An Investigation into the Effects of Race on the...

An Investigation into the Effects of Race on the Perception of Guilt Abstract The aim is the see whether people are more likely to find a black man guilty of a crime. Having found both a black man and a white man of middle attractiveness out of a choice of 10 photos picked from magazines, subjects were read a short account of a crime and rated the guilt of the offender on a scale of 0 to 10 (with 0 being not guilty). I used subjects aged between 11 and 18, all were Caucasian and attended Sevenoaks School. I used 75 subjects in total. They were shown either the picture of the black man, the picture of the white man or no picture as a control. The results showed that the black man was†¦show more content†¦This physical appearance generates other judgements about a persons personality. In 1933 Katz and Braly conducted an experiment into ethnic stereotypes. They asked Princeton University students to indicate which 5 words out of 84 they would associate with 10 different ethnic groups. If more than 75% of students associated a characteristic with one g roup it was considered a stereotype. Blacks were stereotyped as lazy, immoral, dishonest and given to crimes of violence. This experiment is criticised because it lacks reliability and relevance to modern society. It was conducted in 1933 in America, we live in another century and society has developed enormously. Gilbert repeated the experiment in 1951 and Karlins in 1969 and in each subsequent experiment the stereotypes were significantly weaker. When this experiment is repeated it produces different results and so is unreliable. Subjects showed increasing reluctance to participate because they were less willing to express stereotypes. This is relevant in my experiment because I want to see if whites consider blacks as more likely criminals. I believe that certain social stereotypes still exist at a subconscious level but that people are less willing to express these stereotypes. The Howard League, a prison reform group, published an article in the London Metro on the 22nd of March 2000 titled Justice isShow MoreRelatedWhat Factors Influence Jury Decision Making?1326 Words   |  6 Pagespersonally relevant reason to confirm a hypothesis, people seem to favor confirmation as the default testing strategy. Further hypothesized that the preference for confirming evidence is influenced by two main factors, Facts v. Perception. Let’s begin with the perception, a study of 24 students in favor of the death penalty and another 24 against were selected, these participants were asked a short amount of research reports. 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