Group Discussion, Sentencing Judgments, and the Leniency Shift

Summary Two studies were conducted to examine whether individual sentencing judgments would shift in a systematic fashion following group discussion and whether obtained shifts would be consistent with Moscovici and Zavalloni's polarization hypothesis. In Study I, university students (24 males, 36 females) in both positive and negative defendant description conditions gave more lenient sentences after discussion than before. In Study II, students (80 males, 80 females) were given case descriptions which emphasized either defendant or victim information. In each type of condition, a shift toward leniency was obtained. Although initial reactions to experimental manipulations were not polarized after discussion, polarization referenced against the scale midpoint is a tenable explanation for the results of these studies.