Framingeffekter och bias i brottsbedömningar: en vinjettstudie om hur positiv och negativ framing påverkar bedömning av skuld

Sammanfattning: This study has the purpose to investigate how individuals’ perception of crime, victimhood and guilt is influenced by framing effects and cognitive bias. The paper set out to evaluate these effects through the theories of ideal victims, victim blaming and just world theory. The study's two hypotheses were therefore that (1) a positive framing and a less ideal victim of the crime scenario would lead to a more favorable evaluation of the perpetrator's action and vice versa, and (2) that different gender constellations would result in different extents of framing effect due to prejudices regarding ideal victims and gender bias. With that said, in order to examine the effects of framing, gender bias, and ideal victimhood on individuals' evaluations of criminal offenses, a vignette study of mixed design was conducted. By having 215 participants, recruited through social media, read two vignettes describing a fictional assault scenario and then respond to a survey about the vignettes, we measured assessments, memory aspects, and estimation of guilt in the specific scenario. There were a total of eight possible vignettes, four with positive framing and four with negative framing, in which the gender composition of the perpetrator and victim varied. The results of the study were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively, through Chi²-tests, variance analysis and thematic analysis. The study results show that there is a main effect of framing as well as variance regarding the gender compositions, which show support for the hypotheses and falls in line with previous research.