When people are less-well-known to us, it can impact how we treat them. People outside our communities may feel more anonymous or de-personalized to us, and this could impact the empathy we feel for them. Indeed, past research shows that people seem to care more for those who are who are identified to us, especially when they are victims of a crime (Small & Loewenstein, 2003). In addition, past research also shows that anonymizing victims can influence criminal behavior (Walters, 2022).  Thus, social cognitive factors related to anonymity appear to affect both positive feelings (engaging in empathy) and negative activities (criminal activity) related to victims. It seems likely that anonymity can also affect how people judge criminals themselves.

 

This paper by Blanke and Twardawski (2024) examines how even minor identifying features can make individuals react differently to a perpetrator of a crime. A picture or name (information that may appear in the press) may impact how people perceive criminals in terms of punishment, empathy, outrage, and blame.

 

How people respond to anonymous or identified criminals may depend on whether the impact of the crime on the victim is made salient. Similar to the Black Sheep Effect (Marques & Paez,1994), the current paper expects that people who identify with victims are expected to punish a perpetrator more when the perpetrator’s name and image are known. This is similar to the case with an ingroup member in The Black Sheep Effect, where ingroup members are punished more for transgressions than outgroup members. For people who view the situation as a third party (and are thus less connected to the victim), an identified perpetrator is expected to lead to less punishment (and also less outrage and blame, and more empathy).

 

The current study focuses on pickpocketing since it is a crime that can be committed without identifying oneself to the victim. Future research should examine how the type of event impacts judgments, especially given the stigma of being a victim of some crimes. Littering and other minor violations may be seen as understandable when you see someone as a person, rather than a anonymous, impersonal criminal.  On the other hand, there can be stigma to being a victim in some cases, such as the case of sexual harassment, where, research shows, perpetrators are judged more positively if they are identified, and victims, especially women, are judged more negatively if they are identified (Barak-Corren & Lewinsohn-Zamir, 2019).

 

People around the world engage in moral and legal transgressions, and if our judgments of them are influenced by minor features such as a photo or name, we should take action to treat people more fairly. This research will help to determine if people are influenced by these factors.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript underwent one round of thorough review. After considering the detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender determined that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and granted in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly Journals:
 

 

 

1. Barak‐Corren, N., & Lewinsohn‐Zamir, D. (2019). What's in a Name? The Disparate Effects of Identifiability on Offenders and Victims of Sexual Harassment. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 16, 955-1000. https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12233

 

2. Blanke, T. & Twardawski, M. (2024). The Role of Offender Identifiability in Second- and Third-Party Punishment. In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/7qzva

 

3. Marques, J. M., & Paez, D. (1994). The ‘black sheep effect’: Social categorization, rejection of ingroup deviates, and perception of group variability. European Review of Social Psychology, 5, 37-68. https://doi.org/10.1080/14792779543000011

 

4. Small, D. A., & Loewenstein, G. (2003). Helping a victim or helping the victim: Altruism and identifiability. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 26, 5-16. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022299422219

 

5. Walters, G. D. (2022). Crime and social cognition: A meta-analytic review of the developmental roots of adult criminal thinking. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 18, 183-207. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-020-09435-w