When students suggest sentences for criminal offenders, do they rely more heavily on the harmfulness or on the wrongfulness
of the offender's conduct? In Study 1, 116 Princeton University undergraduates rated the harmfulness and wrongfulness of,
and suggested appropriate sentences for, a series of crimes. As expected, participants emphasized wrongfulness when choosing
an appropriate criminal punishment. In Study 2, 33 Princeton undergraduates made similar ratings for violations of the University
Honor Code, and rated their contempt for fabricated amendments to the Code that required sentencers to focus either only on
harmfulness or only on wrongfulness. Again, sentences more closely reflected wrongfulness ratings, and participants were more
contemptuous of the harmfulness-based proposal. We also consider the theoretical and practical implications of these findings
for sentencing laws and policy.
Keywords Psychology - Sentencing - Criminal law
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