Abstract:
This research uses status characteristics theory to expand our knowledge of the effects of
status variables (e.g., race, education) and emotional displays on the antecedents of sentencing
– evaluations of offender dangerousness and offense seriousness. We present a theoretical
formulation that combines three areas of status characteristics research – reward
expectations, individual evaluative settings and valued personal characteristics. The result
is a quantitative measure that aggregates relative differences in demographic and emotional
characteristics between offenders and their victims. The significance of this expectation
advantage measure (e) in predicting evaluations of offender dangerousness and
offense severity is tested using data from a vignette study. We find empirical support that
expectation advantage significantly predicts these sentencing antecedents but not sentencing
outcomes directly. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for
future status and criminological research.
