Psychology

The impact of legal expertise on moral decision-making biases

S. Baez, M. Patiño-sáenz, et al.

This intriguing study by Sandra Baez and colleagues explores how legal expertise influences moral biases in decision-making. By comparing criminal judges, attorneys, and control groups, the researchers found that legal professionals are less swayed by language and emotional states when assessing harm, indicating a fascinating mitigation of biases in moral judgment.

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Playback language: English

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Abstract

This study investigates the impact of legal expertise on moral decision-making biases by comparing the decisions of 45 criminal judges, 60 criminal attorneys, and 64 controls. The study examined how these groups' decisions were influenced by information on the transgressor's mental state, gruesome language in harm descriptions, and physiological states. Judges and attorneys, similar to controls, overestimated damage from intentional harm. However, they showed less bias in punishment and harm severity ratings for accidental harm and were less influenced by language or physiological arousal. This suggests that legal expertise can mitigate certain biases in moral decision-making.

Publisher

Humanities & Social Sciences Communications

Published On

Sep 23, 2020

Authors

Sandra Baez, Michel Patiño-Sáenz, Jorge Martínez-Cotrina, Diego Mauricio Aponte, Juan Carlos Caicedo, Hernando Santamaría-García, Daniel Pastor, María Luz González-Gadea, Martín Haissiner, Adolfo M. García, Agustín Ibáñez

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