Attractive Young Females May Have Justice Edge
在司法判決面前 年輕漂亮的女性會更有優勢嗎？
Eight years ago, the jury in the trial of Casey Anthony announced their verdict. "As to the charge of first-degree murder, verdict as to count one, we the jury find the defendant not guilty."
八年前，審判凱西·安東尼的陪審團宣佈了他們的判決。“對於被告人所受到的一級謀殺指控，我們陪審團認為被告無罪。”
Anthony had been charged with murdering her two-year-old daughter. But like the murder charge, the jury's decision for additional charges of aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter were again "not guilty."
安東尼被控謀殺她兩歲的女兒。但是，像這樣的謀殺罪、嚴重虐待兒童以及嚴重過失殺人罪等額外指控，陪審團的裁決卻再次為“無罪”。
That caused this huge outcry. Christopher Ferguson, a clinical psychologist at Stetson University in central Florida, not far from where the trial occurred. "There was this narrative that she got preferential treatment, maybe not on purpose, but that the jury was sympathetic to her because she was this pretty young female and that kind of conflicted with people's impression of who a murderer is."
“這個判決引起了強烈的抗議。”弗羅裡達中部斯泰森大學的臨床心理學家克里斯托弗·弗格森說道：“有一種說法是，她得到了優待，也許不是出於有意，但陪審團同情她，因為她是這麼年輕漂亮的女性，她的形象與人們對兇手的印象不符。”
Mock trial studies have suggested that attractive people have an edge in the criminal justice system. So Ferguson and his colleagues looked into that stereotype using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, the largest long-term study of people who began participating in the study as teens.
模擬審判研究表明，在刑事司法體系中，有魅力的人是有優勢的。所以弗格森和他的同事們通過“全國青少年到成人健康縱向研究”的數據研究這種成見，全國青少年到成人健康縱向研究是對從青少年時期就開始參與這項研究的人進行的最大的長期研究。
The interviewers asked the youths a multitude of questions - and also rated the respondents' degree of attractiveness, a measure that's been used to examine links to health and wealth.
調查人員詢問了這些年輕人許多問題，此外，研究人員還對每位調查對象的吸引力進行了評分，並以此作為考察健康和財務之間關聯的指標。
In this case, Ferguson and his team looked at a subset of nearly 8,800 respondents and examined the correlation between attractiveness and arrest, conviction and sentencing. After controlling for things like gender, race and socioeconomic status, they found that attractiveness didhave a protective effect - but only for females.
在這個案例中，弗格森和他的團隊調查了近8800名受訪者，研究了吸引力與被捕、定罪和判刑之間的關係。在對性別、種族和社會經濟地位等控制變量進行排查後，他們發現吸引力確實具有保護作用——但只在女性身上有效。
Girls or women who are more attractive were less likely to be arrested if they'd committed a crime and less likely to be convicted if they were arrested for that crime. However, it did not have any impact on their sentencing. So once they were convicted, attractiveness conveyed no further benefits. The results are in the journal Psychiatry, Psychology and Law.
“假如更有魅力的女孩或女性犯了罪時，她們被捕的可能性更小；而假如她們因為那項罪行被逮捕，她們被定罪的可能性也更小。”不過，吸引力對她們的判刑沒有任何影響。所以，一旦他們被定罪，外表吸引力就不會帶來進一步的好處。”研究結果發表在《精神病學、心理學和法律》雜誌上。
It's just a correlation, of course, and there are limitations. The attractiveness ratings were an average of four different interviewers' assessments, made over a dozen years. But beauty, as they say, is in the eyes of the beholder. And the effects weren't huge. Still, Ferguson says, "being alert to our stereotypes and prejudices sometimes can help us combat them a little bit" - and perhaps get us closer to the ideal that justice should be blind.
當然，這只是一種相關性，也存在侷限性。這些吸引力評分是十幾年前四位採訪員所打出的評分，且取得是平均值。但是，正如人們所說，情人眼裡出西施。而且影響也並那麼大。儘管如此，弗格森說，“時常警惕不要帶有成見和偏見之心，有時可以幫助我們稍微克服成見，”也許還能離“司法原則是盲目的”這一理想更近一步。
溫馨提示：原文聽力音頻請進入【小e英語聽力】公眾號收聽。
