ABSTRACT Guilty pleas account for the vast majority of criminal convictions, yet experimental research on this topic is surprisingly uncommon; furthermore, race is seldom examined in the existing body of experimental studies. The current study utilized a 2 (Participant Race: White, non-White) X 2 (Defendant Culpability: Guilty, Innocent) between-subjects factorial design to investigate mock-defendant plea decisions using a vignette paradigm; culpability was randomly assigned. A significant main effect for culpability was found, such that guilty participants were more likely to accept the plea; however, 32.6% of innocent participants indicated that they would plead guilty to the crime in order to receive a guaranteed lesser sentence. The impact of culpability on plea decision making was partially mediated by individual beliefs about the case (e.g., strength of the case against them, likelihood of conviction at trial), which is especially interesting because this information was held constant across all conditions. There was no main effect for participant race in plea decisions (and no significant race by culpability interaction), although some racial differences in attitudes toward the criminal justice system were found. Possible explanations for these findings and implications for future research are explored.

中文翻译：

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种族，可追究性和被告辩诉交易的决定：实验模拟

摘要认罪是绝大多数刑事定罪的原因，但有关该主题的实验研究却很少见，这令人惊讶。此外，在现有的实验研究中很少检查种族。当前的研究使用2（参与者种族：白人，非白人）X 2（被告人可拖延性：有罪，无辜）受试者间析因设计，以小插图范式调查模拟被告人的辩诉决定；罪责是随机分配的。发现对罪责有重大的主要影响，因此，有罪的参与者更有可能接受认罪。但是，有32.6％的无辜参与者表示，他们将对罪行表示认罪，以便获得有保证的较轻刑期。犯罪对认罪决定的影响部分是由对案件的个人信念（例如，针对他们的案件的强度，在审判中被定罪的可能性），这尤其有趣，因为该信息在所有条件下都保持不变。尽管发现对刑事司法制度的态度存在种族差异，但认罪决定中的参与者种族并没有主要影响（也没有因罪责互动而产生重大种族）。探索了这些发现的可能解释及其对未来研究的意义。