts of
transgressions committed by attractive and unattractive children. When the misbehavior was
more severe, participants viewed the transgression less negatively when committed by an
attractive child. On the other hand, less severe transgressions were viewed more negatively
when committed by unattractive children. Such a finding supports the idea of a “beauty bias”,
but what happens when an attractive individual is believed to have committed a crime against
someone unsuspecting by using their good-looks to their advantage?
A study by Michelini and Snodgrass (1980) furthered the evidence from juridic research
by conducting a study that examined the influence of extralegal factors on juridic decision-
making based on two separate, but complementary hypotheses. They looked to the cognitive
hypothesis proposed by Sigall and Ostrove (1975) and the liking-leniency hypothesis proposed
by Efran (1974). Sigall and Ostrove (1975) assumed that “information about a person is used to
infer whether his/her actions are intended and characteristic” (Michelini & Snodgrass, 1980).
Efran (1974), on the other hand, provided evidence that juridic decisions can be influenced by
sentiment toward the defendant (Michelini & Snodgrass, 1980).
If attractive people tend to receive lenient sentences in the wake of a crime that can be
effectively committed by anyone, like a burglary, we hypothesize that an attractive person will
receive a harsher sentence when committing a crime that uses their good-looks as a tool of
manipulation, in accordance with previous research on the subject.

Method
Participants
Eighteen psychology students at the University of Montana were recruited as part of an
in-class assignment to participate in an experiment examining the effects of offender
attractiveness on judgement of punishment. Participants’ identities were concealed using a
randomly assigned subject identification number.
Materials and Design
This study employed a 3 x 2 mixed-subjects experimental design. The first factor of this
experiment represented the three within-subjects conditions of attractiveness. Condition 1 was
given a picture of an attractive man, condition 2 included a picture of an unattractive man, and
condition 3 (control) did not include a picture. The photos used in the study were taken from the
FBI website, for condition 1 and 2 the man in the photos is the same, but one is the most
attractive photo of that person and the other is the least attractive photo. The second factor
represented two between-subjects conditions of crime type, either swindle or burglary.
Participants were randomly assigned to the three conditions of attractiveness and were tested on
two separate occasions over the span of one week.
Procedure
Two independent variables were manipulated through this experiment; level of
attractiveness and offense type. The measured dependent variable was the length of punishment
(in years) that participants sentenced to the offender. On the first day of the experiment,
participants were randomly assigned to one of three levels of attractiveness (attractive,
unattractive, control). They received a sheet of paper that provided a small biography and

picture of a man named Justin Helm. Below the photo was a brief synopsis of a swindle
committed by the man (all participants received the swindle offense on day one). Mr. Helm was
suspected to have taken $22,000 dollars from an associate. Participants were instructed to read
the story and make a judgment of guilt by assigning the man a criminal sentence between 1-15
years in prison. Two days after participating in the swindle condition, subjects were then given
the same story of Justin Helm, but the offense was switched from a swindle to burglary. Each
participant remained in the same attractiveness condition for the second part of the experiment in
order to compare the difference between judgments of punishment as a function of attractiveness.
These two offenses were used because a swindle can be seen as an attractiveness-related crime,
whereas burglary is assumed to be unrelated to attractiveness. Sentence length data were
compiled for both levels of the experiment for each of three conditions.
Results
The mean length of criminal sentences in years for the swindle offense for conditions 1,
2, and 3 was 6.50, 5.67, and 8.33, respectively. A one-way ANOVA was conducted resulting in
F(2, 15) = 0.58, p > .05. This test of significance failed to reject the null hypothesis. As a result,
it can be said that attractiveness does not have a significant effect on judgment of criminal
sentences when the offense is attractiveness-related.
On the other hand, the mean length of criminal sentences in years for the burglary
offense for conditions 1, 2, and 3 was 6.83, 6.00, and 7.33, respectively. A one-way ANOVA
was conducted resulting in F(2, 15) = 0.17, p > .05. This test of significance also failed to reject
the null hypothesis. As a result, it can be said that attractiveness does not have a significant
effect on judgment of criminal sentences when the offense is unrelated to attractiveness.

Because this experiment employed a factorial design, we were interested in any main
effects or interactions. The first main effect was tested by statistically averaging the mean
sentence lengths (in years) for each condition of attractiveness across the two different offenses.
We found that the mean sentence lengths for the attractive condition was 6.67 years and 5.83
years for the unattractive condition (control data omitted). As a result, it can be said that there is
not a significant difference in sentence lengths between the attractive and unattractive offender in
both the swindle and burglary offense. This assumes that one’s level of attractiveness does not
influence their punishment when convicted for a crime that is related to attractiveness and one
that is attractiveness-unrelated.
A subsequent test for a main effect of crime type was performed and the mean sentence
length for the swindle condition was 6.83 years and 6.72 years for the burglary condition. There
is no statistically significant difference between these two crimes, assuming that potential jurors
are likely to assign similar sentences for people who commit crimes where taking money is the
primary goal, regardless of the mode of obtaining it.
Finally, when comparing attractiveness as a function of crime, an interaction was
suspected but not found. It appears that the influence of attractiveness is not dependent on the
influence of crime type. This finding fails to support our hypothesis that attractive people find
harsher punishment for crimes related to attractiveness.
Discussion
Our results do not indicate an interaction between attractiveness and type of crime. We
found a small but insignificant increase in punishment length for the swindle crime from
participants in the attractive photo condition compared to the unattractive condition. The results

of the control (no photo) condition were not provided in our analysis results. There was also a
small but insignificant increase in punishment length for the burglary crime from participants in
the attractive condition. Although not statistically significant, it is interesting that participants
tended to assign slightly harsher punishment for the attractive offender regardless of the type of
crime which seems to contradict the logic behind the “beauty bias.”
The present investigation intended to replicate the findings of Sigall and Ostrove (1975)
with a slight design modification. The original paper by Sigall and Ostrove (1975) provides
evidence that an interaction between attractiveness and type of crime exists. Their experiment
utilized a complete between-subjects design whereas our study used a mixed-subject design. The
design modification may have contributed to our inability to replicate the findings by Sigall and
Ostrove (1975).
We specifically changed the design to increase the power of our study. We assumed that
assigning the attractiveness conditions to different participants and then having the same subjects
participate in both the attractiveness-related and attractiveness-unrelated crimes would minimize
any confounding variables between judgments of punishment. The design manipulation left us
with no statistically significant main effects or interactions between attractiveness and offense-
type.
Beyond the effect of the design modification, our failure to replicate the findings of Sigall
and Ostrove (1975) could be due to a variety of limitations. In addition, Sigall and Ostrove
(1975) interpreted their results according to a cognitive hypothesis that assumes that potential
jurors use “knowledge of a defendant’s traits to determine if he/she did act criminally and is
likely to do so again.” (Michelini & Snodgrass, 1980). However, information about a defendant’s

traits are suspected to only influence jurors’ judgments if the characteristics are considered
relevant to the deviant behavior that is being sentenced. It is possible that the hypothetical
crimes in this study (swindle and burglary) are not effectively influenced by an offender’s
attractiveness.
Another explanation for our failure to reject the null hypothesis in this study could be due
to the lack of specific instructions for participants to examine the photo before reading the story
about the crime. We did not include explicit directions for participants to study the photo to
prevent them from catching on to the nature of the experiment and thereby biasing the results.
Another possibility is that the subjective nature of attractiveness could have influenced
judgments of punishment by participants. However, the two photos used in the study were very
obviously attractive and unattractive, so this confound is unlikely.
In order to determine which study provides better evidence for a cognitive explanation
for the relationship between attractiveness and judgment of punishment, further research is
necessary. It would be beneficial to replicate Sigall and Ostrove (1975) using the exact design
and procedure and then replicate the same experiment using our design. The possibility that
differences in judgment of punishment is simply due to confounding variables is important to
examine. The conflicting evidence provided by a number of social psychologists presents a
unique challenge to examining the effect of defendant characteristics on juridic judgments.
In conclusion, attractive people may have an advantage in some areas of life. When it
comes to success in relationships and finances, good-looking folks tend to do better in these
areas. The beauty bias, as explained above, relates good-looks to other positive characteristics in
life. Unrelated individuals tend to assign greater potential to attractive people than unattractive

people in a variety of areas. Taking this assumption and applying it to deviant behavior seems to
provide an inverse relationship. Some previous research indicates that attractive defendants
receive harsher punishment for certain crimes and more lenient punishment for other crime. An
equal amount of other research suggests that there is no meaningful interaction between
attractiveness and crime type. The only way to gain a better understanding of this interesting
phenomena is to conduct additional research seeking to replicate the findings that suggest a
meaningful effect of defendant characteristics on juridic judgments.

References
Dion, K. K. (1972). Physical attractiveness and evaluation of children's transgressions. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 24(2), 207-213.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0033372
Dion, K., Berscheid, E., & Walster, E. (1972). What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 24(3), 285-290. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0033731
Efran, M. G. (1974). The effect of physical appearance on the judgment of guilt, interpersonal
attraction, and severity of recommended punishment in a simulated jury task. Journal of
Research in Personality, 8(1), 45-54.
Michelini, R. L., & Snodgrass, S. R. (1980). Defendant characteristics and juridic decisions.
Journal of Research in Personality, 14(3), 340-350. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0092-
6566(80)90017-3
Sigall, H., & Ostrove, N. (1975). Beautiful but dangerous: Effects of offender attractiveness and
nature of the crime on juridic judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
31(3), 410-414. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0076472

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