Evaluating and Sentencing a Defendant as a Function of His Salience and the Perceiver's Set

Abstract

A videotaped mock trial was employed to examine the effects of perceivers' cognitive set and the salience of a defendant upon perceivers' evaluations and sentencing of him. Cognitive set influenced both the range and the direction of salience effects. The defendant was seen as more responsible for the crime by perceivers who were set to watch a trial and to determine his guilt than by those who were set to watch a social interaction and to form an impression of him. Given a trial set, the more visibly salient the defendant, the more negatively he was evaluated. However, the defendant's salience did not influence the recommended sentence. Given an impression set, the more visibly salient the defendant, the more positively he was evaluated, and the more lenient the recommended sentence.

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