The perceived seriousness of crimes: inter-individual commonalities and differences

Ingwer Borg (), Dieter Hermann and Wolfgang Bilsky
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Ingwer Borg: Westfälische Wilhems-Universität
Dieter Hermann: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität
Wolfgang Bilsky: Westfälische Wilhems-Universität

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 2023, vol. 57, issue 1, No 34, 765-784

Abstract: Abstract The paper focuses on ratings of the perceived seriousness of crimes and how they can be explained in a testable scaling model (SOCID) that shows commonalities and differences among individuals. The model assumes that crimes are first represented on each person’s psychological map. This map can be described as a geometric space spanned by the crimes’ perceived attributes. When assessing the seriousness of crimes, the person positions him-/herself on this map by finding a point whose distances to the crime points express how much he/she is rejects the respective crimes. Using three representative German surveys on crime prevention, the SOCID model is positively tested for various predictions: (1) All persons in our surveys share the same psychological map of crimes; (2) a 2-dimensional map accurately describes the persons’ observed badness ratings; (3) the points representing the crimes form essentially linear manifolds on the maps; (4) the older and the more conservation-oriented a person, the more similar his/her distances to the crimes; (5) gender has no systematic effect on the distribution of person-points on the crimes’ maps.

Keywords: Seriousness of crimes; Norm acceptance; Unfolding; Inter-individual differences; Age; Personal values (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s11135-022-01379-9

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