INTRODUCTION“We look at a person and immediately a certain impression of his character is formed in us” (Asch, 1946, p. 258).Introduction to the problemCurrently in the United Kingdom about 50,500 children experience some form of abuse (NSPCC, 2013a). There is evidence that around 11.5%, or one in nine young adults, have experienced serious physical abuse from an adult during their childhood (NSPCC, 2013b). Radford and colleagues interviewed children as young as 11 years old and up to 24 years old, but one of the groups of children this study is interested in is 11 years old or younger, of which he interviewed 2,160 parents of children aged 11 and under. 11 years ( NSPCC, 2013b). It found that 1.3% or 1 in 80 of these children had been physically abused by their parents or carers (NSPCC, 2013b). Furthermore, around 0.8% of children, or one in 120, have experienced extreme forms of physical abuse from a parent or guardian (NSPCC, 2013b). In cases like these, the parents or guardians are normally taken to court where jurors must then decide whether they are fair to the charges against which they are brought. In many research studies, it is known that there are many variables that are capable of clouding a person's judgment when it comes to deciding whether the parent or guardian is guilty or not. One such variable factor that could interfere with a person's judgment is the attractiveness of the victim, which is what this study is interested in. In other words, if the victim of a child abuse case, the child, were deemed unattractive, would this then potentially influence a person's judgment on whether he or she deserved the abuse suffered by his or her parents or guardians? This would be... middle of paper... the situation regarding what they would do about it, putting themselves in the mother's shoes, and whether the mother deserved a fine/sentence for her actions. Motivation The hypothesis of this study is: Hypothesis 1: That significantly more participants will choose the stimulus image of the unattractive child to punish, compared to the stimulus image of the attractive child. The following is simply just speculation that was decided upon while analyzing the results. There are:1.) If there is a difference in the gender of the participant (male or female) and the condition he is in (attractive or unattractive), if he is more likely to punish the child.2.) If in a significantly more participants will choose the stimulus image of the unattractive child as "deserving" to be punished, compared to the stimulus image of the attractive child