- Email: [email protected]
Negative emotions and emotion avoidance in victim derogation✰
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Negative emotions and emotion avoidance in victim derogation✰ ⁎
Jude Ash , K. Lira Yoon University of Notre Dame, 390 Corbett Family Hall, Notre Dame, IN, USA, 46556.
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Just world theory Victim derogation Emotion Empathy Avoidance
Many researchers have noted that emotions have not received due attention in just world theory research, despite evidence suggesting that negative emotions and emotion avoidance play an important role in victim derogation. To address this gap in the literature, we examined the role of negative emotions and emotion avoidance in victim derogation in a sample of 98 undergraduate students who watched five videos depicting real-world innocent victims. Participants’ negative emotions, emotion avoidance, and belief in a just world were measured, and they evaluated the character and social desirability of the victims (i.e., victim derogation). Women reported higher levels of negative emotions and derogated victims less than men. More importantly, controlling for gender, higher levels of negative emotions were associated with less victim derogation, but only among participants with lower levels of emotion avoidance. Results suggest that emotional empathy, defined as experiencing the same emotion as another person and vicariously experiencing their distress, may play an important role in victim derogation above and beyond the belief in a just world. Thus, it would be critical to examine emotional processes and use emotionally arousing stimuli in studies on victim derogation and just world theory.
When witnessing the suffering of an innocent victim, some people show compassion, but others respond with indifference or even victim derogation. Just World Theory (JWT: Lerner, 1980; Lerner & Miller, 1978) posits that a preexisting belief in a just world (BJW) underlies victim derogation. When observing the suffering of innocent victims, believers are motivated to maintain the congruity of the BJW by attempting to correct the injustice. However, if an opportunity for correction is not within reach, observers may resort to modifying their perception of the victims. If victims are unworthy, their misfortune is justified, and the threat to the BJW is eliminated. Notably, the BJW was not assessed in any pre-1980 JWT studies. Instead, researchers experimentally manipulated proxy variables that presumably threatened the BJW, such as the innocence of the victim (e.g., Anderson, 1992), and whether those responsible for the injustice were punished (e.g., Hafer, 2000); greater derogation when the threat to the BJW was presumably higher was then attributed to the BJW. That is, the core prediction of JWT that the BJW underlies victim derogation was not directly examined in the pre-1980 JWT research. In the post1980 era, self-reported measures assessing the BJW were developed (e.g., Rubin & Peplau, 1973, 1975), but research mostly focused on the relations between individual differences in the BJW and various other
psychological and social phenomena (e.g., religiosity, political and social conservatism) in different contexts such as sexual assault (Drout & Gaertner, 1994) and school bullying (Craig, Henderson & Murphy, 2000). Importantly, studies that examined the relation between the BJW and victim derogation yielded mixed findings. On one hand, the positive association between the BJW and victim derogation/blaming was supported in different contexts, including poor people in the third world, people with disability, and individuals with AIDS (Montada, 1998) and was associated with such phenomena as racial discrimination (da Costa Silva, Torres, Estramiana, Luque & Linhares, 2018). Moreover, men with stronger (vs. weaker) BJW showed higher derogation of rape victims (Kleinke & Meyer, 1990). However, the BJW was unrelated to victim derogation in other studies. For example, the BJW was not significantly related to moral judgments about contracting AIDS (Brems & Wagner, 1994) or attribution of blame in rape and theft situations (Bush, Krebs & Carpendale, 1993). Furthermore, unlike men, women with stronger (vs. weaker) BJW in the Kleinke and Meyer's study derogated the victims less, not more. Thus, Furnham (2003) concluded that “the BJW may be moderated, mediated, muffled, or trumped by other factors” and that “the BJW alone is not the only
✰
Data availability statement: THE DATA THAT SUPPORT THE FINDINGS OF THIS STUDY ARE OPENLY AVAILABLE IN HARVARD DATAVERSE AT: https://doi. org/10.7910/DVN/RTZB9E ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J. Ash), [email protected] (K. Lira Yoon). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109674 Received 5 July 2019; Received in revised form 18 October 2019; Accepted 21 October 2019 0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Jude Ash and K. Lira Yoon, Personality and Individual Differences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109674
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
J. Ash and K. Lira Yoon
1. Methods
motivation to cause victim blame and derogation” (p. 803). Indeed, other factors such as the persistence of the victims’ suffering moderate the relation between the BJW and victim derogation (e.g., Correia & Vala, 2003). Negative emotions may be another important factor in victim derogation. In fact, JWT assumes that witnessing injustice is emotionally arousing and that subsequent attempts to maintain the BJW are driven by this emotional arousal (Hafer & Begue, 2005). For example, victim derogation did not occur in less emotionally-arousing circumstances (Lerner, 1971), and low sympathy towards victims was associated with more victim derogation (Lerner, Miller & Holmes, 1976). Furthermore, compared to a group that received Lerner and Simmons' (1966) original instructions, a group instructed to “imagine [them]selves” in the victim's position did not derogate, but rather rated the victim more favorably than themselves (Aderman, Brehm & Katz, 1974). Thus, Kleinke and Meyer (1990) speculated that the positive relation between the BJW and the derogation of innocent rape victims did not hold for women because they may have identified with the victim. Identifying with the victim may increase participants’ negative emotions and empathy, resulting in less victim derogation. Indeed, higher levels of distress reported by witnesses of an injustice were associated with less victim blaming (Harber, Podolski & Williams, 2015), suggesting the need to examine negative emotion in JWT research (Hafer & Begue, 2005). Along with negative emotions, emotion avoidance might play a role in victim derogation. Emotion avoidance refers to a response to emotion that aims to avoid and suppress (vs. accept and experience) emotions. Examples include experiential avoidance (Gamez et al., 2014), thought suppression (Wenzlaff & Wegner, 2000), expressive suppression (Gross & Levenson, 1993), avoidance coping (Penley, Tomaka & Wiebe, 2002), and distraction (Webb, Miles & Sheeran, 2012). Because negative emotions are inherently aversive, individuals are inclined to avoid them (Chawla & Ostafin, 2007). An observer who habitually tries to avoid their negative emotions may not fully experience the elicited negative emotions when observing an innocent victim. As a result, emotion avoidance may attenuate the effect of negative emotions on victim derogation. For example, participants who viewed a video of a rape victim and then were instructed to suppress (vs. disclose) their emotions blamed the victim more (Harber, Podolski & Williams, 2015), suggesting that emotion avoidance is associated with higher victim derogation. However, participants with a repressive coping style (i.e., high avoidance of negative affect; Derakshan, Eysenck & Myers, 2007) derogated the victim less compared to non-repressors (Hafer & Gosse, 2011). Therefore, more research is needed to delineate the roles of negative emotions and emotion avoidance in victim derogation. The current study addressed this important gap in the literature by examining emotional factors (i.e., negative emotions and emotion avoidance) in victim derogation using emotionally arousing stimuli (i.e., real-life videos). Although some studies found that women blamed victims less than men (e.g., Culda, Opre & Dobrin, 2018), most studies (e.g., Kleinke & Meyer, 1990; Russell & Hand, 2017) found that women derogate victims less than men. Thus, we expected women would derogate victims less and experience higher levels of negative emotions (e.g., Chaplin & Aldao, 2013; Kleinke & Meyer, 1990; Russell & Hand, 2017) than men. More importantly, we hypothesized that, controlling for gender, higher levels of negative emotions would be associated with less victim derogation (Aderman et al., 1974). In addition, the hypothesized negative association between negative emotions and victim derogation may be weaker as individuals’ levels of emotion avoidance increase. Thus, we hypothesized that the negative association between negative emotions and victim derogation would be moderated by emotion avoidance.
1.1. Participants No previous research has examined the relations between negative emotions, emotion avoidance, and victim derogation. We, thus, used an effect size of d = 0.25 to reflect small effect sizes that are typical in psychological research to determine an appropriate sample size. A power analysis with an alpha level of 0.05 indicated that a sample size of 90 would provide 81% power. Thus, our sample size of 100 is adequate to detect the hypothesized interaction. Undergraduate students participated in exchange for course credit. Mean age was 19.2 years, and 67% were female. Ethnicity/race of the sample was 83% White, 19% Hispanic, 6% Black, and 10% other. 1.2. Videos Five videos between two to five minutes in length were used in the study. Following recommendations by Lerner (1980) and Hafer and Begue (2005), these videos depicted real, emotionally arousing situations showing the suffering of innocent victims (e.g., a scene with Syrian children and their mother mourning after an airstrike, a scene depicting a call from a 9/11 victim before the collapse of the twintowers). To control for in-group bias documented in the context of JWT research (e.g., Braman & Lambert, 2001), the videos were selected to cover a diverse set of contexts (e.g., Syria, Philippines, Palestine/Israel), protagonists (e.g., males, females, children, adults), and incidents (e.g., natural disaster, war, terrorism). 1.3. Questionnaires 1.3.1. Victim/Self derogation scale1 A 19-item Victim Derogation Scale was adapted from previous studies on JWT (e.g., Lerner & Simmons, 1966; Taylor & Kleinke, 1992). After watching each video (i.e., a total of five times), participants were asked to rate the protagonists on 16 personal attractiveness items (e.g., “likable/unlikable,” “intelligent/unintelligent”) and three social attractiveness items (e.g., “How easily can the person shown in the video gain admiration from others?”). The scores from the five post-video assessments were summed, and the average was used to index victim derogation. Reliability across the videos was high (Mean Cronbach's α = 0.87, range = 0.75–0.87). In addition, following previous research on JWT (e.g., Aderman et al., 1974; Lerner & Simmons, 1966), a 19item self-derogation scale was adapted from the victim derogation scale to assess, and control for, participants’ self-images (Cronbach's α = 0.58).2 1.3.2. Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) We used the 10-item Negative Affect subscale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988) to index participants’ negative emotions. Participants completed the PANAS a total of six times: once before viewing the videos (i.e., baseline) and once after watching each of the five videos. We used the mean scores across the five post-video responses to index participants’ negative emotions. Reliability was good (Mean Cronbach's α = 0.76, range = 0.74–0.85). 1 Exploratory factor analysis (generalized least squares, Promax rotation) yielded two factors: positive qualities (e.g., “smart,” “likeable”) and negative qualities (e.g., “stupid,” “unlikeable”), which explained 52.3% of the variance. Using the scores of these two factors as dependent variables yielded findings that were consistent with the analysis using the total score of the victim derogation scale. 2 Removing self-derogation as a covariate did not change the results.
2
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
J. Ash and K. Lira Yoon
differences in negative emotions and victim derogation. As expected, women (m = 21.1) reported significantly higher levels of negative emotions than men (m = 17.6), t(44.8) = −2.64, p = .01, 95% CI [−6.3, −0.9], Cohen's d = −0.57. In addition, consistent with the hypothesis, women (m = 43.6) derogated victims significantly less than men (m = 47.8), t(59.2) = 2.59, p = .01, 95% CI [0.93,7.5], Cohen's d = 0.63.
1.3.3. Belief in a Just World Scale (BJWS) The BJW was assessed using the 18-item Belief in a Just World Scale (BJWS; Lambert, Burroughs & Nguyen, 1999), which has demonstrated good reliability in previous research (Lambert & Raichle, 2000). Reliability in the current sample was good (Cronbach's α = 0.79). 1.3.4. Brief Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (BEAQ) The 15-item Brief Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (BEAQ; Gamez et al., 2014) was used to assess participants’ tendencies to avoid negative emotions. In the current sample, Cronbach's α was 0.80.
2.4. Negative emotions and victim derogation Pearson correlations between the variables are presented in Table 1. Of note, negative emotions, but not the BJW, were negatively associated with victim derogation. Interestingly, the BJW was negatively associated with emotion avoidance. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the hypothesis that higher negative emotions would be associated with lower levels of victim derogation and that this association would be stronger among individuals with lower levels of emotion avoidance. All continuous predictors were centered. Covariates (i.e., self-derogation and gender) were entered first,1 which accounted for a significant portion of the variance, R2adj = 0.12, F (2,95) = 7.34, f2 = 0.15, p = .001. Next, negative emotions, emotion avoidance, and the BJW were entered, which significantly improved the model, ΔR2 = 0.13, ΔF (3,92) = 0.61, p <0.001. Consistent with the hypothesis, higher levels of negative emotions were associated with less victim derogation, β = −2.79, t(92) = −3.9, p < .001, 95% CI [−4.22, −1.36]. Emotion avoidance, β = −0.02, t(92) = −0.30, p = .774, 95% CI [−0.16, 0.12], and the BJW, β = −0.10, t(92) = −1.36, p = .177, 95% CI [−0.25, 0.05], were not associated with victim derogation. Lastly, the two-way interaction between negative emotions and emotion avoidance was entered, which significantly improved the model, ΔR2adj = 0.26, ΔF(6,91) = 6.62, p < .001. Thus, consistent with the hypothesis, emotion avoidance significantly moderated the relation between negative emotions and victim derogation. The main effect of negative emotions, β = −0.46, t(97) = −4.4, p < .01, remained significant. Fig. 1 visually illustrates the significant interaction effect by creating extreme groups (+/− 1 SD). The simple slope was significant for participants with lower levels of emotion avoidance, β = −0.67, p < .001, 95% CI [−1.04, −0.36], whereas the simple slope for participants with higher levels of emotion avoidance was not significant, β = −0.22, p = 0.07, 95% CI [−0.5, 0.02]. That is, higher levels of negative emotions were significantly associated with less victim derogation only among participants with lower levels of emotion avoidance.
1.4. Procedure After providing informed consent, participants completed the selfderogation scale and the baseline PANAS. Participants then watched the five videos depicting innocent victims. After watching each video, participants completed factual questions about the content (e.g., “Where did the events depicted in the video clip take place?”), the victim derogation scale, and the PANAS. All participants watched the videos in the same order on a full-screen while wearing headphones, and the volume was standardized across participants. Afterwards, participants completed the BJWS, BEAQ, and other questionnaires that were unrelated to the current study. Before leaving the laboratory, participants watched a soothing and funny video to mitigate any stress or negative emotions resulting from watching the emotionally arousing videos. All procedures were approved by the local Institutional Review Board. 2. Results 2.1. Participant characteristics We summed up scores obtained after each video and then computed means to index participants’ levels of negative emotions and victim derogation. In the current sample, mean scores for victim derogation and self-derogation were 44.8 (SD = 6.9) and 41.7 (SD = 7.2), respectively. The mean for negative emotions was 20 (SD = 6.4). Finally, mean scores for emotion avoidance and the BJW were 41.1 (SD = 9.4) and 63.4 (SD = 8.5), respectively. One participant with high Cook's distance was identified as an outlier, and another participant had missing data; these two participants were excluded from all analyses. Thus, our final sample included 98 participants. 2.2. Manipulation checks Two manipulation checks were conducted. First, to ensure that participants were engaged and attentive to the videos, responses to the factual questions about each video were analyzed. Out of 10 factual questions, 99% of the participants responded to nine or more correctly.3 Second, we conducted a dependent samples t-test to compare participants’ negative emotions at baseline with those after watching the videos. Participants’ negative emotions were significantly higher after watching the videos (averaged across the five assessments; M = 20.5, SD = 6.4) than at baseline (M = 13.9, SD = 4.7), t(97) = −10.36, p < .001, 95% CI [−7.3,−4.9], Cohen's d= −1.09).4
3. Discussion The current study examined the relation between negative emotions and victim derogation and whether this association was moderated by emotion avoidance. As hypothesized, women demonstrated higher negative emotions and less victim derogation than men. More importantly, controlling for gender, higher negative emotions were associated with less victim derogation, which was moderated by emotion avoidance. Individuals who experienced negative emotions after witnessing the suffering of innocent victims were less likely to derogate the victims. However, negative emotions are inherently aversive, and some people tend to avoid them more than others; the current study identified emotion avoidance as one factor that moderates the link between negative emotions and victim derogation. In individuals who habitually avoided their negative emotions, there was no significant association between negative emotions and victim derogation. Negative emotions, however, were associated with less victim derogation among individuals with lower tendency to avoid emotions. In the current study, the BJW was not associated with victim derogation, which is inconsistent with JWT and some previous findings
2.3. Gender differences in negative emotions and victim derogation Welch two-sample t-tests were conducted to examine gender 3
Removing the one participant who scored low on factual questions did not change the results. 4 We also examined participants’ negative emotions after each of the five videos separately, which all differed from their baseline, all ts(97) > −7.98, all ps <.001. 3
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
J. Ash and K. Lira Yoon
when cognitive and affective empathy were controlled for, the BJW was not significantly associated with a positive attitude towards bullying (Lopez-Perez et al., 2017). Although emotion avoidance moderated the relation between negative emotions and victim derogation, participants higher in emotion avoidance did not report experiencing lower negative emotions. This suggests that the participants’ effort to avoid negative emotions failed, which is consistent with extant evidence (e.g., Feldner, Zvolensky, Eifert & Spira, 2003). People with higher tendency to avoid negative emotions are less tolerant of their negative emotions (Bond et al.,
Table 1 Pearson correlations between victim derogation and other variables. Variable
Victim Derogation NE EA
Victim Derogation
NE
EA
BJW
Mean
SD
−0.41***
−0.04 .14
−0.10 −0.09 −0.22*
44.9 20 41.2
6.9 6.4 9.3
Notes: NE = Negative Emotions; EA = Emotion Avoidance; BJW = Belief in a just-world. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.
Fig. 1. Relation between negative emotions and victim derogation as a function of emotion avoidance.
2011). Thus, when these participants failed to avoid their negative emotions, they might have become more distressed by and preoccupied with their own negative emotions, in which case high levels of negative emotions might not translate into being more empathic towards victims. That is, instead of helping them to empathize with the victims, negative emotions might have hindered participants with higher emotion avoidance to experience empathy. To examine this speculation, it would be important for future research to assess not only participants’ general tendency to avoid emotions, but also their actual emotion avoidance at the moment and whether their efforts to avoid emotion are successful. Whereas most JWT studies used written vignettes (e.g., Anderson, 1992; Braman & Lambert, 2001), the current study followed Hafer & Begue, 2005 recommendations and used emotionally-arousing, real-world videos. In fact, Lerner himself (Lerner & Miller, 1978) had warned that studies with low “experimental realism” that are not sufficiently arousing may not be valid to test JWT. The lack of correlation between BJW and victim derogation found in this study may be partly due to the use of emotionally arousing stimuli. Considering that real-life instances of innocent suffering are often emotionally arousing, our use of emotionally arousing videos likely simulated real-life events in a lab setting better than vignettes, thereby increasing the external validity of the findings (Hafer & Begue, 2005). Several limitations are worth mentioning. First, the sample was limited to college students with moderate levels of the BJW and the study design was cross-sectional. Thus, the current findings may not be generalized to the general public or individuals with strong BJW. Moreover, given that the current study was cross-sectional and
(e.g., Anderson, 1992). However, the presumed positive relation between the BJW and victim derogation has received mixed support. Furthermore, pre-1980 research on JWT (e.g., Lerner, 1971, 1977; Lerner & Simmons, 1966; Lerner et al., 1976) did not assess individuals’ BJW. Instead, variables that presumably threaten the observers’ BJW, such as victim's innocence, were experimentally manipulated; the findings were then attributed to individuals’ BJW. For example, when participants derogated clearly innocent victims more than victims whose innocence was unclear, it was presumed to be due to the threat to the participants’ BJW (e.g., Anderson, 1992). Once BJW scales were developed (e.g., Rubin & Peplau, 1973, 1975), the assumption that the BJW underlies victim derogation was taken for granted and research on JWT mostly focused on individual differences in the BJW and its correlates (for reviews, see Furnham, 2003; Furnham & Procter, 1989; Hafer & Begue, 2005). The current findings, however, demonstrate that factors other than BJW may contribute to victim derogation. The current findings suggest that emotional empathy may play an important role in victim derogation. Emotional empathy is defined as experiencing the same emotion as another person and vicariously experiencing their personal distress (Hodges & Myers, 2007). Participants who experienced high levels of negative emotions after witnessing the suffering of innocent victims may have emotionally empathized with those victims. Our findings suggest that when individuals empathize with victims by vicariously experiencing their distress, they may be less likely to derogate them. Indeed, low empathy has been linked to more dissociation from the victim (Abel et al., 1989), offending behavior (Van Langen, Wissink, Van Vugt, Van der Stouwe & Stams, 2014), and bullying (Lopez-Perez, Hanoch, Holt & Gummerum, 2017). Moreover, 4
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
J. Ash and K. Lira Yoon
correlational, causal inferences are unwarranted. Thus, future studies should consider experimentally manipulating empathy, emotion avoidance, and/or the nature of the stimulus (video vs. vignettes) to further clarify the roles of negative emotions and emotion avoidance in victim derogation. These limitations notwithstanding, the current study highlights the importance of considering participants’ negative emotions and emotion avoidance and using emotionally arousing stimuli when examining victim derogation. Individuals may derogate innocent victims not necessarily to restore their BJW. Regardless of their levels of the BJW, individuals may be more likely to derogate victims when they try to avoid the negative emotions, and by extension fail to empathize with the innocent victims. More research is needed to clearly delineate the role of emotional processes in victim derogation.
Gamez, W., Chmielewski, M., Kotov, R., Ruggero, C., Suzuki, N., & Watson, D. (2014). The brief experiential avoidance questionnaire: Development and initial validation. Psychological Assessment, 26(1), 35–45. Gross, J. J., & Levenson, R. W. (1993). Emotional suppression: Physiology, self-report, and expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(6), 970–986. Hafer, C. L. (2000). Do innocent victims threaten the belief in a just world? Evidence from a modified Stroop task. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(2), 165–173. Hafer, C. L., & Begue, L. (2005). Experimental research on just-world theory: Problems, developments, and future challenges. Psychological Bulletin, 131(1), 128–167. Hafer, C. L., & Gosse, L. (2011). Predicting alternative strategies for preserving a belief in a just world: The case of repressive coping style. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41(6), 730–739. Harber, K. D., Podolski, P., & Williams, C. H. (2015). Emotional disclosure and victim blaming. Emotion, 15(5), 603–614. Hodges, S. D., & Myers, M. W. (2007). Empathy. Encyclopedia of Social Psychology, 296–298. Kleinke, C. L., & Meyer, C. (1990). Evaluation of rape victim by men and women with high and low belief in a just world. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 14(3), 343–353. Lambert, A. J., Burroughs, T., & Nguyen, T. (1999). Perceptions of risk and the buffering hypothesis: The role of just world beliefs and right-wing authoritarianism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(6), 643–656. Lambert, A. J., & Raichle, K. (2000). The role of political ideology in mediating judgments of blame in rape victims and their assailants: A test of the just world, personal responsibility, and legitimization hypotheses. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(7), 853–863. Lerner, M. J. (1971). Observers evaluation of a victim: Justice, guilt, and veridical perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 20(2), 127–135. Lerner, M. J. (1977). The justice motive: Some hypotheses as to its origins and forms. Journal of Personality, 45(1), 1–52. Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world. The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. Springer9–30. Lerner, M. J., & Miller, D. T. (1978). Just world research and the attribution process: Looking back and ahead. Psychological Bulletin, 85(5), 1030–1051. Lerner, M. J., Miller, D. T., & Holmes, J. G. (1976). Deserving and the emergence of forms of justice. Advances in experimental social psychology, 9, Elsevier133–162. Lerner, M. J., & Simmons, C. H. (1966). Observer’s reaction to the “innocent victim”: Compassion or rejection? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4(2), 203–210. Lopez-Perez, B., Hanoch, Y., Holt, K., & Gummerum, M. (2017). Cognitive and affective empathy, personal belief in a just world, and bullying among offenders. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 32(17), 2591–2604. Montada, L. (1998). Belief in a just world: A hybrid of justice motive and self-interest? Responses to victimizations and belief in a just world. Springer217–246. Penley, J. A., Tomaka, J., & Wiebe, J. S. (2002). The association of coping to physical and psychological health outcomes: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 25(6), 551–603. Rubin, Z., & Peplau, A. (1973). Belief in a just world and reactions to another’s lot: A study of participants in the national draft lottery 1. Journal of Social Issues, 29(4), 73–93. Rubin, Z., & Peplau, L. A. (1975). Who believes in a just world. Journal of Social Issues, 31(3), 65–89. Russell, K. J., & Hand, C. J. (2017). Rape myth acceptance, victim blame attribution and just world beliefs: A rapid evidence assessment. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 37, 153–160. Taylor, C., & Kleinke, C. L. (1992). Effects of severity of accident, history of drunk driving, intent, and remorse on judgments of a drunk driver 1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 22(21), 1641–1655. Van Langen, M. A., Wissink, I., Van Vugt, E., Van der Stouwe, T., & Stams, G. (2014). The relation between empathy and offending: A meta-analysis. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 19(2), 179–189. Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070. Webb, T. L., Miles, E., & Sheeran, P. (2012). Dealing with feeling: A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation. Psychological Bulletin, 138(4), 775–808. Wenzlaff, R. M., & Wegner, D. M. (2000). Thought suppression. Annual Review of Psychology, 51(1), 59–91.
References Abel, G. G., Gore, D. K., Holland, C. L., Camps, N., Becker, J. V., & Rathner, J. (1989). The measurment of the cognitive distortions of child molesters. Annals of Sex Research, 2(2), 135–152. Aderman, D., Brehm, S. S., & Katz, L. B. (1974). Empathic observation of an innocent victim: The just world revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29(3), 342–347. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0036001. Anderson, V. N. (1992). For whom is this world just? Sexual orientation and aids. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 22(3), 248–259. Bond, F. W., Hayes, S. C., Baer, R. A., Carpenter, K. M., Guenole, N., Orcutt, H. K., et al. (2011). Preliminary psychometric properties of the acceptance and action questionnaire–ii: A revised measure of psychological inflexibility and experiential avoidance. Behavior Therapy, 42(4), 676–688. Braman, A. C., & Lambert, A. J. (2001). Punishing individuals for their infirmities: Effects of personal responsibility, just‐world beliefs, and in‐group/out‐group status. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31(5), 1096–1109. Brems, C., & Wagner, P. (1994). Blame of victim and perpetrator in rape versus theft. The Journal of Social Psychology, 134(3), 363–374. Bush, A. J., Krebs, D. L., & Carpendale, J. I. (1993). The structural consistency of moral judgments about AIDS. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 154(2), 167–175. Chaplin, T. M., & Aldao, A. (2013). Gender differences in emotion expression in children: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 139(4), 735–765. Chawla, N., & Ostafin, B. (2007). Experiential avoidance as a functional dimensional approach to psychopathology: An empirical review. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 63(9), 871–890. Correia, I., & Vala, J. (2003). When will a victim be secondarily victimized? The effect of observer's belief in a just world, victim's innocence and persistence of suffering. Social Justice Research, 16(4), 379–400. Craig, W. M., Henderson, K., & Murphy, J. G. (2000). Prospective teachers’ attitudes toward bullying and victimization. School Psychology International, 21(1), 5–21. Culda, G. L., Opre, A. N., & Dobrin, A. D. (2018). Victim blaming by women and men who believe the world is a just place. Cognition, Brain, Behavior, 22(2), 99–110. da Costa Silva, K., Torres, A. R. R., Estramiana, J. L., Luque, A. G., & Linhares, L. V. (2018). Racial discrimination and belief in a just world: Police violence against teenagers in Brazil. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 74, 317–327. Derakshan, N., Eysenck, M. W., & Myers, L. B. (2007). Emotional information processing in repressors: The vigilance–avoidance theory. Cognition and Emotion, 21(8), 1585–1614. Drout, C. E., & Gaertner, S. L. (1994). Gender differences in reactions to female victims. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 22(3), 267–277. Feldner, M. T., Zvolensky, M. J., Eifert, G. H., & Spira, A. P. (2003). Emotional avoidance: An experimental test of individual differences and response suppression using biological challenge. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 41(4), 403–411. Furnham, A. (2003). Belief in a just world: Research progress over the past decade. Personality and Individual Differences, 34(5), 795–817. Furnham, A., & Procter, E. (1989). Belief in a just world: Review and critique of the individual difference literature. British Journal of Social Psychology, 28(4), 365–384.
5
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Negative emotions and emotion avoidance in victim derogation✰ ⁎
Jude Ash , K. Lira Yoon University of Notre Dame, 390 Corbett Family Hall, Notre Dame, IN, USA, 46556.
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Just world theory Victim derogation Emotion Empathy Avoidance
Many researchers have noted that emotions have not received due attention in just world theory research, despite evidence suggesting that negative emotions and emotion avoidance play an important role in victim derogation. To address this gap in the literature, we examined the role of negative emotions and emotion avoidance in victim derogation in a sample of 98 undergraduate students who watched five videos depicting real-world innocent victims. Participants’ negative emotions, emotion avoidance, and belief in a just world were measured, and they evaluated the character and social desirability of the victims (i.e., victim derogation). Women reported higher levels of negative emotions and derogated victims less than men. More importantly, controlling for gender, higher levels of negative emotions were associated with less victim derogation, but only among participants with lower levels of emotion avoidance. Results suggest that emotional empathy, defined as experiencing the same emotion as another person and vicariously experiencing their distress, may play an important role in victim derogation above and beyond the belief in a just world. Thus, it would be critical to examine emotional processes and use emotionally arousing stimuli in studies on victim derogation and just world theory.
When witnessing the suffering of an innocent victim, some people show compassion, but others respond with indifference or even victim derogation. Just World Theory (JWT: Lerner, 1980; Lerner & Miller, 1978) posits that a preexisting belief in a just world (BJW) underlies victim derogation. When observing the suffering of innocent victims, believers are motivated to maintain the congruity of the BJW by attempting to correct the injustice. However, if an opportunity for correction is not within reach, observers may resort to modifying their perception of the victims. If victims are unworthy, their misfortune is justified, and the threat to the BJW is eliminated. Notably, the BJW was not assessed in any pre-1980 JWT studies. Instead, researchers experimentally manipulated proxy variables that presumably threatened the BJW, such as the innocence of the victim (e.g., Anderson, 1992), and whether those responsible for the injustice were punished (e.g., Hafer, 2000); greater derogation when the threat to the BJW was presumably higher was then attributed to the BJW. That is, the core prediction of JWT that the BJW underlies victim derogation was not directly examined in the pre-1980 JWT research. In the post1980 era, self-reported measures assessing the BJW were developed (e.g., Rubin & Peplau, 1973, 1975), but research mostly focused on the relations between individual differences in the BJW and various other
psychological and social phenomena (e.g., religiosity, political and social conservatism) in different contexts such as sexual assault (Drout & Gaertner, 1994) and school bullying (Craig, Henderson & Murphy, 2000). Importantly, studies that examined the relation between the BJW and victim derogation yielded mixed findings. On one hand, the positive association between the BJW and victim derogation/blaming was supported in different contexts, including poor people in the third world, people with disability, and individuals with AIDS (Montada, 1998) and was associated with such phenomena as racial discrimination (da Costa Silva, Torres, Estramiana, Luque & Linhares, 2018). Moreover, men with stronger (vs. weaker) BJW showed higher derogation of rape victims (Kleinke & Meyer, 1990). However, the BJW was unrelated to victim derogation in other studies. For example, the BJW was not significantly related to moral judgments about contracting AIDS (Brems & Wagner, 1994) or attribution of blame in rape and theft situations (Bush, Krebs & Carpendale, 1993). Furthermore, unlike men, women with stronger (vs. weaker) BJW in the Kleinke and Meyer's study derogated the victims less, not more. Thus, Furnham (2003) concluded that “the BJW may be moderated, mediated, muffled, or trumped by other factors” and that “the BJW alone is not the only
✰
Data availability statement: THE DATA THAT SUPPORT THE FINDINGS OF THIS STUDY ARE OPENLY AVAILABLE IN HARVARD DATAVERSE AT: https://doi. org/10.7910/DVN/RTZB9E ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J. Ash), [email protected] (K. Lira Yoon). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109674 Received 5 July 2019; Received in revised form 18 October 2019; Accepted 21 October 2019 0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Jude Ash and K. Lira Yoon, Personality and Individual Differences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109674
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
J. Ash and K. Lira Yoon
1. Methods
motivation to cause victim blame and derogation” (p. 803). Indeed, other factors such as the persistence of the victims’ suffering moderate the relation between the BJW and victim derogation (e.g., Correia & Vala, 2003). Negative emotions may be another important factor in victim derogation. In fact, JWT assumes that witnessing injustice is emotionally arousing and that subsequent attempts to maintain the BJW are driven by this emotional arousal (Hafer & Begue, 2005). For example, victim derogation did not occur in less emotionally-arousing circumstances (Lerner, 1971), and low sympathy towards victims was associated with more victim derogation (Lerner, Miller & Holmes, 1976). Furthermore, compared to a group that received Lerner and Simmons' (1966) original instructions, a group instructed to “imagine [them]selves” in the victim's position did not derogate, but rather rated the victim more favorably than themselves (Aderman, Brehm & Katz, 1974). Thus, Kleinke and Meyer (1990) speculated that the positive relation between the BJW and the derogation of innocent rape victims did not hold for women because they may have identified with the victim. Identifying with the victim may increase participants’ negative emotions and empathy, resulting in less victim derogation. Indeed, higher levels of distress reported by witnesses of an injustice were associated with less victim blaming (Harber, Podolski & Williams, 2015), suggesting the need to examine negative emotion in JWT research (Hafer & Begue, 2005). Along with negative emotions, emotion avoidance might play a role in victim derogation. Emotion avoidance refers to a response to emotion that aims to avoid and suppress (vs. accept and experience) emotions. Examples include experiential avoidance (Gamez et al., 2014), thought suppression (Wenzlaff & Wegner, 2000), expressive suppression (Gross & Levenson, 1993), avoidance coping (Penley, Tomaka & Wiebe, 2002), and distraction (Webb, Miles & Sheeran, 2012). Because negative emotions are inherently aversive, individuals are inclined to avoid them (Chawla & Ostafin, 2007). An observer who habitually tries to avoid their negative emotions may not fully experience the elicited negative emotions when observing an innocent victim. As a result, emotion avoidance may attenuate the effect of negative emotions on victim derogation. For example, participants who viewed a video of a rape victim and then were instructed to suppress (vs. disclose) their emotions blamed the victim more (Harber, Podolski & Williams, 2015), suggesting that emotion avoidance is associated with higher victim derogation. However, participants with a repressive coping style (i.e., high avoidance of negative affect; Derakshan, Eysenck & Myers, 2007) derogated the victim less compared to non-repressors (Hafer & Gosse, 2011). Therefore, more research is needed to delineate the roles of negative emotions and emotion avoidance in victim derogation. The current study addressed this important gap in the literature by examining emotional factors (i.e., negative emotions and emotion avoidance) in victim derogation using emotionally arousing stimuli (i.e., real-life videos). Although some studies found that women blamed victims less than men (e.g., Culda, Opre & Dobrin, 2018), most studies (e.g., Kleinke & Meyer, 1990; Russell & Hand, 2017) found that women derogate victims less than men. Thus, we expected women would derogate victims less and experience higher levels of negative emotions (e.g., Chaplin & Aldao, 2013; Kleinke & Meyer, 1990; Russell & Hand, 2017) than men. More importantly, we hypothesized that, controlling for gender, higher levels of negative emotions would be associated with less victim derogation (Aderman et al., 1974). In addition, the hypothesized negative association between negative emotions and victim derogation may be weaker as individuals’ levels of emotion avoidance increase. Thus, we hypothesized that the negative association between negative emotions and victim derogation would be moderated by emotion avoidance.
1.1. Participants No previous research has examined the relations between negative emotions, emotion avoidance, and victim derogation. We, thus, used an effect size of d = 0.25 to reflect small effect sizes that are typical in psychological research to determine an appropriate sample size. A power analysis with an alpha level of 0.05 indicated that a sample size of 90 would provide 81% power. Thus, our sample size of 100 is adequate to detect the hypothesized interaction. Undergraduate students participated in exchange for course credit. Mean age was 19.2 years, and 67% were female. Ethnicity/race of the sample was 83% White, 19% Hispanic, 6% Black, and 10% other. 1.2. Videos Five videos between two to five minutes in length were used in the study. Following recommendations by Lerner (1980) and Hafer and Begue (2005), these videos depicted real, emotionally arousing situations showing the suffering of innocent victims (e.g., a scene with Syrian children and their mother mourning after an airstrike, a scene depicting a call from a 9/11 victim before the collapse of the twintowers). To control for in-group bias documented in the context of JWT research (e.g., Braman & Lambert, 2001), the videos were selected to cover a diverse set of contexts (e.g., Syria, Philippines, Palestine/Israel), protagonists (e.g., males, females, children, adults), and incidents (e.g., natural disaster, war, terrorism). 1.3. Questionnaires 1.3.1. Victim/Self derogation scale1 A 19-item Victim Derogation Scale was adapted from previous studies on JWT (e.g., Lerner & Simmons, 1966; Taylor & Kleinke, 1992). After watching each video (i.e., a total of five times), participants were asked to rate the protagonists on 16 personal attractiveness items (e.g., “likable/unlikable,” “intelligent/unintelligent”) and three social attractiveness items (e.g., “How easily can the person shown in the video gain admiration from others?”). The scores from the five post-video assessments were summed, and the average was used to index victim derogation. Reliability across the videos was high (Mean Cronbach's α = 0.87, range = 0.75–0.87). In addition, following previous research on JWT (e.g., Aderman et al., 1974; Lerner & Simmons, 1966), a 19item self-derogation scale was adapted from the victim derogation scale to assess, and control for, participants’ self-images (Cronbach's α = 0.58).2 1.3.2. Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) We used the 10-item Negative Affect subscale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988) to index participants’ negative emotions. Participants completed the PANAS a total of six times: once before viewing the videos (i.e., baseline) and once after watching each of the five videos. We used the mean scores across the five post-video responses to index participants’ negative emotions. Reliability was good (Mean Cronbach's α = 0.76, range = 0.74–0.85). 1 Exploratory factor analysis (generalized least squares, Promax rotation) yielded two factors: positive qualities (e.g., “smart,” “likeable”) and negative qualities (e.g., “stupid,” “unlikeable”), which explained 52.3% of the variance. Using the scores of these two factors as dependent variables yielded findings that were consistent with the analysis using the total score of the victim derogation scale. 2 Removing self-derogation as a covariate did not change the results.
2
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
J. Ash and K. Lira Yoon
differences in negative emotions and victim derogation. As expected, women (m = 21.1) reported significantly higher levels of negative emotions than men (m = 17.6), t(44.8) = −2.64, p = .01, 95% CI [−6.3, −0.9], Cohen's d = −0.57. In addition, consistent with the hypothesis, women (m = 43.6) derogated victims significantly less than men (m = 47.8), t(59.2) = 2.59, p = .01, 95% CI [0.93,7.5], Cohen's d = 0.63.
1.3.3. Belief in a Just World Scale (BJWS) The BJW was assessed using the 18-item Belief in a Just World Scale (BJWS; Lambert, Burroughs & Nguyen, 1999), which has demonstrated good reliability in previous research (Lambert & Raichle, 2000). Reliability in the current sample was good (Cronbach's α = 0.79). 1.3.4. Brief Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (BEAQ) The 15-item Brief Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (BEAQ; Gamez et al., 2014) was used to assess participants’ tendencies to avoid negative emotions. In the current sample, Cronbach's α was 0.80.
2.4. Negative emotions and victim derogation Pearson correlations between the variables are presented in Table 1. Of note, negative emotions, but not the BJW, were negatively associated with victim derogation. Interestingly, the BJW was negatively associated with emotion avoidance. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the hypothesis that higher negative emotions would be associated with lower levels of victim derogation and that this association would be stronger among individuals with lower levels of emotion avoidance. All continuous predictors were centered. Covariates (i.e., self-derogation and gender) were entered first,1 which accounted for a significant portion of the variance, R2adj = 0.12, F (2,95) = 7.34, f2 = 0.15, p = .001. Next, negative emotions, emotion avoidance, and the BJW were entered, which significantly improved the model, ΔR2 = 0.13, ΔF (3,92) = 0.61, p <0.001. Consistent with the hypothesis, higher levels of negative emotions were associated with less victim derogation, β = −2.79, t(92) = −3.9, p < .001, 95% CI [−4.22, −1.36]. Emotion avoidance, β = −0.02, t(92) = −0.30, p = .774, 95% CI [−0.16, 0.12], and the BJW, β = −0.10, t(92) = −1.36, p = .177, 95% CI [−0.25, 0.05], were not associated with victim derogation. Lastly, the two-way interaction between negative emotions and emotion avoidance was entered, which significantly improved the model, ΔR2adj = 0.26, ΔF(6,91) = 6.62, p < .001. Thus, consistent with the hypothesis, emotion avoidance significantly moderated the relation between negative emotions and victim derogation. The main effect of negative emotions, β = −0.46, t(97) = −4.4, p < .01, remained significant. Fig. 1 visually illustrates the significant interaction effect by creating extreme groups (+/− 1 SD). The simple slope was significant for participants with lower levels of emotion avoidance, β = −0.67, p < .001, 95% CI [−1.04, −0.36], whereas the simple slope for participants with higher levels of emotion avoidance was not significant, β = −0.22, p = 0.07, 95% CI [−0.5, 0.02]. That is, higher levels of negative emotions were significantly associated with less victim derogation only among participants with lower levels of emotion avoidance.
1.4. Procedure After providing informed consent, participants completed the selfderogation scale and the baseline PANAS. Participants then watched the five videos depicting innocent victims. After watching each video, participants completed factual questions about the content (e.g., “Where did the events depicted in the video clip take place?”), the victim derogation scale, and the PANAS. All participants watched the videos in the same order on a full-screen while wearing headphones, and the volume was standardized across participants. Afterwards, participants completed the BJWS, BEAQ, and other questionnaires that were unrelated to the current study. Before leaving the laboratory, participants watched a soothing and funny video to mitigate any stress or negative emotions resulting from watching the emotionally arousing videos. All procedures were approved by the local Institutional Review Board. 2. Results 2.1. Participant characteristics We summed up scores obtained after each video and then computed means to index participants’ levels of negative emotions and victim derogation. In the current sample, mean scores for victim derogation and self-derogation were 44.8 (SD = 6.9) and 41.7 (SD = 7.2), respectively. The mean for negative emotions was 20 (SD = 6.4). Finally, mean scores for emotion avoidance and the BJW were 41.1 (SD = 9.4) and 63.4 (SD = 8.5), respectively. One participant with high Cook's distance was identified as an outlier, and another participant had missing data; these two participants were excluded from all analyses. Thus, our final sample included 98 participants. 2.2. Manipulation checks Two manipulation checks were conducted. First, to ensure that participants were engaged and attentive to the videos, responses to the factual questions about each video were analyzed. Out of 10 factual questions, 99% of the participants responded to nine or more correctly.3 Second, we conducted a dependent samples t-test to compare participants’ negative emotions at baseline with those after watching the videos. Participants’ negative emotions were significantly higher after watching the videos (averaged across the five assessments; M = 20.5, SD = 6.4) than at baseline (M = 13.9, SD = 4.7), t(97) = −10.36, p < .001, 95% CI [−7.3,−4.9], Cohen's d= −1.09).4
3. Discussion The current study examined the relation between negative emotions and victim derogation and whether this association was moderated by emotion avoidance. As hypothesized, women demonstrated higher negative emotions and less victim derogation than men. More importantly, controlling for gender, higher negative emotions were associated with less victim derogation, which was moderated by emotion avoidance. Individuals who experienced negative emotions after witnessing the suffering of innocent victims were less likely to derogate the victims. However, negative emotions are inherently aversive, and some people tend to avoid them more than others; the current study identified emotion avoidance as one factor that moderates the link between negative emotions and victim derogation. In individuals who habitually avoided their negative emotions, there was no significant association between negative emotions and victim derogation. Negative emotions, however, were associated with less victim derogation among individuals with lower tendency to avoid emotions. In the current study, the BJW was not associated with victim derogation, which is inconsistent with JWT and some previous findings
2.3. Gender differences in negative emotions and victim derogation Welch two-sample t-tests were conducted to examine gender 3
Removing the one participant who scored low on factual questions did not change the results. 4 We also examined participants’ negative emotions after each of the five videos separately, which all differed from their baseline, all ts(97) > −7.98, all ps <.001. 3
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
J. Ash and K. Lira Yoon
when cognitive and affective empathy were controlled for, the BJW was not significantly associated with a positive attitude towards bullying (Lopez-Perez et al., 2017). Although emotion avoidance moderated the relation between negative emotions and victim derogation, participants higher in emotion avoidance did not report experiencing lower negative emotions. This suggests that the participants’ effort to avoid negative emotions failed, which is consistent with extant evidence (e.g., Feldner, Zvolensky, Eifert & Spira, 2003). People with higher tendency to avoid negative emotions are less tolerant of their negative emotions (Bond et al.,
Table 1 Pearson correlations between victim derogation and other variables. Variable
Victim Derogation NE EA
Victim Derogation
NE
EA
BJW
Mean
SD
−0.41***
−0.04 .14
−0.10 −0.09 −0.22*
44.9 20 41.2
6.9 6.4 9.3
Notes: NE = Negative Emotions; EA = Emotion Avoidance; BJW = Belief in a just-world. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.
Fig. 1. Relation between negative emotions and victim derogation as a function of emotion avoidance.
2011). Thus, when these participants failed to avoid their negative emotions, they might have become more distressed by and preoccupied with their own negative emotions, in which case high levels of negative emotions might not translate into being more empathic towards victims. That is, instead of helping them to empathize with the victims, negative emotions might have hindered participants with higher emotion avoidance to experience empathy. To examine this speculation, it would be important for future research to assess not only participants’ general tendency to avoid emotions, but also their actual emotion avoidance at the moment and whether their efforts to avoid emotion are successful. Whereas most JWT studies used written vignettes (e.g., Anderson, 1992; Braman & Lambert, 2001), the current study followed Hafer & Begue, 2005 recommendations and used emotionally-arousing, real-world videos. In fact, Lerner himself (Lerner & Miller, 1978) had warned that studies with low “experimental realism” that are not sufficiently arousing may not be valid to test JWT. The lack of correlation between BJW and victim derogation found in this study may be partly due to the use of emotionally arousing stimuli. Considering that real-life instances of innocent suffering are often emotionally arousing, our use of emotionally arousing videos likely simulated real-life events in a lab setting better than vignettes, thereby increasing the external validity of the findings (Hafer & Begue, 2005). Several limitations are worth mentioning. First, the sample was limited to college students with moderate levels of the BJW and the study design was cross-sectional. Thus, the current findings may not be generalized to the general public or individuals with strong BJW. Moreover, given that the current study was cross-sectional and
(e.g., Anderson, 1992). However, the presumed positive relation between the BJW and victim derogation has received mixed support. Furthermore, pre-1980 research on JWT (e.g., Lerner, 1971, 1977; Lerner & Simmons, 1966; Lerner et al., 1976) did not assess individuals’ BJW. Instead, variables that presumably threaten the observers’ BJW, such as victim's innocence, were experimentally manipulated; the findings were then attributed to individuals’ BJW. For example, when participants derogated clearly innocent victims more than victims whose innocence was unclear, it was presumed to be due to the threat to the participants’ BJW (e.g., Anderson, 1992). Once BJW scales were developed (e.g., Rubin & Peplau, 1973, 1975), the assumption that the BJW underlies victim derogation was taken for granted and research on JWT mostly focused on individual differences in the BJW and its correlates (for reviews, see Furnham, 2003; Furnham & Procter, 1989; Hafer & Begue, 2005). The current findings, however, demonstrate that factors other than BJW may contribute to victim derogation. The current findings suggest that emotional empathy may play an important role in victim derogation. Emotional empathy is defined as experiencing the same emotion as another person and vicariously experiencing their personal distress (Hodges & Myers, 2007). Participants who experienced high levels of negative emotions after witnessing the suffering of innocent victims may have emotionally empathized with those victims. Our findings suggest that when individuals empathize with victims by vicariously experiencing their distress, they may be less likely to derogate them. Indeed, low empathy has been linked to more dissociation from the victim (Abel et al., 1989), offending behavior (Van Langen, Wissink, Van Vugt, Van der Stouwe & Stams, 2014), and bullying (Lopez-Perez, Hanoch, Holt & Gummerum, 2017). Moreover, 4
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
J. Ash and K. Lira Yoon
correlational, causal inferences are unwarranted. Thus, future studies should consider experimentally manipulating empathy, emotion avoidance, and/or the nature of the stimulus (video vs. vignettes) to further clarify the roles of negative emotions and emotion avoidance in victim derogation. These limitations notwithstanding, the current study highlights the importance of considering participants’ negative emotions and emotion avoidance and using emotionally arousing stimuli when examining victim derogation. Individuals may derogate innocent victims not necessarily to restore their BJW. Regardless of their levels of the BJW, individuals may be more likely to derogate victims when they try to avoid the negative emotions, and by extension fail to empathize with the innocent victims. More research is needed to clearly delineate the role of emotional processes in victim derogation.
Gamez, W., Chmielewski, M., Kotov, R., Ruggero, C., Suzuki, N., & Watson, D. (2014). The brief experiential avoidance questionnaire: Development and initial validation. Psychological Assessment, 26(1), 35–45. Gross, J. J., & Levenson, R. W. (1993). Emotional suppression: Physiology, self-report, and expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(6), 970–986. Hafer, C. L. (2000). Do innocent victims threaten the belief in a just world? Evidence from a modified Stroop task. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(2), 165–173. Hafer, C. L., & Begue, L. (2005). Experimental research on just-world theory: Problems, developments, and future challenges. Psychological Bulletin, 131(1), 128–167. Hafer, C. L., & Gosse, L. (2011). Predicting alternative strategies for preserving a belief in a just world: The case of repressive coping style. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41(6), 730–739. Harber, K. D., Podolski, P., & Williams, C. H. (2015). Emotional disclosure and victim blaming. Emotion, 15(5), 603–614. Hodges, S. D., & Myers, M. W. (2007). Empathy. Encyclopedia of Social Psychology, 296–298. Kleinke, C. L., & Meyer, C. (1990). Evaluation of rape victim by men and women with high and low belief in a just world. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 14(3), 343–353. Lambert, A. J., Burroughs, T., & Nguyen, T. (1999). Perceptions of risk and the buffering hypothesis: The role of just world beliefs and right-wing authoritarianism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(6), 643–656. Lambert, A. J., & Raichle, K. (2000). The role of political ideology in mediating judgments of blame in rape victims and their assailants: A test of the just world, personal responsibility, and legitimization hypotheses. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(7), 853–863. Lerner, M. J. (1971). Observers evaluation of a victim: Justice, guilt, and veridical perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 20(2), 127–135. Lerner, M. J. (1977). The justice motive: Some hypotheses as to its origins and forms. Journal of Personality, 45(1), 1–52. Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world. The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. Springer9–30. Lerner, M. J., & Miller, D. T. (1978). Just world research and the attribution process: Looking back and ahead. Psychological Bulletin, 85(5), 1030–1051. Lerner, M. J., Miller, D. T., & Holmes, J. G. (1976). Deserving and the emergence of forms of justice. Advances in experimental social psychology, 9, Elsevier133–162. Lerner, M. J., & Simmons, C. H. (1966). Observer’s reaction to the “innocent victim”: Compassion or rejection? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4(2), 203–210. Lopez-Perez, B., Hanoch, Y., Holt, K., & Gummerum, M. (2017). Cognitive and affective empathy, personal belief in a just world, and bullying among offenders. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 32(17), 2591–2604. Montada, L. (1998). Belief in a just world: A hybrid of justice motive and self-interest? Responses to victimizations and belief in a just world. Springer217–246. Penley, J. A., Tomaka, J., & Wiebe, J. S. (2002). The association of coping to physical and psychological health outcomes: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 25(6), 551–603. Rubin, Z., & Peplau, A. (1973). Belief in a just world and reactions to another’s lot: A study of participants in the national draft lottery 1. Journal of Social Issues, 29(4), 73–93. Rubin, Z., & Peplau, L. A. (1975). Who believes in a just world. Journal of Social Issues, 31(3), 65–89. Russell, K. J., & Hand, C. J. (2017). Rape myth acceptance, victim blame attribution and just world beliefs: A rapid evidence assessment. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 37, 153–160. Taylor, C., & Kleinke, C. L. (1992). Effects of severity of accident, history of drunk driving, intent, and remorse on judgments of a drunk driver 1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 22(21), 1641–1655. Van Langen, M. A., Wissink, I., Van Vugt, E., Van der Stouwe, T., & Stams, G. (2014). The relation between empathy and offending: A meta-analysis. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 19(2), 179–189. Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070. Webb, T. L., Miles, E., & Sheeran, P. (2012). Dealing with feeling: A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation. Psychological Bulletin, 138(4), 775–808. Wenzlaff, R. M., & Wegner, D. M. (2000). Thought suppression. Annual Review of Psychology, 51(1), 59–91.
References Abel, G. G., Gore, D. K., Holland, C. L., Camps, N., Becker, J. V., & Rathner, J. (1989). The measurment of the cognitive distortions of child molesters. Annals of Sex Research, 2(2), 135–152. Aderman, D., Brehm, S. S., & Katz, L. B. (1974). Empathic observation of an innocent victim: The just world revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29(3), 342–347. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0036001. Anderson, V. N. (1992). For whom is this world just? Sexual orientation and aids. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 22(3), 248–259. Bond, F. W., Hayes, S. C., Baer, R. A., Carpenter, K. M., Guenole, N., Orcutt, H. K., et al. (2011). Preliminary psychometric properties of the acceptance and action questionnaire–ii: A revised measure of psychological inflexibility and experiential avoidance. Behavior Therapy, 42(4), 676–688. Braman, A. C., & Lambert, A. J. (2001). Punishing individuals for their infirmities: Effects of personal responsibility, just‐world beliefs, and in‐group/out‐group status. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31(5), 1096–1109. Brems, C., & Wagner, P. (1994). Blame of victim and perpetrator in rape versus theft. The Journal of Social Psychology, 134(3), 363–374. Bush, A. J., Krebs, D. L., & Carpendale, J. I. (1993). The structural consistency of moral judgments about AIDS. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 154(2), 167–175. Chaplin, T. M., & Aldao, A. (2013). Gender differences in emotion expression in children: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 139(4), 735–765. Chawla, N., & Ostafin, B. (2007). Experiential avoidance as a functional dimensional approach to psychopathology: An empirical review. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 63(9), 871–890. Correia, I., & Vala, J. (2003). When will a victim be secondarily victimized? The effect of observer's belief in a just world, victim's innocence and persistence of suffering. Social Justice Research, 16(4), 379–400. Craig, W. M., Henderson, K., & Murphy, J. G. (2000). Prospective teachers’ attitudes toward bullying and victimization. School Psychology International, 21(1), 5–21. Culda, G. L., Opre, A. N., & Dobrin, A. D. (2018). Victim blaming by women and men who believe the world is a just place. Cognition, Brain, Behavior, 22(2), 99–110. da Costa Silva, K., Torres, A. R. R., Estramiana, J. L., Luque, A. G., & Linhares, L. V. (2018). Racial discrimination and belief in a just world: Police violence against teenagers in Brazil. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 74, 317–327. Derakshan, N., Eysenck, M. W., & Myers, L. B. (2007). Emotional information processing in repressors: The vigilance–avoidance theory. Cognition and Emotion, 21(8), 1585–1614. Drout, C. E., & Gaertner, S. L. (1994). Gender differences in reactions to female victims. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 22(3), 267–277. Feldner, M. T., Zvolensky, M. J., Eifert, G. H., & Spira, A. P. (2003). Emotional avoidance: An experimental test of individual differences and response suppression using biological challenge. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 41(4), 403–411. Furnham, A. (2003). Belief in a just world: Research progress over the past decade. Personality and Individual Differences, 34(5), 795–817. Furnham, A., & Procter, E. (1989). Belief in a just world: Review and critique of the individual difference literature. British Journal of Social Psychology, 28(4), 365–384.
5