Abstract

SOUSA, E.. Sexo do julgador, educação formal em Direito, e decisão penal: O caso do processo-crime de violação frustrada envolvendo assimetria de estatuto . Aná. Psicológica [online]. 1997, vol.15, n.4, pp.605-616. ISSN 0870-8231.

This paper deals with knowledge, University Law training and gender. It inspects legal and extra-legal variables in the case of a female rape-crime case involving assymetric social membership of both the victim and the offender. After reviewing recent literature on psychology, we hypothezised divergent perspectives as a function of gender, and of the configuration of membership of social groups of both the intervenients, as well as similar perspectives as a function of formal education (1st and 5th year of the University) in terms of representational complexity, inference and decision, be it legal components of the case, Law-relevant and irrelevant inference itens or penal decisions in terms of both verdict and penalty. The results of multivariate analyses of variance revealed the importance of both the legal and the ex-tra-legal variables on the legal framing of the crime-case and inference. Law training, which did neither have a significant effect on penalty nor on representational complexity, presented a significant effect on the legal components of the case, and produced less extreme irrelevant knowledge. Also, judge's gender affected the legal components of the case, namely the perceived contribution of the victim, and penalty. Females were slightly harsher. Finally, the configuration of assymetric social membership of both the victim and the offender affected the legal framing of the case. Results are discussed in terms of Psychology, social justice and Law considerations on rape.

Keywords : Psychology-Law; Social psychology of knowledge; information-processing; rape; gender.

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