Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Although most Americans support capital punishment, manypeople have misconceptions about its efficacy andadministration (e.g., that capital punishment deters crime). Cancorrecting people’s inaccurate attitudes change their support forthe death penalty? If not, are there other strategies that mightshift people’s attitudes about the death penalty? Some researchsuggests that statistical information can correct misconceptionsabout polarizing topics. Still, statistics might be irrelevant forsome people because they may support capital punishment forpurely retributive reasons, suggesting other argumentativestrategies may be more effective. In Studies 1 and 2, weexamined what attitudes shape endorsement of capitalpunishment and compared how two different interventionsshifted these attitudes. Altogether, our findings suggest thatattitudes about capital punishment are based on more than justretributive motives, and that correcting misconceptions relatedto its administration reduces support for capital punishment.