Assessing Cognitive Biases in LLMs for Judicial Decision Support: Virtuous Victim and Halo Effects

ArXi:2603.10016v1 Announce Type: cross We investigate whether large language models (LLMs) display human-like cognitive biases, focusing on potential implications for assistance in judicial sentencing, a decision-making system where fairness is paramount. Two of the most relevant biases were chosen: the virtuous victim effect (VVE), with emphasis given to its reduction when adjacent consent is present, and prestige-based halo effects (occupation, company, and credentials). Using vignettes that were altered from prior literature to avoid LLMs recalling from their.