“Terrorist” or “Mentally Ill”: Motivated Biases Rooted in Partisanship Shape Attributions About Violent Actors
Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Zeitschriftenaufsätze › Forschung › begutachtet
Authors
We investigated whether motivated reasoning rooted in partisanship affects the attributions individuals make about violent attackers’ underlying motives and group memberships. Study 1 demonstrated that on the day of the Brexit referendum pro-leavers (vs. pro-remainers) attributed an exculpatory (i.e., mental health) versus condemnatory (i.e., terrorism) motive to the killing of a pro-remain politician. Study 2 demonstrated that pro-immigration (vs. anti-immigration) perceivers in Germany ascribed a mental health (vs. terrorism) motive to a suicide attack by a Syrian refugee, predicting lower endorsement of punitiveness against his group (i.e., refugees) as a whole. Study 3 experimentally manipulated target motives, showing that Americans distanced a politically motivated (vs. mentally ill) violent individual from their in-group and assigned him harsher punishment—patterns most pronounced among high-group identifiers.
| Originalsprache | Englisch | 
|---|---|
| Zeitschrift | Social Psychological and Personality Science | 
| Jahrgang | 10 | 
| Ausgabenummer | 4 | 
| Seiten (von - bis) | 485-493 | 
| Anzahl der Seiten | 9 | 
| ISSN | 1948-5506 | 
| DOIs | |
| Publikationsstatus | Erschienen - 01.05.2019 | 
| Extern publiziert | Ja | 
- Sozialwesen
 
Fachgebiete
- Klinische Psychologie
 - Sozialpsychologie
 
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
- SDG 3 – Gute Gesundheit und Wohlergehen
 - SDG 10 – Weniger Ungleichheiten
 - SDG 16 – Frieden, Gerechtigkeit und starke Institutionen
 
