Remorse for discrimination: The role of group dominance in judging hate crimes against subordinate group members

IF 3 2区心理学 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL

British Journal of Social Psychology Pub Date : 2025-09-02 DOI:10.1111/bjso.70008

Andrés Gvirtz, Patrick F. Kotzur, Andrew L. Stewart, Felicia Pratto

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Abstract

Power, especially in the court system, is a potent determinant of intergroup relationships. Blind justice being only an ideal, public opinion can influence whether harm to low power groups is considered criminal and should be prosecuted. Our experiments investigated the impact of social dominance orientation (SDO) on the perceived appropriateness of punishment for harm to subordinate group members by dominant group members. Further, we examined the moderating role of a remorseful apology. We argue that perpetrators who do not show remorse towards their less powerful victim might be judged less harshly by those scoring high in SDO. Apologizing for the harm indicates a desire for social cohesion, which should appeal more to those low on SDO. We tested our hypothesis across three potential hate crimes: a privacy violation against a gay man (Study 1, N = 87 US-Americans), a shooting of an unarmed Black man (Study 2, N = 91 US-Americans), and an assault against an innocent refugee (Study 3a, N = 179 and 3b, N = 157 Germans). In three of four studies, people who desired group dominance advocated harsher punishment of remorsefully apologizing perpetrators. Our research contributes to the understanding of punitive attitudes across group boundaries with far-reaching societal implications.

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对歧视的悔恨：群体优势在判断针对下属群体成员的仇恨犯罪中的作用

权力，尤其是在法院系统中，是群体间关系的一个强有力的决定因素。盲目的司法只是一种理想，公众舆论可以影响对低权力群体的伤害是否被视为犯罪并应受到起诉。本实验探讨了社会支配取向对支配群体成员对下属群体成员伤害惩罚感知适当性的影响。进一步，我们检验了懊悔道歉的调节作用。我们认为，那些对权力较小的受害者没有表现出悔意的犯罪者，可能会受到SDO得分高的人的不那么严厉的评判。为伤害道歉表明了一种社会凝聚力的渴望，这应该更能吸引那些低SDO的人。我们在三种潜在的仇恨犯罪中测试了我们的假设：侵犯同性恋男子的隐私（研究1，N = 87名美国人），枪杀手无寸铁的黑人（研究2，N = 91名美国人），袭击无辜的难民（研究3a， N = 179和3b， N = 157名德国人）。在四分之三的研究中，渴望群体统治的人主张对悔过而道歉的肇事者给予更严厉的惩罚。我们的研究有助于理解跨群体的惩罚性态度，具有深远的社会意义。

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来源期刊

British Journal of Social Psychology PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL-

CiteScore

9.50

自引率

7.40%

发文量

期刊介绍： The British Journal of Social Psychology publishes work from scholars based in all parts of the world, and manuscripts that present data on a wide range of populations inside and outside the UK. It publishes original papers in all areas of social psychology including: • social cognition • attitudes • group processes • social influence • intergroup relations • self and identity • nonverbal communication • social psychological aspects of personality, affect and emotion • language and discourse Submissions addressing these topics from a variety of approaches and methods, both quantitative and qualitative are welcomed. We publish papers of the following kinds: • empirical papers that address theoretical issues; • theoretical papers, including analyses of existing social psychological theories and presentations of theoretical innovations, extensions, or integrations; • review papers that provide an evaluation of work within a given area of social psychology and that present proposals for further research in that area; • methodological papers concerning issues that are particularly relevant to a wide range of social psychologists; • an invited agenda article as the first article in the first part of every volume. The editorial team aims to handle papers as efficiently as possible. In 2016, papers were triaged within less than a week, and the average turnaround time from receipt of the manuscript to first decision sent back to the authors was 47 days.