Midterm Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Midterm - Assignment Example The present study involved a between-subjects design. This was pertinent in determining whether the participants who read a vignette about a 13 year old were as more likely to sentence a defendant to LWOP as those who read a vignette about a 16 year old. In this context, the dependent variable was life without parole â€Å"LWOP† while the independent variable was the defendant’s age. There were two main variables to be examined in the present study; LWOP and defendant’s age. The vignettes were randomly assigned to the participants. The participants recorded their responses for variable LWOP on a 5 point Likert-type scale (1 = very unlikely, 5 = very likely). On the other hand, the variable defendant’s age had two categories; 13-year old defendants and 16-year old defendants. The results (as in table 2) indicated lack of significant differences between participants who read a vignette about a 13-year old (M = 1.89, SD = 1.21) and participants who read a vignette about a 16-year old (M = 2.14, SD = 1.34); t(185) = 1.30, p = .19. This implies that the participants who read a vignette about a 13-year old were as likely to sentence the defendant to LWOP as those who read a vignette about a 16-year