How bad was it? The effects of victim and perpetrator emotion on responsesto criminal court vignettes

Affect control theory is a general model of how emotions, identities and ac tions are related in social interaction. In this study, we used affect cont rol theory to predict how the emotions displayed by a perpetrator and a vic tim during their criminal trial statements influence a juror's judgments ab out their identities. We then asked how these identity judgments about the perpetrator and victim affect the recommended sentence for the perpetrator. An experiment used undergraduates' reactions in a mock jury setting to tes t the theory's predictions. Maximum likelihood structural equation models s how the influence of both criminal and victim emotion displays in affecting identity inferences about the participants in the crime scene These identi ty inferences, as well as inferences about the severity of the criminal beh avior itself; determine the sentence recommended for the perpetrator, suppo rting affect control theory.