Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Crime--Public opinion--Regional disparities; Sentences (Criminal procedure)--Attitudes--Regional disparities; Academic theses;
Abstract
Dynamic social impact theory (DSIT; Latane, 1996) suggests that social influence leads to four phenomena: clustering (regional differences in attitudes), correlation (emergent relationships between attitudes), consolidation (reduction in attitude variance), and continuing diversity (whereby minority opinions persist). These phenomena have been shown in a variety of settings (Harton & Bourgeois, 2004; Harton & Bullock, 2007), but geographic clustering in attitudes about crime have not been examined. These attitudes have the potential to affect a verdict in a trial if a defendant has a change of venue to a different area of the state or the country. Two datasets, the National Center for State Courts sentencing attitudes dataset and the General Social Survey, with variables that related to attitudes about crime and sentencing were examined at the level of U.S. region for evidence of attitudes being influenced by local social influence. I also predicted that Southern participants would be harsher on sentencing than participants in the other areas of the country. Attitudes about crime and sentencing showed evidence of geographic clustering, providing further support for DSIT. Attitudes in Southern states were more punitive than other states, especially regarding attitudes toward sentencing. This study suggests that regional differences may affect attitudes towards crime and sentencing. This study also provides further support for DSIT and evidence for local social influence on attitudes toward crime and sentencing, which could affect changes of venue in federal courts.
Year of Submission
2010
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of Psychology
First Advisor
Helen Harton
Second Advisor
Mary Losch
Third Advisor
Sunde Nesbit
Date Original
2010
Object Description
1 PDF file (70 leaves)
Copyright
©2010 Heather M. Caspers
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Caspers, Heather M., "Regional Differences in Jurors’ Attitudes and Knowledge" (2010). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2306.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/2306
Comments
If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.