Fictitious court cases involving rape and assault were presented to 98 college women to determine whether the tendency to deal harshly with alleged criminals is dependent upon certain personality characteristics of the mock jurors. Three measures of jurors' guilt were used to detect the presence or absence of such trends. Subjects scoring high on guilt dealt less harshly with alleged criminals than subjects low in guilt. This trend was consistent for all three independent scales of the Mosher Guilt Scales (sex guilt, hostility guilt, and morality guilt). It was concluded that those who tend to find fault with themsleves are sympathetic to the legal problems of others.
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