TY - JOUR
T1 - When Hurt Heroes Do Harm
T2 - Collective Guilt and Leniency toward War-Veteran Defendants with PTSD
AU - Jay, Alexander C.V.
AU - Salerno, Jessica
AU - Ross, Robert C.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law.
PY - 2018/1/2
Y1 - 2018/1/2
N2 - Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are at heightened risk for interfacing with the United States legal system as criminal defendants. Two experiments were used to test the hypothesis that American mock jurors would punish a veteran (vs. a civilian) with PTSD for a violent crime less harshly because of their own collective guilt (i.e., the guilt felt for the transgressions of one's in-group) about the veteran's suffering due to war. The participants were United States citizens recruited online (n = 174) who completed a mock-juror experiment involving a violent assault committed by either a veteran or a civilian with PTSD. As predicted, jurors were more lenient toward the veteran (vs. the civilian). For male mock jurors this was explained by their collective guilt for the veteran's war-related suffering. A second study experimentally induced individual and collective guilt about veteran defendants, finding that mock jurors (n = 533) who are less likely to share a salient in-group identity with the veteran (i.e., women, people with lower national identification with the United States) can be induced to feel the requisite guilt to exhibit leniency toward a veteran. Thus, veterans suffering from PTSD may receive more lenient punishment because they elicit a sense of collective guilt in legal decision-makers.
AB - Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are at heightened risk for interfacing with the United States legal system as criminal defendants. Two experiments were used to test the hypothesis that American mock jurors would punish a veteran (vs. a civilian) with PTSD for a violent crime less harshly because of their own collective guilt (i.e., the guilt felt for the transgressions of one's in-group) about the veteran's suffering due to war. The participants were United States citizens recruited online (n = 174) who completed a mock-juror experiment involving a violent assault committed by either a veteran or a civilian with PTSD. As predicted, jurors were more lenient toward the veteran (vs. the civilian). For male mock jurors this was explained by their collective guilt for the veteran's war-related suffering. A second study experimentally induced individual and collective guilt about veteran defendants, finding that mock jurors (n = 533) who are less likely to share a salient in-group identity with the veteran (i.e., women, people with lower national identification with the United States) can be induced to feel the requisite guilt to exhibit leniency toward a veteran. Thus, veterans suffering from PTSD may receive more lenient punishment because they elicit a sense of collective guilt in legal decision-makers.
KW - collective guilt
KW - jury decision-making
KW - punishment
KW - veteran
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U2 - 10.1080/13218719.2017.1364616
DO - 10.1080/13218719.2017.1364616
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85029428049
SN - 1321-8719
VL - 25
SP - 32
EP - 58
JO - Psychiatry, Psychology and Law
JF - Psychiatry, Psychology and Law
IS - 1
ER -