Contact: Jeff Harrison, editor
Phone: (520) 626-4386
Email: [email protected]
UA professor's research shows root motivation for killing may be same for murders and executions -- New research relates executions to parental models of care and compassion, says a psychology professor at The University of Arizona in Tucson. Following the release earlier this week of a study on clemency issues surrounding capital murder cases, Professor Gary Schwartz says he has found evidence that correlates public willingness to execute certain condemned prisoners as a function of personal and parental justice and compassion.
The findings bear on Texas's scheduled execution of Karla Faye Tucker, which Schwartz and his team of researchers describe as "the clemency decision of the century."
Schwartz sampled students at the UA for their attitudes about capital punishment, especially regarding those inmates who perhaps might have been rehabilitated while in prison, or who may even be innocent altogether, and compared them to the students' personal backgrounds.
The results, he says, are consistent with prior research documenting that those who are raised in homes that provide little compassion or justice "are more likely to engage in all kinds of antisocial acts, including killing." Schwartz asks then if the capacity for compassion then becomes a possible avenue for preventing the killing other people.
"The root motivation for killing may be similar for illegal murder and legal execution -- a focus on vengeance rather than compassion," Schwartz said.
Schwartz' initial survey was of students in his undergraduate class on the psychology of love and compassion. The survey was expanded to include several other groups of students at the University. The five sample groups totaled 407 subjects, college students generally in their early to mid twenties.
More than half of those surveyed (56 percent) would not execute a convicted murderer who in all likelihood had been rehabilitated. Nearly all (96 percent) would not execute based on evidence of innocence.
"It has been hypothesized that the capacity to experience and value personal justice and compassion, possibly modeled by one's parents, moderates one's willingness to kill, be it illegally, as a criminal, or legally, as an executioner," Schwartz says.
In his latest preliminary paper, Schwartz and his team found that 44 percent of subjects who were willing to execute rehabilitated prisoners rated themselves as significantly less just and fair, and especially less compassionate, than those who were not willing to execute. The four percent of the sample who said they would execute an inmate who might be innocent reported perceiving their fathers to be significantly less just and fair and less compassionate than did the subjects who were unwilling to execute.
"Perceptions of personal justice and fairness, and personal compassion were significantly correlated with perceptions of parental justice and fairness, and parental compassion," Schwartz says. He adds that the findings need to be replicated and extended before definitive conclusions can be drawn from them.
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To reach Gary Schwartz, professor of psychology, neurology, psychiatry and medicine, and director of the UA Human Energy Systems Laboratory, contact Jeff Harrison, The University of Arizona, News Services, (520) 626-4386, or e-mail [email protected]
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