Status, emotional displays, and the relationally-based evaluation of criminals and their behavior

Abstract

This research uses status characteristics theory to expand our knowledge of the effects of status variables (e.g., race, education) and emotional displays on the antecedents of sentencing – evaluations of offender dangerousness and offense seriousness. We present a theoretical formulation that combines three areas of status characteristics research – reward expectations, individual evaluative settings and valued personal characteristics. The result is a quantitative measure that aggregates relative differences in demographic and emotional characteristics between offenders and their victims. The significance of this expectation advantage measure (e) in predicting evaluations of offender dangerousness and offense severity is tested using data from a vignette study. We find empirical support that expectation advantage significantly predicts these sentencing antecedents but not sentencing outcomes directly. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for future status and criminological research.