Revenge as social interaction: Merging social psychological and interpersonal communication approaches to the study of vengeful behavior

The purpose of this essay is to review and assess the benefits of merging social psychological and communication theory‐based approaches to the study of vengeful behavior in interpersonal interactions. We first outline the parallel but complementary perspectives that each discipline takes to the conceptualization of revenge. From there, we identify some of the core features that would be present in an integrated approach that conceptualizes revenge as an interpersonal process (i.e., an interaction or exchange), and then highlight new directions for both inquiry and theory building that an integrative approach reveals as worthy of scholarly pursuit. We argue that conceptualizing and studying revenge in ways that blend both social psychological and communication‐based views offers numerous opportunities to examine the dynamics between a provoking party and an avenger, and provides a richer and more insightful theoretical understanding of vengeful behavior than either perspective could offer alone.     

Understanding Voter Vengeance

This article proposes that, in electoral contexts, decision makers may experience a desire for vengeance or a desire to “get even” with an entity, such as a political candidate, in response to a perceived wrongdoing. This article draws on research from the domains of psychology and sociology to develop a theoretical framework for examining factors that may influence the extent to which voters exact revenge on political candidates with their voting behavior. The results of 3 experiments are reported in which voters are shown to exact revenge on a candidate who has won an earlier round of elections by defeating a favored candidate. This process is mediated by damage to self‐identity and is strengthened by perceived share of blame attributed to the perpetrator candidate. This research shows how vengeful voters are delighted when a perpetrator candidate later performs poorly while in office. This research also shows how making salient a shared affiliation with the perpetrator candidate (such as race or university major) can attenuate vengeful voting behavior. The research builds on a growing body of work that explores negative and potentially counterproductive emotions in choice contexts.     

What makes displaced revenge taste sweet: Retributing displaced responsibility or sending a message to the original perpetrator?

The present research investigates the psychological dynamics underlying displaced revenge. We examine (1) the effect of entitativity on displaced revenge tendencies, including potential mediators of this effect, and (2) the conditions under which taking displaced revenge is satisfying for avengers. In three studies, we show that (a) perpetrator group entitativity predicts the tendency to take displaced revenge via perceptions that the vengeful action is effective in delivering a message to the original perpetrator, (b) that displaced revenge is satisfying when the group continues to exist in its original form, but not when the perpetrator has left the group or when the group has dissolved, and (c) that displaced revenge is most satisfying when both the original perpetrator and the target of revenge understand why revenge has been taken. These findings imply that sending a message to the original perpetrator is an important aspect of the psychological dynamics underlying displaced revenge.     

What makes revenge sweet: Seeing the offender suffer or delivering a message?

The present article investigates the conditions under which vengeful episodes are satisfactory for the victim/avenger. Two hypotheses are tested simultaneously: (1) victims are satisfied if they see the offender suffer, even if this suffering was imposed by fate (“comparative suffering” hypothesis) and (2) victims are satisfied if the offender signals that he understands why revenge was imposed upon him (“understanding” hypothesis). A laboratory experiment is described in which the source of the offender’s suffering (revenge vs. fate) and the offender’s understanding for the cause of his suffering were varied. As an implicit measure of goal fulfillment, participants completed a lexical decision task that measured the relative accessibility of aggression-related words (compared to non-aggressive words). The results corroborate the understanding hypothesis: Participants showed higher levels of implicit goal fulfillment if they decided to take revenge and if the offender signaled understanding for the vengeful response. The findings are discussed with regard to the question what people hope to achieve when they take revenge.     

TV,PEER, AND PARENT MODELS FOR PRO- AND ANTISOCIAL CONFLICT BEHAVIORS

This study focused on the influence of mediated and unmediated models on the decision of adolescents to employ both pro- and antisocial modes of conflict resolution. Adolescents indicated how likely they would use four antisocial modes (verbal aggression, physical aggression, regression, and revenge) and one prosocial mode to resolve two conflicts. Their responses were correlated with four television viewing clusters (ABC crime/adventure, CBS crime/adventure, situation comedy, and nonpolice/adventure), the perceived likelihood that peers would employ the modes and the perceived likelihood that parents would employ the modes to discipline them. The television viewing clusters were inconsistent predictors of the adolescent use of the modes. The best predictor of adolescent use of the modes was perceived peer use followed by perceived parental use. Both mediated and unmediated influences produced significant multiple correlations and explained 34% to 48% of the variance in the adolescent use of the modes.     

A prospective investigation of the relationship between just-world beliefs and the desire for revenge after September 11, 2001

We prospectively examined the relationship between individuals' belief in a just world and their desire for revenge against the perpetrators of the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States. Eighty-three undergraduate students who had completed a measure of just-world beliefs prior to the terrorist attacks were assessed approximately 2 months following the attacks. The more strongly they had endorsed just-world beliefs prior to the attacks, the more distressed they felt about the attacks and the more they desired revenge. Furthermore, the relationship between belief in a just world and the desire for revenge was mediated by feelings of distress in response to the terrorist attacks. The results point to the importance of justice beliefs in understanding responses to the terrorist attacks.     

Frequency and Type of Conflicts of Interest in the Peer Review of Basic Biomedical Research Funding Applications: Self-Reporting Versus Manual Detection

Despite the presumed frequency of conflicts of interest in scientific peer review, there is a paucity of data in the literature reporting on the frequency and type of conflicts that occur, particularly with regard to the peer review of basic science applications. To address this gap, the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) conducted a retrospective analysis of conflict of interest data from the peer review of 282 biomedical research applications via several onsite review panels. The overall conflicted-ness of these panels was significantly lower than that reported for regulatory review. In addition, the majority of identified conflicts were institutional or collaborative in nature. No direct financial conflicts were identified, although this is likely due to the relatively basic science nature of the research. It was also found that 65 % of identified conflicts were manually detected by AIBS staff searching reviewer CVs and application documents, with the remaining 35 % resulting from self-reporting. The lack of self-reporting may be in part attributed to a lack of perceived risk of the conflict. This result indicates that many potential conflicts go unreported in peer review, underscoring the importance of improving detection methods and standardizing the reporting of reviewer and applicant conflict of interest information.     

Highly reflective reasoners show no signs of belief inhibition

The processes underlying individual differences in reasoning performance are not entirely understood. What do people who do well on reasoning tasks where beliefs and logic conflict do differently from other people? Because abundant evidence shows that even poorer reasoners detect these conflicts, it has been suggested that individual differences in reasoning performance arise from inhibition failures later in the reasoning process. The present paper argues that a minority of highly skilled reasoners may deviate from this general reasoning process from an early stage. Two studies investigated signs of belief inhibition using a lexical access paradigm (Study 1) and a negative priming paradigm (Study 2). Study 1 showed that while other people exhibited signs of belief inhibition following a belief–logic conflict, people with the highest disposition for cognitive reflection did not. In Study 2, this finding was replicated and similar results were also obtained when comparing groups with higher and lower general cognitive ability. Two possible explanations are discussed.     

Voicing conflict: preferred conflict strategies among incremental and entity theorists

The way individuals choose to handle their feelings during interpersonal conflicts has important consequences for relationship outcomes. In this article, the authors predict and find evidence that people's implicit theory of personality is an important predictor of conflict behavior following a relationship transgression. Incremental theorists, who believe personality can change and improve, were likely to voice their displeasure with others openly and constructively during conflicts. Entity theorists, who believe personality is fundamentally fixed, were less likely to voice their dissatisfactions directly. These patterns were observed in both a retrospective study of conflict in dating relationships (Study 1) and a prospective study of daily conflict experiences (Study 2). Study 2 revealed that the divergence between incremental and entity theorists was increasingly pronounced as conflicts increased in severity: the higher the stakes the stronger the effect.     

The Benefits,Costs, and Paradox of Revenge

In this article, we examine the psychology of revenge. We begin by discussing challenges associated with defining revenge. We then review the relative costs and benefits associated with taking revenge. Although revenge can deter future harm, promote cooperation, and restore avengers’ self-worth and power, it can also contribute to conflict escalation and adverse psychological outcomes for avengers, such as depression and reduced life satisfaction. Next, we examine the prevalence of revenge. In distinguishing between the desire for revenge and act of revenge, we challenge the notion that the act of revenge is an automatic or pervasive response to injustice. We highlight four factors that influence whether victims of injustice choose to take revenge: the persistence of anger, perceptions of the costs of revenge, cultural and religious values regarding revenge, and the presence of external systems that can restore justice on behalf of victims.     

A Developmental Meta-Analysis of Peer Conflict Resolution

A series of meta-analyses examine developmental trends in peer conflict resolution. Peer conflict resolutions are most likely to involve negotiation, with coercion and then disengagement the next most likely strategies. Patterns of conflict resolution differ with age. Coercion is common among children and disengagement is rare. Negotiation is prevalent among adolescents and young adults; the former do not differ in terms of coercion and disengagement, whereas the latter tend to avoid coercion in favor of disengagement. Conflict resolutions also vary as a function of peer relationships, assessment procedures, and reporters. Negotiation prevails in all peer relationships except those with siblings; there is more negotiation among romantic partners than among friends, and more negotiation among friends than among acquaintances. Negotiation is the overwhelming strategy of choice for those presented with hypothetical disputes, but actual conflicts tend to be resolved by coercion. Observers indicate that most conflicts involve coercive resolutions, in contrast to self-reports, which suggest that negotiation prevails. Although conclusions are qualified by the limited number of studies available, follow-up moderator analyses indicate that negotiation increases and coercion declines with age across most peer relationships, assessment procedures, and reporters such that different patterns of conflict resolution during childhood give way to the same relative ordering of strategies during young adulthood.     

Seeking revenge or seeking reconciliation? How concern for social‐image and felt shame helps explain responses in reciprocal intergroup conflict

In conflicts with reciprocal violence, individuals belong to a group that has been both perpetrator and victim. In a field experiment in Liberia, West Africa, we led participants (N = 146) to focus on their group as either perpetrator or victim in order to investigate its effect on orientation towards inter‐group reconciliation or revenge. Compared to a perpetrator focus, a victim focus led to slightly more revenge orientation and moderately less reconciliation orientation. The effect of the focus manipulation on revenge orientation was fully mediated, and reconciliation orientation partly mediated, by viewing the in‐group's social‐image as at risk. Independent of perpetrator or victim focus, shame (but not guilt) was a distinct explanation of moderately more reconciliation orientation. This is consistent with a growing body of work demonstrating the pro‐social potential of shame. Taken together, results suggest how groups in reciprocal conflict might be encouraged towards reconciliation and away from revenge by feeling shame for their wrongdoing and viewing their social‐image as less at risk. As victims and perpetrators are widely thought to have different orientations to inter‐group reconciliation and revenge, we suggest that work on reciprocal conflicts should account for the fact that people can belong to a group that has been both perpetrator and victim.     

Parent-child conflict and psychological maladjustment: a mediational analysis with reciprocal filial belief and perceived threat

Empirical research has shown that parent–child conflict is positively related to poor adjustment in adolescents; however, the underlying processes have not been adequately examined. To explore the possible mediating pathways, reciprocal filial belief and perceived threat were chosen to represent two likely mechanisms accounting for how parent–child conflict harms adolescents' perceptions of their relationship with their parents and their self‐perceptions within their cognitive‐appraisal framework. The former operates by attenuating children's affection towards their parents and the latter by lowering their self‐perceptions. This study also distinguishes internalizing from externalizing problems in order to examine whether lower reciprocal filial belief more strongly mediates the relation between conflict with parents and adolescents' externalizing problems and whether perceived threat more strongly mediates the relation between conflict with parents and adolescents' internalizing problems. Hypotheses are as follows: (1) the more parent–child conflict adolescents report, the less reciprocal filial belief they recognize, which, in turn, leads to more maladjustments, especially externalizing ones; (2) the more parent–child conflicts adolescents report, the more threat they perceive, which, in turn, leads to more maladjustments, especially internalizing ones. Participants consisted of 603 Taiwanese adolescents (226 males and 377 females) aged 15 to 19 (average age=16.95; SD=0.78). Structural equation modelling analyses confirmed the hypotheses. However, the three direct effects of conflict on internalizing problems, aggression, and deviant behaviour were still significant. In addition, a greater effect of the paternal than the maternal role on the link between conflict and attenuated reciprocal filial belief, and between perceived threat and internalizing problems, was identified. Implications for understanding the mediation processes responsible for all indirect effects, even the subsidiary ones, and the greater impact of conflict with the father than with the mother are discussed. Limitations of the study and considerations for future research are also addressed.     

Vengeance is self-focused: Comparing vengeful to anger-driven responses

Prior definitions and empirical research do not distinguish responses to transgressions driven by feelings of revenge from responses to transgressions driven by feelings of anger. We used autobiographical recalls to examine differences between vengeful and anger-driven responses. Our findings revealed that vengeful responses are not the same as anger-driven responses. Compared to anger-driven responses, vengeful responses resulted more from offences that induce a self-threat, which elicited more intense negative self-conscious emotions and more rumination. Moreover, compared to anger-driven responses, vengeful responses consisted more of behaviours that induced a self-threat to the other person, were motivated more by intrapersonal goals, were more delayed, elicited more positive emotions and resulted in less relationship restoration. Together, these findings suggest that more so than anger-driven responses, vengeance is self-focused.     

From the grave to the cradle: evidence that mortality salience engenders a desire for offspring

On the basis of terror management theory, the authors hypothesized that reminders of mortality (mortality salience) should promote the desire for offspring to the extent that it does not conflict with other self-relevant worldviews that also serve to manage existential concerns. In 3 studies, men, but not women, desired more children after mortality salience compared with various control conditions. In support of the authors' hypothesis that women's desire for offspring was inhibited as a function of concerns about career success, Study 3 showed that career strivings moderated the effect of mortality salience on a desire for offspring for female participants only; furthermore, Study 4 revealed that when the compatibility of having children and a career was made salient, female participants responded to mortality salience with an increased number of desired children. Taken together, the findings suggest that a desire for offspring can function as a terror management defense mechanism.     

Religion and Civic Purpose in Sophocles's Philoctetes

Why should citizens participate in civic endeavors they oppose? In the Philoctetes , Sophocles dramatizes the actions of three interlocutors who struggle for answers to an intractable personal and political conflict amid an existential civic crisis. The characters try several methods to resolve the impasse, specifically deceit, sympathy and appeals to duty. Ultimately, civic religion succeeds in creating unity where other methods of resolution fail. The civic religion framework in the Philoctetes can be seen as Sophocles's statement that resolution of the most extreme political conflicts can be obtained through a combination of piety and reason that respects foundational civic doctrines transcending politics. In this way, civic religion serves to unify political communities divided by self‐interest, intolerance, and desire for revenge while preserving self‐determination and the dignity of free will.     

Reasons to Desire and Desiring at Will

There is an unresolved conflict concerning the normative nature of desire. Some authors take rational desire to differ from rational belief in being a normatively unconstrained attitude. Others insist that rational desire seems plausibly subject to several consistency norms. This article argues that the correct analysis of this conflict of conative normativity leads us to acknowledge intrinsic and extrinsic reasons to desire. If sound, this point helps us to unveil a fundamental aspect of desire, namely, that we cannot desire at will. Unlike belief, however, desire can unproblematically accommodate a notion of instrumental attitude.     

Adolescents' reactions to hypothetical peer group conversations: evidence for an imaginary audience?

The theory of adolescent egocentrism holds that early adolescents have a distorted understanding of self-other relations; because of flaws in the traditional methods used to assess adolescent egocentrism, this notion has never received adequate empirical scrutiny. In the present research, the nature of early adolescent social cognition as characterized by that theory was investigated by examining age differences in judgments of hypothetical peer group conversations. In Study 1, children and early adolescents (N = 264) rated the attentiveness, criticalness, and admiration expressed in three conversations, in which the subject or a peer was mentioned in either an admiring, critical, or nonevaluative manner. In Study 2, a similar procedure was used with middle and late adolescents, as well as children and early adolescents (N = 187); two memory tasks were also administered to visit the issue of distortion in social cognition. In Study 3, a new sample (N = 1,019) representing the four age groups from Study 2 was presented with an ambiguous conversation and then asked to interpret who was the target (object of focus) and how that target was regarded. The findings from the three studies do not support the notion that adolescents believe others are attentive to and critical of their every move, or that their social cognition and perception is egocentric and distorted. Conceptual and methodological contributions are discussed, along with directions for additional research.     

父母冲突频率与青少年生活满意度的关系：青少年行为反应的中介作用

父母冲突与青少年的身心健康息息相关。本研究以366名青少年为被试,采用问卷调查法研究父母冲突频率与青少年生活满意度间的关系,以及父母冲突时青少年行为反应在其中的中介作用。结果表明：（1）父母冲突频率显著负向预测青少年生活满意度;（2）青少年的介入行为与生活满意度呈显著正相关,回避行为则与生活满意度呈显著负相关;（3）在主张–回避的父母冲突场景中,青少年的回避行为在父母冲突频率与生活满意度间起到部分中介作用,中介效应占总效应的22.90%。     

The wish for revenge

The wish for revenge is a ubiquitous response to narcissistic injury, and particularly to the narcissistic injury that accompanies oedipal defeat. Vengeful fantasy serves to represent and manage rage and to restore the disrupted sense of self and internalized imagining audience that have resulted from injury. Clinical and literary examples demonstrate the split within the representation of the self and the imagining other that underlies the wish for revenge, and the way that this split operates differently in the psychic economy of the transiently and the chronically vengeful.