Psychopathy and Perceptions of Procedural Justice

• In Event: The Importance of Environmental Influences for Youth with Juvenile Psychopathy

Abstract

The procedural justice doctrine provides a clear road map for policy (Tyler et al., 2015): legal authorities should engage in fair procedures and treat people with respect in order to instill trust and promote cooperative behaviors. In an idealist world, if legal authorities objectively engage in procedural justice, then cooperation with directives and the law will ensue. However, the objective reality of procedural justice and subjective interpretations of procedural justice may not always align, and it is the subjective judgments of procedural justice that influence cooperative behavior. Therefore, research is needed to speak to factors that may influence subjective judgments of procedural justice. We posit that one particular group of personality traits may affect subjective evaluations of procedural justice: psychopathy. Recognizing that individuals with psychopathic traits – grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, and impulsive-irrational - likely interact with legal authorities in unique ways and also evaluate these interactions differently, the goal of this research is twofold. Using a sample of adolescent offenders, we first investigate how psychopathic traits are related to subjective judgments of procedural justice. Then, we analyze how these same traits condition the effect of interactions with the police and courts on judgments of procedural justice. Results suggest that while individuals who score higher on psychopathic traits evaluate police and courts lower in terms of procedural justice, their perceptions benefit from involuntary justice-agent interactions. Specifically, individuals who display more psychopathic traits, especially on the impulsive-irrational dimension, form more positive judgments of procedural justice after involuntary encounters with police and courts.

Authors

• James Ray, The University of Texas at San Antonio

• Megan Bears Augustyn, University of Texas at San Antonio