The public’s “appetite” for punishment of crime has led some to compare support for harsh criminal justice policies to a practice of excess, much like craving ice cream. But what drives this appetite for punishment? This study investigates the functional relation between social structural factors of competition and social status, the endorsement of criminal stereotypes, and affective, behavioral and punitive responses to criminals. Results suggest, first, that perceiving criminals as competing against society for resources and power and as having a low social status (e.g., in terms of economic and educational attainment) is associated with perceiving criminals as being cold and untrustworthy, but somewhat competent and efficient. These perceptions are associated with feeling more anger and uneasiness, and less compassion toward criminals. Finally, feeling angry toward criminals is associated with supporting harsh criminal justice policies (e.g., giving law breakers stiffer sentences). The findings suggest that perceptions related to increasing social inequality could engender shifts in the endorsement of criminal stereotypes that are associated with public punitiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Teacher judgments of student competence can influence student achievement. Clothes, behavior, and physical appearance may all be used to infer student competence. We examined how fourth-grade teacher ratings of student physical appearance (e.g., appropriateness of clothing) relate to concurrent academic adjustment in terms of achievement, classroom engagement, teacher-child relations, parent-teacher partnership, and student academic self-concept and motivation, controlling for academic competence, ethnicity, and family characteristics. We followed 1,311 children from birth to grade 4. Children described by teachers more negatively in terms of their appearance had worse academic adjustment. Student physical appearance was also related to self-reported intrinsic motivation and academic self-concept, as well as to directly assessed math scores. Our results are consistent with social psychological and cognitive theories of stereotyping and classroom expectations, and suggest that school disengagement experienced by disadvantaged students may be partially rooted in elementary classroom dynamics.