Perpetrators’ folk explanations of their regretted and justified aggressive behaviors
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21355350 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Randy J Mccarthy (0000-0003-0471-0889, Northern Illinois University, corresponding author), Jared P Wilson (0000-0002-3854-4973, Northern Illinois University) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 164 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 809-822 |
| Publication date | 2024-09-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Social Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-4545 • E-ISSN: 1940-1183 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00224545.2023.2186830 |
| PMID | 36882093 |
| OpenAlex | W4323350151 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 31 |
When people explain why they behaved aggressively, they can refer to their thought process that led to their aggressive behavior – so-called reason explanations – or to other factors that preceded their thought process – so-called causal history of reasons explanations. People’s choice of what mode of explanation they give might be affected by whether they want to distance themselves (or not) from their past aggressive behaviors. To test these ideas, participants in the current study (N = 429) either recalled an aggressive behavior they regret or an aggressive behavior they believe was justified. Participants then explained why they behaved aggressively. Mostly, people gave reason explanations for their aggressive behaviors, which is consistent with past research on how people explain intentional behaviors. Further, and as predicted, participants who explained behaviors they believe were justified gave (relatively) more reason explanations and participants who explained behaviors they regretted gave (relatively) more causal history of reasons explanations. These findings are consistent with the idea that participants adjust their explanations to either provide a rationale for, or to distance themselves from, their past aggressive behaviors
Aggression · Developmental psychology · Regret · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology
What We Regret Most… and Why
A 21 Word Solution
Self-Serving Justifications
The General Aggression Model
Objectivity in the Eye of the Beholder
A Theory of Blame
The experience of regret
Logic and Conversation
How the Mind Explains Behavior
Does Trait Hostility Moderate the Asymmetry in Victim-Perpetrator Perceptions of Aggressive Behaviors
Perpetrators’, Victims’, and Witnesses’ Folk Explanations of Aggressive Behaviors
Your act is worse than mine
The apology mismatch
Valuing thoughts, ignoring behavior
Impediments to forgiveness
Conceptual structure and social functions of behavior explanations
Actor-observer asymmetries in explanations of behavior
The pitfall of experimenting on the web
Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities
Automaticity
The Language of Defense
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |