Araby Roberts
Male defendants tend to receive harsher penalties than female defendants convicted of the same crime. However, it is unclear whether this extends to judgments in cases of child abuse as mothers are stereotyped as more responsible for childcare than fathers, and are assigned greater blame for childcare failures. Two hundred participants read a child neglect trial vignette with a female or male parent defendant who conformed to or violated gender-typed behaviour; participants then provided judgments of the case. The harshest punishments were directed toward stereotype-violating mothers. These findings highlight the need for interventions to reduce bias in jury decision-making.