Hauptinhalt

FB Kolloq WS24: Mario Gollwitzer

„Justice-Focused Responses to Experienced Transgressi-ons: A Social Psychological Analysis”

Veranstaltungsdaten

Prof. Dr. Mario Gollwitzer, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Kooperation mit dem Graduiertenkolleg

„Justice-Focused Responses to Experienced Transgressions: A Social Psychological Analysis”

When people experience interpersonal offenses, the response options they have fall into three categories: (1) confronting the offender (including verbal and nonverbal expressions of moral criticism, but also behavioral, reactive-aggressive (i.e., vengeful) responses), (2) forgiving the offender, or (3) doing nothing / avoiding the offender. While a large number of studies has looked at which routes victims take (and at the factors predicting this decision), our own research looks at the intra- and interpersonal consequences of victims’ responses. For instance, we investigate how victims feel about their response, or how offenders attribute the victim’s response. In this talk, I will briefly summarize some of our earlier findings on how victims feel after taking revenge (in a nutshell: revenge can be sweet, but only when it delivers a message to the offender: “Don’t mess with me!”) and then focus on more recent research in which we looked at (a) offender attributions of victim responses and their consequences for conflict resolution vs. escalation; (b) the effects of fantasizing (but not enacting) a confrontative response in so-called “imagery rescripting” interventions; and (c) the effects of nonverbally expressing one’s anger about the offense vis-à-vis the offender. Together, this research program aims at providing a better understanding of the complex downstream consequences of victims’ post-transgression responses. Better knowledge in that area may also help tailor more successful strategies for solving interpersonal conflicts.