| Abstract [eng] |
Prison sentencing decisions can be made on the basis of previously considered numerical values and lead to a bias known as the anchoring effect. However, it is yet unclear which psychological processes lie behind the manifestation of the anchoring effect in different situations. The aim of this paper was to investigate the issues raised in today's anchoring research literature and to assess the impact of numerical values presented which can become anchors in making a prison sentencing decision. To achieve this goal, an experiment with law students (N = 122) was conducted. Participants age ranged from 19 to 38 years (M = 22.87, SD = 0.36), 14 participants did not indicate their age. The study involved 67 women and 49 men, with 6 participants not disclosing their gender. Participants were asked to take part in the role of a judge, to get acquainted with the circumstances of the case, and to make a criminal sentencing decision. The results show that the given sentence does not differ when the participants are presented with anchors by a different procedure: with and without a comparative question. When comparing the occurrence of the anchor effect by manipulating the credibility of the anchor's source the differences in sentencing are found when the lawyer and the assistant lawyer are presenting a low anchor. When examining the anchoring effect by presenting two sequential anchors, it was found that, when the difference between the anchors was larger, the sentence imposed by the participants was similar, but when the difference was smaller, given sentences differed. To assess whether there are differences in the manifestation of the anchor effect when participants experienced sadness or compassion, it was found that sentencing decisions vary when participants more or less felt compassion but not sadness. |
