Judging those closest from afar: The effect of psychological distance and abstraction on value-judgment correspondence in responses to ingroup moral transgressions

Dennis Kahn, Fredrik Björklund

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The purpose of the present research was to examine the effect of psychological distance and abstraction on judgment of ingroup moral transgressions. Based on Construal Level Theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010), we hypothesized that psychological distance and high level construal increases the degree to which moral value preference determines judgment (value-judgment correspondence) in response to ingroup moral transgressions. This hypothesis was supported in two studies. In study 1, carried out among Jewish-Israeli university students (N = 100), tendency for abstract construal was associated with higher value-judgment correspondence in responses to torture of a suspected terrorist. In study 2, carried out in a sample of Jewish Israelis (N = 125), describing an airstrike with a high number of civilian casualties at a greater psychological distance (as hypothetical) lead to greater value-judgment correspondence than when the scenario was described as a non-hypothetical event. We discuss the relevance of the result to construal level theory, moral psychology and conflict resolution.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)153-161
JournalPeace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology
Volume23
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Psychology

Free keywords

  • ingroup moral transgression
  • Construal Level Theory
  • intergroup conflict
  • psychological distance
  • abstraction

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