Hirschberger Gilad, Pyszczynski Tom, Ein-Dor Tsachi
Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya Herzliya, Israel.
Psychology Department, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Colorado Springs, CO, USA.
Front Psychol. 2015 Nov 20;6:1761. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01761. eCollection 2015.
The current research examined the role of retributive justice and cost-benefit utility motivations in the process through which mortality salience increases support for violent responses to intergroup conflict. Specifically, previous research has shown that mortality salience often encourages political violence, especially when perceptions of retributive justice are activated. The current research examined whether mortality salience directly activates a justice mindset over a cost-benefit utility mindset, and whether this justice mindset is associated with support for political violence. In Study 1 (N = 209), mortality salience was manipulated among Israeli participants who then read about a Hamas attack on Israel with either no casualties or many casualties, after which justice and utility motivations for retribution were assessed. Study 2 (N = 112), examined whether the link between death primes and support for an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities is mediated by justice or cost-benefit utility considerations. Results of both studies revealed that primes of death increased justice-related motivations, and these motives, rather than utility motives, were associated with support for violence. Findings suggest that existential concerns often fuel violent intergroup conflict because they increase desire for retributive justice, rather than increase belief that violence is an effective strategy. These findings expand our knowledge on the motivations for intergroup violence, and shed experimental light on real-life eruptions of violent conflict indicating that when existential concerns are salient, as they often are during violent conflict, the decision to engage in violence often disregards the utility of violence, and leads to the preference for violent solutions to political problems - even when these solutions make little practical sense.
当前的研究考察了报应性正义和成本效益效用动机在死亡凸显性增加对群体间冲突采取暴力应对支持的过程中所起的作用。具体而言，先前的研究表明，死亡凸显性往往会助长政治暴力，尤其是当报应性正义观念被激活时。当前的研究考察了死亡凸显性是否会直接激活正义思维而非成本效益效用思维，以及这种正义思维是否与对政治暴力的支持相关。在研究1（N = 209）中，对以色列参与者进行了死亡凸显性的操控，然后他们阅读了关于哈马斯对以色列的袭击，袭击造成了无人员伤亡或大量人员伤亡的情况，之后评估了报复的正义动机和效用动机。研究2（N = 112）考察了死亡启动因素与对以色列对伊朗核设施进行先发制人打击的支持之间的联系是否由正义或成本效益效用考量所介导。两项研究的结果都显示，死亡启动因素增加了与正义相关的动机，并且这些动机而非效用动机与对暴力的支持相关。研究结果表明，生存担忧往往会加剧群体间的暴力冲突，因为它们增加了对报应性正义的渴望，而不是增加了认为暴力是一种有效策略的信念。这些发现扩展了我们对群体间暴力动机的认识，并为暴力冲突的现实爆发提供了实验性的启示，表明当生存担忧凸显时，就像在暴力冲突中经常出现的那样，参与暴力的决定往往会忽视暴力的效用，并导致倾向于用暴力解决政治问题——即使这些解决方案几乎没有实际意义。
