Third-party punishment and symbolic intragroup status |
| |
Authors: | Tyler G. Okimoto Michael Wenzel |
| |
Affiliation: | a Yale University, School of Management, 135 Prospect Street, P.O. Box 208200, New Haven, CT 06520-8200, USAb Flinders University, School of Psychology, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001, Australia |
| |
Abstract: | Retributive justice theory has suggested two processes by which punishment is psychologically satisfying to victims of injustice: leveling the power imbalance caused by the transgression and revalidating social consensus over the importance of the rules, norms, and values violated by the offense. The current investigation proposes a third symbolic function that has not yet been identified as a psychological consequence of punishment: confirmation of the victim's membership status in the group (i.e., intragroup standing or respect). Three studies identified perceptions of intragroup membership status as following from third-party punishment, partly explaining the effect of punishment on a victim's group identification. Study 1 showed that, following the experience of an injustice, punishment prevented perceived membership status threats from resulting in victim disidentification. Study 2 showed that third-party desires to punish increased subsequent identification by symbolically communicating the ingroup's regard for the victim, even when the offender did not actually suffer the effects of third-party sanctions. Finally, Study 3 showed that punishment only implied membership status when the act of punishment was instigated by an ingroup authority and was thus identity-relevant. Taken together, these studies offer the first examination of membership status as a relevant concern underlying retributive justice. |
| |
Keywords: | Punishment Retributive justice Intragroup status Retribution Justice Identification |
本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录! |
|