Abstract
The effect of a target person’s familial relationship with a convicted criminal on the impressions of the target was examined. Participants rated an individual who had either no relative in prison (control), or a cousin, brother or identical twin brother serving a prison sentence for burglary and armed robbery. The target person had no criminal background. Ratings of the target were lower in the three “relative in prison” conditions, as compared to the control condition. Ratings of the target decreased as kinship with the criminal increased, with the exception of the “identical twin” condition, which was approximately equal to ratings provided by participants in the control condition. The results suggest that participants actively evaluated the extent of the familial relationship between the target person and the criminal relative and used this information in the impression formation process.
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The authors thank Melissa Fuller, Emily Ganz, Michelle Kitts, Michelle Offsie and Kimberly Watson for their assistance in data collection and data entry and Herbert Petri for his comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.
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Govern, J.M., Greco, M. Evidence for the “guilt by familial association” effect: Evil twins excepted. Curr Psychol 21, 213–219 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-002-1014-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-002-1014-y