Individual post by Rochelle - evaluation and research on individual characters

Posted by Rochelle

Stereotyping in the criminal Justice System - Race, beauty (aesthetically pleasing), class

 

My three characters of the jury I’ve included are to signify how the law subconscienly hold a biased opinion of members of society based on race, how aesthetically pleasing someone is and their class. Conveying the darker crevices as to where the law lacks decent judgement. “Research has long shown that people assume beautiful strangers have a host of other attractive attributes, such as intelligence, competence and kindness." Therefor subconsciously stereotyping a criminal. This has been proven on the news mainly in America but interestedly I found Research that has long shown that people assume beautiful strangers have a host of other attractive attributes, such as intelligence, competence and kindness. After writing the script and coming up with my three characters I decided to google the link between beauty and stereotypes. I found a lot of really good website which spoke about how “beautiful people” are more likely to have more success in life. Like for example if two candidates both with the same level of intelligence, one more beautiful than the other, scientific evidence has proven that the more attractive candidate is more likely to get the position. As your brain sub-consciously judges a person within 4 seconds of meeting them.  A few interesting websites and quotes I’ve found –

Beauty –

“Interestingly, these responses were not sexual - they happened regardless of the gender of the person in the photo. We might link any attractive people with "reward" because they have high social status. "Meeting a potential good friend or someone who might influence our career might be very rewarding," says Kampe.                                                                                                                            He adds that the response seemed quick and automatic and might partly explain evidence that we make snap judgments of people within three or four seconds of meeting them.”

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1412-beautiful-people-spark-a-brain-reaction.html#.VCmrFvldU0w 

“This advantage plays to all sorts of parts of life. humans want to see attractive people in their daily lives. in order to recieve physiological stimulation from seeing physical beauty. the brain seems to suggest that beauty is important enough to recieve a chemical stimulus to force us to surround ourselves with beautiful people. the chemicals released when one is happy are the same as when we see beauty or when we are addicted to drugs. this seems to point to an advantage that beautiful people have. although many other factors contribute to success in society it seems like the saying it pays to be beautiful may after all be true."

http://intro2psych.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/how-the-brain-reacts-to-attractiveness/

http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct06/pretty.aspx

Race -

“The current political debate on racism has centered on racial profiling by the police. The issue has been the extent to which police officers use their discretionary power to stop, detain, search or arrest in ways that disadvantage persons of color. It is well established that persons of color are stopped by police at much higher rates than white citizens.”

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/03justice/justice02c.htm

Class and other info -

http://critcrim.org/critpapers/barak.htm