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Individual differences underlying attitudes to the death penalty
Personality and Individual Differences 66 (2014) 48–53
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Individual differences underlying attitudes to the death penalty Sunpreet Singh Kandola a, Vincent Egan b,⇑ a b
Department of Psychology, University of Leicester, 106 New Walk, Leicester LE1 7EA, UK Centre for Family and Forensic Psychology, University of Nottingham, Yang Fujia Building, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB, UK
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 19 November 2013 Received in revised form 3 March 2014 Accepted 6 March 2014 Available online 4 April 2014 Keywords: Personality Death penalty Morality Social dominance Right-wing authoritarianism
a b s t r a c t There are strongly-held arguments regarding attitudes to the death penalty on both sides of the debate. The current study examines how underlying individual differences in personality, expressed morality, prior victimhood, attitudes to abortion, and gender predict attitudes to the death penalty. An online questionnaire design was used, comprising a measure of personality (the IPIP-50), a measure of socio-moral attitudes, a measure assessing attitudes to abortion, and as an outcome, the death penalty attitude scale. High Extraversion and Conscientiousness, low Openness and Emotional Stability, and lower pro-abortion attitudes all significantly predicted support for the use of the death penalty. In a multivariate analysis all constructs bar Emotional Stability remained independent predictors of support for the death penalty. Males were more in support of the death penalty and more retributive and revenge-orientated in their rationale for such support. These findings reinforce previous research surrounding individual influences on attitudes to the death penalty and indicate personality factors shaping right-wing authoritarianism as key influences on the construct, rather than a priori higher level measures of morality, gender or victimhood. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Individual differences in attitudes to the death penalty The severity of punishment for a given criminal act is sometimes justified by the claim such punishment acts as a deterrent to further crime, and this is particularly the case for nations that use the death penalty (Becker, 2006). Opponents of the death penalty point out that there is no evidence for the alleged deterrent effect, and that to take the life of a person who breaks a moral boundary by killing is itself immoral (Donohue & Wolfers, 2006). Some individuals support the reintroduction or application of the death penalty in countries where it has been withdrawn. This study examines how general personality traits, gender, self-reported morality (both to, being a victim of crime and attitudes toward abortion (itself a form of State-sanctioned killing to some) influence views toward the death penalty. McKelvie and Daoussis (1982), and McKelvie (1983) found extraverts supported the death penalty more than introverts. High Extraversion, along with low Openness and low Emotional Stability have been previously and significantly related to authoritarianism, which was itself marked by a greater willingness to deliver harsh punishments (Colemont, Hiel, & Cornelis, 2011). Capital ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 0115 846 6627. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S.S. Kandola), vincent.egan@ nottingham.ac.uk (V. Egan). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.03.005 0191-8869/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
punishment is supported more by authoritarian individuals (Feather & Souter, 2002), and also favoured by persons with greater numbers of attributes associated with borderline personality disorder (Watson, Ross, & Morris, 2003). Using the five factor model of personality, Robbers (2006) found that high levels of Extraversion, Conscientiousness and low Openness predicted pro-death penalty attitudes, whereas low Agreeableness scores predicted attitudes opposing the death penalty. Higher Extraversion and Conscientiousness traits may be lead to being pro-death penalty due to such persons characteristically favouring an overtly social, orderly, and conventional society (Roberts, Jackson, Fayard, Edmonds, & Meints, 2009). Gender strongly influence on attitudes to the death penalty; a meta-analysis of 23 studies by Lester (1998) found males more inclined to pro-death penalty attitudes than females. It is possible that gender effects are more complex than these simple associations imply, as gender shows an interaction with personality traits, with females being higher in extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism than males (Schmitt, Realo, Voracek, & Allik, 2008). Males support the death penalty for reasons of retribution and revenge rather than deterrence (Vidmar, 1974), and this could also reflect issues of social dominance, males preferring a sense of hierarchal control (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994). Morality is a multifaceted phenomenon which governs an individual’s perceptions of behaviour perceived to be right or wrong,
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and encompasses views about truth, affiliation, life, law, and legal justice (Gibbs, Widaman, & Colby, 1982; Rest, Edwards, & Thoma, 1997). Killing another person is an inherently immoral act, whether done by an individual or a group (though societies may attempt to morally-diffuse responsibility for the act by defining the act a State-sanctioned penalty). However, society is made up of individuals, who, in aggregate, influence societal decisions; moreover these individuals are active in campaigning for or against how we chose to enforce or laws. It is therefore it is important to examine the relationship between morality, individual differences, and public attitudes. Morality research has sometimes used dilemmas (e.g., the runaway trolley paradigm; Nichols & Mallon, 2006) to operationalize the construct. One difficulty with such dilemmas is that they are hypothetical, and therefore subject to the argument they more measure self-projection than moral reasoning (Klein, 2011). Kohlberg (1984) proposed that there are four moral orientations typically adopted by individuals; normative orientation (following duties and rights, due to rules); fairness orientation (emphasising justice and equality); utilitarianism orientation (emphasising welfare and happiness for self and others); and perfectionism orientation (good conscience and autonomy). These orientations have been argued to represent progressively higher modes of moral reasoning (Vries & Walker, 1986). Kohlberg and Elfenbein (1981) found persons with a higher moral reasoning level showed greater opposition toward capital punishment. This finding may potentially be mediated through higher moral reasoning being a product of greater abstract thinking surrounding human rights, and the dignity of human beings. If this is true, Openness (which correlates with IQ) should be higher in persons opposing the death penalty. Internal moral views validate the death penalty as right or wrong depending on individual cognitions. Over 11 studies, O’Neil, Patry, and Penrod (2004) found individuals with favourable attitudes toward the death penalty had an increased willingness to convict in capital jury trials. Their results were explained using the biased assimilation theory (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979), whereby individual characteristics and beliefs influence processing of external information. Other research conducted by Johnson and Tamney (1988) has shown the existence of moral plasticity, suggesting morality has a fluid structure, applied differently depending on the ethical dilemma present. This is exemplified by the often paradoxical attitudes to abortion; persons who are pro-abortion (‘pro-choice’) are often opposed to the death penalty, whereas persons opposed to abortion are often pro-death penalty. Claggett and Shafer (1991) examined this discontinuity in attitudes to life and found similar results, indicating attitudes to abortion may also help predict support for the death penalty. A final area potentially informing the genesis of attitudes to the death penalty is being a victim of crime. Tseloni and Zarafonitou (2008) found victimisation led to an increase in fear of crime, and fear of crime leads to a greater willingness to endorse the death penalty (Keil & Vito, 1991). Findings regarding the influence of being a victim on punishment vary; while Dull and Wint (1997) found victims and non-victims showed no difference in their attitudes toward the death penalty, Klama and Egan (2011) found that the combination of fear of crime and greater Conscientiousness predicted greater punitiveness. Previous research has typically examined the link between individual factors and death penalty attitudes on a construct-by-construct basis, however these constructs are rarely discrete; it is crucial within research to understand how these variables interact, and the example of attitudes to a complex social phenomena such as the death penalty is a strong test of such conjunctions. This study will attempt to understand the extent to which personality, attitudes to abortion, morality, and being a victim of crime (or not) explains attitudes to the death penalty in a multifactorial model.
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These findings from previous studies lead the following predictions to be made, all of which suggest an individual differences approach can help understand the basis of attitudes to the death penalty. We predict: high levels of Extraversion and Conscientiousness alongside low Emotional Stability and Openness will predict pro-death penalty views; males will be more pro-death penalty orientated than females; males will show more retributive motives for the use of the death penalty; being a victim of crime will be associated to death penalty support, and support for abortion will predict lower support for the death penalty. As an individual’s morality upholds their view of the death penalty and this is typically reciprocal to their attitudes to abortion, we predict that the importance of morality to predict support (or rejection) of the death penalty argument will be less important than the disposition of the person making the decision.
2. Methods and procedure 2.1. Participants An on-line Internet survey recruited a cohort of 222 participants, of whom 15 were excluded (see below); this left 207 participants with useable data (M:F = 68:139). Participants were aged between 18 and 71 (Mean = 30.12 years, standard deviation (SD) = 11.30). All were recruited by a hyperlink to an online survey through social networking sites such as Facebook or other online survey portal websites. The cohort comprised 151 participants from death penalty-abolished countries, and 56 from death penalty-practicing countries (136 (66%) from the United Kingdom, 52 (25%) from the USA, and the remaining 19 (9%) from Spain, New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, India, Australia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, and Singapore). Of the cohort, 11 participants were aged below 18, so could not provide informed consent; these responses were removed from the data set. A further 4 participants were removed as they failed to complete all scales.
2.2. Design The study was approved by the University ethics committee. A questionnaire was produced using Google Docs and hosted on the Internet. The study sought to predict attitudes toward the death penalty via scores on standardised questionnaires and demographic information. All participants completed the same questionnaires, which assessed attitudes to the death penalty and abortion, morality, victim of crime status, and personality.
2.3. Materials All participants were provided an informed consent form and were initially given details of participation, their duties, their right to withdraw, and the anonymity of their data. The following questionnaires were used.
2.3.1. The International Personality Item Pool 50 (IPIP-50: Goldberg, 1992) The IPIP-50 was used to measure the Big Five dimensions of personality, i.e., Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness and Emotional Stability. Participants scored items on a 5-item Likert scale ranging from ‘nothing like me’ to ‘very much like me’, 1–5, respectively. The individual subscales held consistent internal reliability and validity (Smith & Snell, 1996); Extraversion (0.83), Agreeableness (0.87), Conscientiousness (0.83), Emotional Stability (0.78) and Openness (0.83).
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2.3.2. Socio-moral reflection scale (Gibbs et al., 1982) A group of 11 moral questions was used to assess level of morality. The responses were recorded using a five point rating scale ranging from ‘not important’ to ‘very important’. Level of morality was kept as a continuous measure, and not labelled moral or immoral; instead individuals were labelled either higher or lower in their moral scores. The reason for this was to highlight measuring morality in a non-absolute way, potentially fluctuating in relation to the specific context. The scale has previously shown inter-rater reliability between 0.83 and 0.92, and an internal consistency coefficient of 0.76 (Nilsson, Crafoord, Hedengren, & Ekehammar, 1991). 2.3.3. Abortion attitudes scale (Stets & Leik, 1993) The abortion attitudes scale comprises 25 items, with the responses scored on a 5-item scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’ (1–5, respectively). This scale reflects dimensions of availability and general support; moral acceptability; status of fetus; hard reasons/control; and women’s autonomy. The scale has an internal consistency coefficient of 0.85 (Patel & Myeni, 2008). 2.3.4. Attitudes toward the death penalty scale (O’Neil et al., 2004) This scale comprised 19 items, again scored on a 5-point rating scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’ (1–5, respectively). The scale has 6 subscales; general support; retribution and revenge; deterrent; mandatory death; ‘‘cheaper option’’; and parole. General support for the death penalty has previously showed an internal consistency coefficient of 0.87, whereas the retribution and reasoning sub-scale was 0.75 (O’Neil et al., 2004). Demographic information (age, gender, prior victimisation) was also collected. A debrief was provided on the end page of the survey, with information regarding arguments on both sides of the death penalty debate, and action points for participants possibly distressed by the nature of the study. 2.4. Procedure Participants were provided with a hyperlink which directed them to the online questionnaire. They were then shown the first page, which provided informed consent information. Informed consent was provided by the participant once they clicked ‘continue’. Ethical guidelines set by the British Psychological Society were respected, and a statement displaying that the participant possesses the right to withdraw throughout the study was provided. All participants completed the scales in the same order; demographic information, the Socio-moral reflection scale, the IPIP-50, the death penalty attitudes scale, and finally the abortion attitudes scale. The participant was then directed to a full debrief of the study. 2.5. Data analyses All scales were tested to check assumptions of normality, linearity, reliability, multicollinearity and homoscedasticity before being treated as interval data. As most of our hypotheses were directional, all statistical analyses were tested with one-tailed levels of significance (unless otherwise stated), with the initial alpha set at .05. Summary internal reliability and mean scores were calculated for all measures. The measures were then tested using bivariate and multivariate analyses. Measures were coded and scored according to the rules set by the devisors of the instruments. Participants were assigned to one of two groups, depending on whether they resided in a country which practiced death penalty, or from a country which did not. Gender was likewise dichotomous coded (0 for female, 1 for male).
3. Results Normality of the data was assessed, and results showed a normal distribution. Homoscedasticity was maintained, residual plots being evenly scattered. All scales were found reliable (Table 1). No multicollinearity existed between variables, as the Variation Inflation Factor (VIF) remained below 4 for each predictor variable. Therefore no violations of data assumptions were found. Means, standard deviations, and internal consistency scores for the measured variables are presented in Table 1. All measures bar sociomorality were acceptable. Overall group means were presented in Table 1. Gross effects of gender and victimhood were tested (Table 2). Males scored significantly higher than females for support of the death penalty, and retributive reasoning underlying this decision. There were no significant differences between victims and nonvictims of crime for attitudes endorsing the death penalty and retributive reasoning. A correlational analysis was conducted to examine the univariate relationships between these variables (Table 3). Higher Extraversion was positively correlated with death penalty support and retributive reasoning underlying support for the death penalty. Higher Agreeableness negatively correlated with declared sociomorality. Higher Conscientiousness negatively correlated with socio-morality and positively correlated with death penalty support. Higher Openness positively correlated with abortion support, and negatively correlated with death penalty support and retributive reasoning. Higher Emotional Instability was negatively correlated with support for abortion, and positively correlated with death penalty support and retributive reasoning. Higher declared sociomorality positively correlated with support for abortion and negatively correlated with support for the death penalty and retributive reasoning. Gender (dichotomous coded) negatively correlated with abortion support, and positively correlated with retributive reasoning. As there has been previous research indicating interaction effects between personality and gender, regression interaction effects were examined. To test this, the personality traits were centralised, an interaction term was produced, and finally a regression analysis conducted. This yielded non-significant results, indicating no interaction effect between personality and gender for general support for the death penalty. As no assumptions were violated, a stepwise multiple regression analysis was conducted, entering the nine predictor variables to identify those variables which specifically predicted death penalty support without their association being confounded by their concurrent association with the other measures (Table 4). The model explained 19% of the total variance (R = .47, R2 = .19, F(9, 197) = 6.38, p < .001). Personality, in the form of higher Extraversion (t = 3.11, p = .002), Conscientiousness (t = 2.44, p = .016) and lower Openness (t = 2.86, p = .005) significantly predicted support for the death penalty, as did opposing abortion (t = 3.11, p = .002). Variables that had no significant contribution to the overall outcome were Emotional Instability, Table 1 Summary means, standard deviations and internal consistency scores (n = 207).
Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness Emotional Instability Socio Morality Abortion support Death penalty total Death penalty (retributive reasoning)
Mean
SD
Reliability
30.6 40.1 35.6 39.2 29.3 26.7 25.1 11.2 9.5
9.2 6.4 7.2 5.8 9.2 6.5 6.8 5.0 3.7
0.91 0.83 0.82 0.79 0.90 0.60 0.92 0.91 0.72
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S.S. Kandola, V. Egan / Personality and Individual Differences 66 (2014) 48–53 Table 2 Comparison of gender and victim of crime status for attitudes to the death penalty (n = 207). Male Mean (SD)
Female Mean (SD)
t (205)
P<
Gender Support for the death penalty Death penalty (retributive reasoning)
59.27 (8.89) 10.55 (3.88)
57.01 (7.05) 8.92 (3.41)
1.61 3.19
.05 .01
Victim of crime Support for the death penalty Death penalty (retributive reasoning)
No 58.59 (7.21) 8.55 (3.56)
Yes 56.31 (8.47) 9.98 (3.60)
1.20 1.10
n.s. n.s.
n.s. = Non-significant.
Table 3 Correlation matrix (Pearson’s r) between measured variables (n = 207). Abortion support Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness Emotional Instability Socio Morality Gender Abortion support * **
Socio Morality
.08 .01 .01 .18** .14* .22** .13*
Support for the death penalty .25** .01 .23** .20** .20** .17** .11 .30**
.03 .13* .13* .04 .09 .04 .22**
Death penalty (retributive reasoning) .16* .06 .08 .23** .15* .13* .21** .34**
P < .05. P < .01 (one-tailed).
Table 4 Multiple regression analysis of variable scores predicting support for the death penalty (n = 207). B Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness Emotional Instability Socio Morality Gender Abortion support Victim of crime
SE .12 .05 .11 .16 .04 .09 .11 .15 .29
.04 .05 .05 .06 .04 .05 .72 .05 .66
Standardised b .21 .07 .16 .19 .07 .11 .01 .21 .03
P< <.01 n.s. <.05 <.01 n.s. n.s. n.s. <.01 n.s.
n.s. = Non-significant.
Agreeableness, gender, prior victimhood, and overall sociomorality.
4. Discussion The present study investigated whether expressed morality, attitudes regarding abortion, personality, gender, and being a victim of crime influenced attitudes to the death penalty. Univariate analyses found Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Emotional Instability significantly and positively related to support for the death penalty, whereas Openness was negatively correlated with support for the death penalty. The effect sizes for these relationships were small but systematic, though did not take into account their correlation with themselves. Males and females significantly differed in their attitudes to the death penalty; males were more sympathetic, supporting the gender-based hypothesis. Gender was also significantly positively associated with retributive reasoning as a motive for death penalty use; males were significantly more retribution and revenge orientated compared to females, supporting another of our hypotheses. Self-reported morality was significantly correlated with support for abortion, but significantly negatively associated with support for the death penalty. A key focus of this study was to assess whether these effects were upheld
when a multifactorial model was used to predict attitudes to the death penalty. Multiple regression was used to rationalise these associations, and found an individual’s level of morality showed but a trend to significantly predicting attitudes to the death penalty when other constructs were considered. However, lower support for abortion significantly predicted higher death penalty support, reiterating the idea of paradoxical moral plasticity. Higher Extraversion, higher Conscientiousness and lower Openness were likewise significant predictors of the death penalty, however, having being a victim of crime did not significantly predict death penalty support. The results of this study uphold the findings of Robbers (2006), Roberts et al. (2009), and McKelvie and Daoussis (1982) in showing the involvement of personality traits on attitudes to the death penalty. Why might this be? Extroversion is defined by outgoing sociability; Conscientiousness is a trait which revolves around purposeful and dutiful action; and Openness has at it’s core qualities such as flexibility and curiosity (and thus, reciprocally, low Openness involves being inflexible and un-enquiring). Social conformity is shaped by gregariousness, a lack of psychological mindedness (correlated with lower Openness; Beitel & Cecero, 2003) and rule-oriented thinking in persons who prefer an orderly, well-functioning society (Roberts et al., 2009). The conjunction of high Extraversion and Conscientiousness, and low Openness underlies right-wing authoritarianism (Ekehammar, Akrami, Gylje, & Zakrisson, 2004), and it is thus no surprise that these drove support for the death penalty. We found general sociomoral attitudes, gender and being a victim irrelevant to the association. Also notable by their absence were two constructs central to antisocial behaviour; Agreeableness and Emotional Stability (low Neuroticism; Egan & Lewis, 2011). The cognitions behind sympathy (or opposition to) the death penalty therefore reflect more general right-wing social values rather than those involving individual instability or general animosity. This suggests making moralistic or pathological attributions to proponents on either side of the debate is both rhetorically and objectively wrong. Gender was an influential variable differentiating death penalty support, with males significantly more in support of the death penalty than females (Lester, 1998; Stack, 2000). These gender
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differences may exist due to males being more socially conservative than females, social conservatism being characterised by upholding beliefs protecting traditions and morals surrounding punishment (Cook, 1998). As has been previously observed, males were also more retributive and revenge-orientated compared to females. This result may be explained by social dominance theory; as a group, males have more affinity for hierarchal control as an element of their social dominance orientation, whereas females are more egalitarian-oriented (Pratto et al., 1994). This inclination is inclined to emphasise superiority to out-groups, and may be seen in tough-minded conventional views regarding attitudes to criminals. Pratto et al. (1994) also found a strong correlation between social dominance orientation and death penalty support. Morality had a significant negative association with death penalty support, reinforcing how confused and inconsistent moral judgements can be regarding attitudes to the death penalty (Conway & Gawronski, 2012). Generally, the level of morality an individual possesses influences their views on ethically sensitive topics. In our study we found self-reported morality was less important than personality for predciting support for the death penalty. We speculate that this may be because morality is a complex and multidimensional concept, and the socio-moral scale (which had a reliability of just 0.60 in our study) only captured one aspect of the construct: social moral reasoning. Our research upholds the concept of moral plasticity; there was a correlation of .30 between supporting abortion and supporting the death penalty, so anti-abortion attitudes were correspondingly a significant predictor of pro-death penalty attitudes. Claggett and Shafer (1991) account for these inconsistent views by suggesting moral orientations govern beliefs, so individuals with higher morality support taking a person’s life for guilty actions and heinous crimes, but do not condone the taking of an innocent or unconscious life. This study had a number of limitations: social morality is only one dimension in the overall construct, and a more diverse scale with greater construct validity may show more nuanced results. Our measure of morality was more unreliable than seen in previous research. We did not measure education (although higher Openness may have functioned as a proxy), nor explicit social conservatism. Personal views can influence capital jury trials through the phenomenon of biased assimilation, where external case facts are interpreted in line with personal beliefs (Lord et al., 1979). Our results suggest that the source of these personal views lies more in personality, which outperforms lay constructs such as gender or victimhood, both more commonly thought to underlie right-wing authoritarian values. References Becker, G. (2006). On the economics of capital punishment. The Economists Voice, 3(3), 1–4. http://dx.doi.org/10.2202/1553-3832.1166. Beitel, M., & Cecero, J. J. (2003). Predicting psychological mindedness from personality style and attachment security. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 59(1), 163–172. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jclp.10125. Claggett, W., & Shafer, B. E. (1991). Life and death as public policy: Capital punishment and abortion in American political opinion. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 3(1), 32–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/3.1.32. Colemont, A., Hiel, A. V., & Cornelis, I. (2011). Five-Factor Model personality dimensions and right wing attitudes: Psychological bases of punitive attitudes. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1, 1–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ j.paid.2010.10.032. Conway, P., & Gawronski, B. (2012). Deontological and utilitarian inclinations in moral decision making: A process dissociation approach. Personality and Social Psychology, 1(1), 1–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2Fa0031021. Cook, K. J. (1998). A passion to punish: Abortion opponents who favor the death penalty. Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, 15(2), 329–346. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1080%2F07418829800093771. Donohue, J., & Wolfers, J. J. (2006). The death penalty: No evidence for deterrence. The Economists’ Voice, 3(5), 1553–3832. http://dx.doi.org/10.2202%2F15533832.1170.
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Individual differences underlying attitudes to the death penalty Sunpreet Singh Kandola a, Vincent Egan b,⇑ a b
Department of Psychology, University of Leicester, 106 New Walk, Leicester LE1 7EA, UK Centre for Family and Forensic Psychology, University of Nottingham, Yang Fujia Building, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB, UK
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 19 November 2013 Received in revised form 3 March 2014 Accepted 6 March 2014 Available online 4 April 2014 Keywords: Personality Death penalty Morality Social dominance Right-wing authoritarianism
a b s t r a c t There are strongly-held arguments regarding attitudes to the death penalty on both sides of the debate. The current study examines how underlying individual differences in personality, expressed morality, prior victimhood, attitudes to abortion, and gender predict attitudes to the death penalty. An online questionnaire design was used, comprising a measure of personality (the IPIP-50), a measure of socio-moral attitudes, a measure assessing attitudes to abortion, and as an outcome, the death penalty attitude scale. High Extraversion and Conscientiousness, low Openness and Emotional Stability, and lower pro-abortion attitudes all significantly predicted support for the use of the death penalty. In a multivariate analysis all constructs bar Emotional Stability remained independent predictors of support for the death penalty. Males were more in support of the death penalty and more retributive and revenge-orientated in their rationale for such support. These findings reinforce previous research surrounding individual influences on attitudes to the death penalty and indicate personality factors shaping right-wing authoritarianism as key influences on the construct, rather than a priori higher level measures of morality, gender or victimhood. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Individual differences in attitudes to the death penalty The severity of punishment for a given criminal act is sometimes justified by the claim such punishment acts as a deterrent to further crime, and this is particularly the case for nations that use the death penalty (Becker, 2006). Opponents of the death penalty point out that there is no evidence for the alleged deterrent effect, and that to take the life of a person who breaks a moral boundary by killing is itself immoral (Donohue & Wolfers, 2006). Some individuals support the reintroduction or application of the death penalty in countries where it has been withdrawn. This study examines how general personality traits, gender, self-reported morality (both to, being a victim of crime and attitudes toward abortion (itself a form of State-sanctioned killing to some) influence views toward the death penalty. McKelvie and Daoussis (1982), and McKelvie (1983) found extraverts supported the death penalty more than introverts. High Extraversion, along with low Openness and low Emotional Stability have been previously and significantly related to authoritarianism, which was itself marked by a greater willingness to deliver harsh punishments (Colemont, Hiel, & Cornelis, 2011). Capital ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 0115 846 6627. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S.S. Kandola), vincent.egan@ nottingham.ac.uk (V. Egan). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.03.005 0191-8869/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
punishment is supported more by authoritarian individuals (Feather & Souter, 2002), and also favoured by persons with greater numbers of attributes associated with borderline personality disorder (Watson, Ross, & Morris, 2003). Using the five factor model of personality, Robbers (2006) found that high levels of Extraversion, Conscientiousness and low Openness predicted pro-death penalty attitudes, whereas low Agreeableness scores predicted attitudes opposing the death penalty. Higher Extraversion and Conscientiousness traits may be lead to being pro-death penalty due to such persons characteristically favouring an overtly social, orderly, and conventional society (Roberts, Jackson, Fayard, Edmonds, & Meints, 2009). Gender strongly influence on attitudes to the death penalty; a meta-analysis of 23 studies by Lester (1998) found males more inclined to pro-death penalty attitudes than females. It is possible that gender effects are more complex than these simple associations imply, as gender shows an interaction with personality traits, with females being higher in extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism than males (Schmitt, Realo, Voracek, & Allik, 2008). Males support the death penalty for reasons of retribution and revenge rather than deterrence (Vidmar, 1974), and this could also reflect issues of social dominance, males preferring a sense of hierarchal control (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994). Morality is a multifaceted phenomenon which governs an individual’s perceptions of behaviour perceived to be right or wrong,
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and encompasses views about truth, affiliation, life, law, and legal justice (Gibbs, Widaman, & Colby, 1982; Rest, Edwards, & Thoma, 1997). Killing another person is an inherently immoral act, whether done by an individual or a group (though societies may attempt to morally-diffuse responsibility for the act by defining the act a State-sanctioned penalty). However, society is made up of individuals, who, in aggregate, influence societal decisions; moreover these individuals are active in campaigning for or against how we chose to enforce or laws. It is therefore it is important to examine the relationship between morality, individual differences, and public attitudes. Morality research has sometimes used dilemmas (e.g., the runaway trolley paradigm; Nichols & Mallon, 2006) to operationalize the construct. One difficulty with such dilemmas is that they are hypothetical, and therefore subject to the argument they more measure self-projection than moral reasoning (Klein, 2011). Kohlberg (1984) proposed that there are four moral orientations typically adopted by individuals; normative orientation (following duties and rights, due to rules); fairness orientation (emphasising justice and equality); utilitarianism orientation (emphasising welfare and happiness for self and others); and perfectionism orientation (good conscience and autonomy). These orientations have been argued to represent progressively higher modes of moral reasoning (Vries & Walker, 1986). Kohlberg and Elfenbein (1981) found persons with a higher moral reasoning level showed greater opposition toward capital punishment. This finding may potentially be mediated through higher moral reasoning being a product of greater abstract thinking surrounding human rights, and the dignity of human beings. If this is true, Openness (which correlates with IQ) should be higher in persons opposing the death penalty. Internal moral views validate the death penalty as right or wrong depending on individual cognitions. Over 11 studies, O’Neil, Patry, and Penrod (2004) found individuals with favourable attitudes toward the death penalty had an increased willingness to convict in capital jury trials. Their results were explained using the biased assimilation theory (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979), whereby individual characteristics and beliefs influence processing of external information. Other research conducted by Johnson and Tamney (1988) has shown the existence of moral plasticity, suggesting morality has a fluid structure, applied differently depending on the ethical dilemma present. This is exemplified by the often paradoxical attitudes to abortion; persons who are pro-abortion (‘pro-choice’) are often opposed to the death penalty, whereas persons opposed to abortion are often pro-death penalty. Claggett and Shafer (1991) examined this discontinuity in attitudes to life and found similar results, indicating attitudes to abortion may also help predict support for the death penalty. A final area potentially informing the genesis of attitudes to the death penalty is being a victim of crime. Tseloni and Zarafonitou (2008) found victimisation led to an increase in fear of crime, and fear of crime leads to a greater willingness to endorse the death penalty (Keil & Vito, 1991). Findings regarding the influence of being a victim on punishment vary; while Dull and Wint (1997) found victims and non-victims showed no difference in their attitudes toward the death penalty, Klama and Egan (2011) found that the combination of fear of crime and greater Conscientiousness predicted greater punitiveness. Previous research has typically examined the link between individual factors and death penalty attitudes on a construct-by-construct basis, however these constructs are rarely discrete; it is crucial within research to understand how these variables interact, and the example of attitudes to a complex social phenomena such as the death penalty is a strong test of such conjunctions. This study will attempt to understand the extent to which personality, attitudes to abortion, morality, and being a victim of crime (or not) explains attitudes to the death penalty in a multifactorial model.
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These findings from previous studies lead the following predictions to be made, all of which suggest an individual differences approach can help understand the basis of attitudes to the death penalty. We predict: high levels of Extraversion and Conscientiousness alongside low Emotional Stability and Openness will predict pro-death penalty views; males will be more pro-death penalty orientated than females; males will show more retributive motives for the use of the death penalty; being a victim of crime will be associated to death penalty support, and support for abortion will predict lower support for the death penalty. As an individual’s morality upholds their view of the death penalty and this is typically reciprocal to their attitudes to abortion, we predict that the importance of morality to predict support (or rejection) of the death penalty argument will be less important than the disposition of the person making the decision.
2. Methods and procedure 2.1. Participants An on-line Internet survey recruited a cohort of 222 participants, of whom 15 were excluded (see below); this left 207 participants with useable data (M:F = 68:139). Participants were aged between 18 and 71 (Mean = 30.12 years, standard deviation (SD) = 11.30). All were recruited by a hyperlink to an online survey through social networking sites such as Facebook or other online survey portal websites. The cohort comprised 151 participants from death penalty-abolished countries, and 56 from death penalty-practicing countries (136 (66%) from the United Kingdom, 52 (25%) from the USA, and the remaining 19 (9%) from Spain, New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, India, Australia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, and Singapore). Of the cohort, 11 participants were aged below 18, so could not provide informed consent; these responses were removed from the data set. A further 4 participants were removed as they failed to complete all scales.
2.2. Design The study was approved by the University ethics committee. A questionnaire was produced using Google Docs and hosted on the Internet. The study sought to predict attitudes toward the death penalty via scores on standardised questionnaires and demographic information. All participants completed the same questionnaires, which assessed attitudes to the death penalty and abortion, morality, victim of crime status, and personality.
2.3. Materials All participants were provided an informed consent form and were initially given details of participation, their duties, their right to withdraw, and the anonymity of their data. The following questionnaires were used.
2.3.1. The International Personality Item Pool 50 (IPIP-50: Goldberg, 1992) The IPIP-50 was used to measure the Big Five dimensions of personality, i.e., Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness and Emotional Stability. Participants scored items on a 5-item Likert scale ranging from ‘nothing like me’ to ‘very much like me’, 1–5, respectively. The individual subscales held consistent internal reliability and validity (Smith & Snell, 1996); Extraversion (0.83), Agreeableness (0.87), Conscientiousness (0.83), Emotional Stability (0.78) and Openness (0.83).
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2.3.2. Socio-moral reflection scale (Gibbs et al., 1982) A group of 11 moral questions was used to assess level of morality. The responses were recorded using a five point rating scale ranging from ‘not important’ to ‘very important’. Level of morality was kept as a continuous measure, and not labelled moral or immoral; instead individuals were labelled either higher or lower in their moral scores. The reason for this was to highlight measuring morality in a non-absolute way, potentially fluctuating in relation to the specific context. The scale has previously shown inter-rater reliability between 0.83 and 0.92, and an internal consistency coefficient of 0.76 (Nilsson, Crafoord, Hedengren, & Ekehammar, 1991). 2.3.3. Abortion attitudes scale (Stets & Leik, 1993) The abortion attitudes scale comprises 25 items, with the responses scored on a 5-item scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’ (1–5, respectively). This scale reflects dimensions of availability and general support; moral acceptability; status of fetus; hard reasons/control; and women’s autonomy. The scale has an internal consistency coefficient of 0.85 (Patel & Myeni, 2008). 2.3.4. Attitudes toward the death penalty scale (O’Neil et al., 2004) This scale comprised 19 items, again scored on a 5-point rating scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’ (1–5, respectively). The scale has 6 subscales; general support; retribution and revenge; deterrent; mandatory death; ‘‘cheaper option’’; and parole. General support for the death penalty has previously showed an internal consistency coefficient of 0.87, whereas the retribution and reasoning sub-scale was 0.75 (O’Neil et al., 2004). Demographic information (age, gender, prior victimisation) was also collected. A debrief was provided on the end page of the survey, with information regarding arguments on both sides of the death penalty debate, and action points for participants possibly distressed by the nature of the study. 2.4. Procedure Participants were provided with a hyperlink which directed them to the online questionnaire. They were then shown the first page, which provided informed consent information. Informed consent was provided by the participant once they clicked ‘continue’. Ethical guidelines set by the British Psychological Society were respected, and a statement displaying that the participant possesses the right to withdraw throughout the study was provided. All participants completed the scales in the same order; demographic information, the Socio-moral reflection scale, the IPIP-50, the death penalty attitudes scale, and finally the abortion attitudes scale. The participant was then directed to a full debrief of the study. 2.5. Data analyses All scales were tested to check assumptions of normality, linearity, reliability, multicollinearity and homoscedasticity before being treated as interval data. As most of our hypotheses were directional, all statistical analyses were tested with one-tailed levels of significance (unless otherwise stated), with the initial alpha set at .05. Summary internal reliability and mean scores were calculated for all measures. The measures were then tested using bivariate and multivariate analyses. Measures were coded and scored according to the rules set by the devisors of the instruments. Participants were assigned to one of two groups, depending on whether they resided in a country which practiced death penalty, or from a country which did not. Gender was likewise dichotomous coded (0 for female, 1 for male).
3. Results Normality of the data was assessed, and results showed a normal distribution. Homoscedasticity was maintained, residual plots being evenly scattered. All scales were found reliable (Table 1). No multicollinearity existed between variables, as the Variation Inflation Factor (VIF) remained below 4 for each predictor variable. Therefore no violations of data assumptions were found. Means, standard deviations, and internal consistency scores for the measured variables are presented in Table 1. All measures bar sociomorality were acceptable. Overall group means were presented in Table 1. Gross effects of gender and victimhood were tested (Table 2). Males scored significantly higher than females for support of the death penalty, and retributive reasoning underlying this decision. There were no significant differences between victims and nonvictims of crime for attitudes endorsing the death penalty and retributive reasoning. A correlational analysis was conducted to examine the univariate relationships between these variables (Table 3). Higher Extraversion was positively correlated with death penalty support and retributive reasoning underlying support for the death penalty. Higher Agreeableness negatively correlated with declared sociomorality. Higher Conscientiousness negatively correlated with socio-morality and positively correlated with death penalty support. Higher Openness positively correlated with abortion support, and negatively correlated with death penalty support and retributive reasoning. Higher Emotional Instability was negatively correlated with support for abortion, and positively correlated with death penalty support and retributive reasoning. Higher declared sociomorality positively correlated with support for abortion and negatively correlated with support for the death penalty and retributive reasoning. Gender (dichotomous coded) negatively correlated with abortion support, and positively correlated with retributive reasoning. As there has been previous research indicating interaction effects between personality and gender, regression interaction effects were examined. To test this, the personality traits were centralised, an interaction term was produced, and finally a regression analysis conducted. This yielded non-significant results, indicating no interaction effect between personality and gender for general support for the death penalty. As no assumptions were violated, a stepwise multiple regression analysis was conducted, entering the nine predictor variables to identify those variables which specifically predicted death penalty support without their association being confounded by their concurrent association with the other measures (Table 4). The model explained 19% of the total variance (R = .47, R2 = .19, F(9, 197) = 6.38, p < .001). Personality, in the form of higher Extraversion (t = 3.11, p = .002), Conscientiousness (t = 2.44, p = .016) and lower Openness (t = 2.86, p = .005) significantly predicted support for the death penalty, as did opposing abortion (t = 3.11, p = .002). Variables that had no significant contribution to the overall outcome were Emotional Instability, Table 1 Summary means, standard deviations and internal consistency scores (n = 207).
Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness Emotional Instability Socio Morality Abortion support Death penalty total Death penalty (retributive reasoning)
Mean
SD
Reliability
30.6 40.1 35.6 39.2 29.3 26.7 25.1 11.2 9.5
9.2 6.4 7.2 5.8 9.2 6.5 6.8 5.0 3.7
0.91 0.83 0.82 0.79 0.90 0.60 0.92 0.91 0.72
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S.S. Kandola, V. Egan / Personality and Individual Differences 66 (2014) 48–53 Table 2 Comparison of gender and victim of crime status for attitudes to the death penalty (n = 207). Male Mean (SD)
Female Mean (SD)
t (205)
P<
Gender Support for the death penalty Death penalty (retributive reasoning)
59.27 (8.89) 10.55 (3.88)
57.01 (7.05) 8.92 (3.41)
1.61 3.19
.05 .01
Victim of crime Support for the death penalty Death penalty (retributive reasoning)
No 58.59 (7.21) 8.55 (3.56)
Yes 56.31 (8.47) 9.98 (3.60)
1.20 1.10
n.s. n.s.
n.s. = Non-significant.
Table 3 Correlation matrix (Pearson’s r) between measured variables (n = 207). Abortion support Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness Emotional Instability Socio Morality Gender Abortion support * **
Socio Morality
.08 .01 .01 .18** .14* .22** .13*
Support for the death penalty .25** .01 .23** .20** .20** .17** .11 .30**
.03 .13* .13* .04 .09 .04 .22**
Death penalty (retributive reasoning) .16* .06 .08 .23** .15* .13* .21** .34**
P < .05. P < .01 (one-tailed).
Table 4 Multiple regression analysis of variable scores predicting support for the death penalty (n = 207). B Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness Emotional Instability Socio Morality Gender Abortion support Victim of crime
SE .12 .05 .11 .16 .04 .09 .11 .15 .29
.04 .05 .05 .06 .04 .05 .72 .05 .66
Standardised b .21 .07 .16 .19 .07 .11 .01 .21 .03
P< <.01 n.s. <.05 <.01 n.s. n.s. n.s. <.01 n.s.
n.s. = Non-significant.
Agreeableness, gender, prior victimhood, and overall sociomorality.
4. Discussion The present study investigated whether expressed morality, attitudes regarding abortion, personality, gender, and being a victim of crime influenced attitudes to the death penalty. Univariate analyses found Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Emotional Instability significantly and positively related to support for the death penalty, whereas Openness was negatively correlated with support for the death penalty. The effect sizes for these relationships were small but systematic, though did not take into account their correlation with themselves. Males and females significantly differed in their attitudes to the death penalty; males were more sympathetic, supporting the gender-based hypothesis. Gender was also significantly positively associated with retributive reasoning as a motive for death penalty use; males were significantly more retribution and revenge orientated compared to females, supporting another of our hypotheses. Self-reported morality was significantly correlated with support for abortion, but significantly negatively associated with support for the death penalty. A key focus of this study was to assess whether these effects were upheld
when a multifactorial model was used to predict attitudes to the death penalty. Multiple regression was used to rationalise these associations, and found an individual’s level of morality showed but a trend to significantly predicting attitudes to the death penalty when other constructs were considered. However, lower support for abortion significantly predicted higher death penalty support, reiterating the idea of paradoxical moral plasticity. Higher Extraversion, higher Conscientiousness and lower Openness were likewise significant predictors of the death penalty, however, having being a victim of crime did not significantly predict death penalty support. The results of this study uphold the findings of Robbers (2006), Roberts et al. (2009), and McKelvie and Daoussis (1982) in showing the involvement of personality traits on attitudes to the death penalty. Why might this be? Extroversion is defined by outgoing sociability; Conscientiousness is a trait which revolves around purposeful and dutiful action; and Openness has at it’s core qualities such as flexibility and curiosity (and thus, reciprocally, low Openness involves being inflexible and un-enquiring). Social conformity is shaped by gregariousness, a lack of psychological mindedness (correlated with lower Openness; Beitel & Cecero, 2003) and rule-oriented thinking in persons who prefer an orderly, well-functioning society (Roberts et al., 2009). The conjunction of high Extraversion and Conscientiousness, and low Openness underlies right-wing authoritarianism (Ekehammar, Akrami, Gylje, & Zakrisson, 2004), and it is thus no surprise that these drove support for the death penalty. We found general sociomoral attitudes, gender and being a victim irrelevant to the association. Also notable by their absence were two constructs central to antisocial behaviour; Agreeableness and Emotional Stability (low Neuroticism; Egan & Lewis, 2011). The cognitions behind sympathy (or opposition to) the death penalty therefore reflect more general right-wing social values rather than those involving individual instability or general animosity. This suggests making moralistic or pathological attributions to proponents on either side of the debate is both rhetorically and objectively wrong. Gender was an influential variable differentiating death penalty support, with males significantly more in support of the death penalty than females (Lester, 1998; Stack, 2000). These gender
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differences may exist due to males being more socially conservative than females, social conservatism being characterised by upholding beliefs protecting traditions and morals surrounding punishment (Cook, 1998). As has been previously observed, males were also more retributive and revenge-orientated compared to females. This result may be explained by social dominance theory; as a group, males have more affinity for hierarchal control as an element of their social dominance orientation, whereas females are more egalitarian-oriented (Pratto et al., 1994). This inclination is inclined to emphasise superiority to out-groups, and may be seen in tough-minded conventional views regarding attitudes to criminals. Pratto et al. (1994) also found a strong correlation between social dominance orientation and death penalty support. Morality had a significant negative association with death penalty support, reinforcing how confused and inconsistent moral judgements can be regarding attitudes to the death penalty (Conway & Gawronski, 2012). Generally, the level of morality an individual possesses influences their views on ethically sensitive topics. In our study we found self-reported morality was less important than personality for predciting support for the death penalty. We speculate that this may be because morality is a complex and multidimensional concept, and the socio-moral scale (which had a reliability of just 0.60 in our study) only captured one aspect of the construct: social moral reasoning. Our research upholds the concept of moral plasticity; there was a correlation of .30 between supporting abortion and supporting the death penalty, so anti-abortion attitudes were correspondingly a significant predictor of pro-death penalty attitudes. Claggett and Shafer (1991) account for these inconsistent views by suggesting moral orientations govern beliefs, so individuals with higher morality support taking a person’s life for guilty actions and heinous crimes, but do not condone the taking of an innocent or unconscious life. This study had a number of limitations: social morality is only one dimension in the overall construct, and a more diverse scale with greater construct validity may show more nuanced results. Our measure of morality was more unreliable than seen in previous research. We did not measure education (although higher Openness may have functioned as a proxy), nor explicit social conservatism. Personal views can influence capital jury trials through the phenomenon of biased assimilation, where external case facts are interpreted in line with personal beliefs (Lord et al., 1979). Our results suggest that the source of these personal views lies more in personality, which outperforms lay constructs such as gender or victimhood, both more commonly thought to underlie right-wing authoritarian values. References Becker, G. (2006). On the economics of capital punishment. The Economists Voice, 3(3), 1–4. http://dx.doi.org/10.2202/1553-3832.1166. Beitel, M., & Cecero, J. J. (2003). Predicting psychological mindedness from personality style and attachment security. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 59(1), 163–172. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jclp.10125. Claggett, W., & Shafer, B. E. (1991). Life and death as public policy: Capital punishment and abortion in American political opinion. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 3(1), 32–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/3.1.32. Colemont, A., Hiel, A. V., & Cornelis, I. (2011). Five-Factor Model personality dimensions and right wing attitudes: Psychological bases of punitive attitudes. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1, 1–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ j.paid.2010.10.032. Conway, P., & Gawronski, B. (2012). Deontological and utilitarian inclinations in moral decision making: A process dissociation approach. Personality and Social Psychology, 1(1), 1–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2Fa0031021. Cook, K. J. (1998). A passion to punish: Abortion opponents who favor the death penalty. Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, 15(2), 329–346. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1080%2F07418829800093771. Donohue, J., & Wolfers, J. J. (2006). The death penalty: No evidence for deterrence. The Economists’ Voice, 3(5), 1553–3832. http://dx.doi.org/10.2202%2F15533832.1170.
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