Previous research with mock jurors which concerned attribution of responsibility for a deviant/criminal act traditionally varied the “severity” of the act presented to subjects. Yet severity and justifiability of that act are seldom if ever differentiated. These dimensions are, both practically and theoretically, potentially disparate yet past research has neglected the dimension of justifiability. To test this possible distinction defendant's social status, victim's social status, severity of the crime (armed robbery vs petty larceny), and compensation to the victim were systematically varied in written criminal cases presented to 168 male and 228 female student subjects, randomly chosen. Subjects made a distinction between the two dimensions and both were highly associated with the recommended sanctions. These data were taken as evidence that (1) previous research has been remiss in not distinguishing between these two dimensions and (2) Heider's Level 5 of developmental stages of responsibility attribution (justifiability) was given support.
