RT Journal Article
T1 Study of informal reasoning in judicial agents in sexual aggression cases
A1 Camplá, Xavier
A1 Gancedo Fernández, Yurena
A1 Sanmarco Vázquez, Jéssica
A1 Montes Campos, Álvaro
A1 Novo Pérez, Mercedes
AB Background/Objective: Judicial decisions must rest on formal reasoning. Nevertheless, informal reasoning sources (cognitive and motivational biases) were observed in judicial judgment making. Literature has identified sexual aggression cases as the most favorable for informal reasoning. Thus, a field study was designed with the aim of assessing the incidence and effects of cognitive and motivational biases in judicial agents in a case to rape to a woman.Methods: As for this, Chilean judicial agents (N = 217) assessed an allegation (weak evidence) of sexual assault in a case where the perpetrator was known or unknown to the victim. The judicial agents answered to a measure of the myths about sexual aggression, the attribution of responsibility to complainant, the attribution of responsibility to accused, the attribution of credibility to the complainant testimony, the attribution of a nature of a rape to the alleged facts and an estimation of the probability of false/unfounded accusations.Results: The results revealed an estimation of false/unfounded accusations of sexual aggression significantly higher than the mean of the best estimates, but into the upper limit of the best estimates; that the studied population did not share, in general, the myths about sexual aggression; and that the sources of attributional biases were driven in favor and against the complainant. Nevertheless, the case study showed that a large number of judicial agents participated of an overestimation of the probabilities of false or unfounded allegations, and of the myths about sexual aggressions and of attributional biases against the complainant.Conclusion: In conclusion, informal reasoning sources were observed in judicial agents when only formal reasoning should prevail. Thus, judicial agents should be trained to control these sources of bias substituting them by formal reasoning (evidence).
PB Frontiers
YR 2022
FD 2022
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/38599
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/38599
LA eng
NO Camplá X, Gancedo Y, Sanmarco J, Montes A and Novo M(2022) Study of informal reasoning in judicial agents in sexual aggression cases. Front. Psychol. 13:866145. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.866145
NO This research was sponsored by a grant of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2020-115881RB-I00) and by a grant of the Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria, Xunta de Galicia (ED431B 2020/46).
DS Minerva
RD 27 abr 2026