Abstract
To examine the effects of the social context of a harm-producing action and the magnitude of harm on evaluations of a harm-doer and victim, 80 female subjects read scenarios that described either a cooperative or competitive interaction in which either mild or severe harm occurred. Ratings of the “aggressor” and “victim” revealed that the harm-doer was evaluated more negatively under competitive rather than cooperative conditions, but was perceived as most aggressive and potent when a severe injury occurred in a cooperative rather than competitive setting. A “just world” effect also occurred in which the victim was derogated when his injury was severe and the context was competitive.
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The present study was facilitated by the support of the Organizational Effectiveness Research Program, Office of Naval Research (Code 452), under Contract NOOOI4-7S-c-0901, NR 170-797, to the third author.
Marvin E. Shaw sponsors this paper and takes full editorial responsibility for it.
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Forsyth, D.R., Albritton, E. & Schlenker, B.R. The effects of social context and size of injury on perceptions of a harm-doer and victim. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 9, 37–39 (1977). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336921
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336921