A new study has found that a belief in “pure evil” influences our feelings about capital punishment.
For the study, Dr. Donald Saucier, an associate professor of psychological sciences at Kansas State University, looked at how beliefs in pure evil influenced how people treated those who committed crimes. He recently completed the study with Dr. Russell Webster at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
Approximately 200 participants were given a summary of a case in which a murderer confessed to his crime. Researchers then asked each participant about his or her support for different types of sentences, such as jail time with community service, jail time with the opportunity for parole, jail time without the possibility for parole, and other options.
“We found that as people’s beliefs in pure evil increased, they were more likely to support sentences like life in prison without parole and even the death penalty,” Saucier said.
“We found that this actually happened through our participants perceiving the murderer as a demon and feeling that there was some need for retribution for the murder committed.”
The researchers then changed the murderer’s characteristics to be consistent with stereotypes about evil, such as having the murderer be interested in the occult, taunting neighborhood children, and wearing all black.
[For more of this story, written by Janice Wood, go to http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/05/17/belief-in-pure-evil-leads-to-harsher-criminal-punishments/84672.html]
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