Chivalry and attractiveness bias in police officer forensic judgments in Israel

The chivalry hypothesis and attractiveness bias were evaluated among 323 police officers and 364 students, serving as a control group. The participants were asked to read a description of a swindle, where the offender was either physically attractive or unattractive. They then had to assign a punishment to the offender and judge the blame ascribed to both offender and victim. The findings showed that the offender’s sex, more than his or her external appearance, affects differences in punishment severity. Female offenders were treated more forgivingly than male offenders. Nonetheless, analysis of blame attributions shows that attractive offenders are blamed more than unattractive offenders. Women were also found to dispense severe punishments more than men.