Believing In True Evil May Increase Some People's Support Of Harsher Criminal Punishments

New findings published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences show that believing in evil can increase some peoples chances of supporting harsh criminal punishments.

Researchers at Kansas State University looked at findings that examined 200 participants who were instructed to read a case summary involving a murderer who confessed his crime.

Then, participnats were asked to give their agreement for different types of punishment including jail time with community service, jail time with opportunity for parole, jail time without possibility for parole and other sentences.

"We found that as people's beliefs in pure evil increased, they were more likely to support sentences like life in prison without parole and even the death penalty," lead researcher Donald Saucier, an associate professor of psychological sciences at Kansas State University, said in a news release. "We found that this actually happened through our participants perceiving the murderer as a demon and feeling that there was some need for retribution for the murder committed."

This belief may help explain how some opions of others are formed during social interactions and how believing whether a person is "good" or "bad" at his or her core may shape such social interactions, according to researchers.

"People who saw the stereotypically evil person versus the non-stereotypically evil person recommended greater sentences," Saucier added. "But, if they believed in pure evil, it didn't matter the characteristics; they were more likely to support the death penalty or life in prison. The belief in pure evil overrode our stereotypically evil person."

"This belief may change based on traumas, victimization and the celebrations of human success in our life," Saucier said. "We think it's a dynamic variable and influences our social interaction and social perceptions."