Perception of violence as a function of observer's ideology and actor's group membership

Abstract

This article examines how conservative and radical subjects explain and judge aggression perpetrated by institutional (i.e. policeman) or anomic (i.e. delinquents) agents. One hundred and twenty-nine university students in Lisbon, either very conservative or very radical, selected five causes out of a total of 30 to explain an aggressive act committed by a given actor toward an unknown victim in unspecified circumstances. Half of the causes were internal and half were external. Subjects also had to rate the amount of violence, the responsibility of the agent, and the potential punishment. In accordance with the hypotheses, conservative and radical subjects used different types of causes to explain the aggression of different actors and they judged the act differently according to the perpetrator. Moreover, for all subjects there was a significant correlation between perceived violence, responsibility and punishment. These judgements, however, correlated significantly with the type of attribution only in the case of conservative subjects: the more tolerant conservatives were, the more external causes they selected. These results are discussed in the light of the social dimensions most valued by observers of aggressive episodes.