EFFECT OF ATTRACTIVENESS ON SEXUALLY COERCIVE TACTICS
2
ABSTRACT
THESIS: The Effect of a Defendant’s Physical Attractiveness on Mock Jurors’
Evaluations of Sexually Coercive Tactics
STUDENT: Teresa Colette Kulig
DEGREE: Master of Arts
COLLEGE: Psychological Science
DATE: July, 2012
PAGES: 37
Research has shown that attractive individuals are viewed more favorably than
unattractive counterparts across different types of criminal trials, contributing to the
belief that “what is beautiful is good” (Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972). However, this
research has not been replicated in cases involving sexually coercive tactics. In the
present experiment, participants read a case file that included one of two (attractive or
unattractive) digitally altered photographs of a defendant and one of two vignettes
(physical or verbal coercion). They then completed a questionnaire about the case. The
results indicated that more women than men found the defendant guilty, and jurors
assigned significantly longer sentences to the defendant in the physical tactic condition
than in the verbal tactic condition. In contrast to two of the hypotheses, the more
attractive defendant was evaluated more harshly than the unattractive defendant and an
interaction between attractiveness and tactic was not found.