ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Forensic and Legal Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1602972
The Devil Effect Triggered by Sexual Crimes
Provisionally accepted
- 1Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences, Brühl, Germany
- 2University of Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Carinthia, Austria
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Previous research has identified a number of stereotypical beliefs about sexual crimes, particularly in relation to child sexual abuse and rape. We suggested that these beliefs may be the result of a negative halo effect (i.e., a single negative attribute biases subsequent impression formation judgments). We therefore hypothesized that mere keyword pairs containing 'sex' activate negative schemas that influence judgments of criminal cases. We conducted three studies to investigate this hypothesis. In a focus group interview, we attempted to gain a basic understanding of the hypothesized effect. Two online surveys were used to quantify the initial findings. The results showed that the keywords 'sex and children' triggered strong negative schemas such as acts of violence, pedophile offenders, and a desire for harsh punishments. The keywords 'sex and violence' activated impressions of a broader range of offenses, but still strongly negative associations about the possible offender and harsh penalties. In contrast, the combined keywords 'children and violence,' which served as a control, elicited more heterogeneous responses. Overall, the current findings confirm the idea of a devil effect triggered by sexual crimes. This effect could have serious consequences, from reduced awareness of actual crimes to biased judgments by judges and juries.
Keywords: halo effect1, devil effect2, schemas3, judgments4, sexual crimes5
Received: 30 Mar 2025; Accepted: 30 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pfundmair and Matanovic. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Michaela Pfundmair, Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences, Brühl, Germany
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