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The Impact of Unpunished Hate Crimes: When Derogating the Victim Extends into Derogating the Group

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Abstract

Just world research has shown that observers derogate victims more for their misfortunes if the perpetrator is not harshly punished (Lerner in J Personal Soc Psychol 1(4):355–360, 1980). However, few studies have investigated minority group derogation as a just world preservation strategy after instances of intergroup harm-doing. This study is among the first to demonstrate the derogation of both individual victims and of the victim’s minority group experimentally, using the context of a racist hate crime in Australia. In the present experiment, participants (N = 110) read a news article describing a hate crime against an Aboriginal Australian teenager and were informed that the perpetrator was harshly or leniently punished (secure vs. justice threat condition). Our results show that in the justice threat condition, participants not only derogated the individual Aboriginal Australian victim more after his death, they also expressed greater racism toward the victim’s group. An indirect effect of the justice threat condition on modern racism via individual victim derogation was observed, along with moderating effects of individual differences in belief in a just world. These findings provide support for the alarming hypothesis that racist hate crimes are not only the manifestation of a racist society, but may also bolster racial prejudices if leniently treated. The results highlight the important role of political and judicial authorities, whose response or non-response to a hate crime can exacerbate or ameliorate existing prejudices.

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Notes

  1. These measures were included as part of a larger study which included a number of other measures; full details are available from the corresponding author on request.

  2. The prime was designed in this form to reinforce its believability. Although based on a similar event that had occurred, the narrative and the names of the characters in the story were fictionalized.

  3. Personal communications from the corresponding authors, July 2015.

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  1. Australian Government Department of Education and Training, Canberra, Australia

    Alison C. Sullivan

  2. School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Aaron C. H. Ong, Stephen T. La Macchia & Winnifred R. Louis

  3. The Intergroup Dialogue Project, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Aaron C. H. Ong

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Sullivan, A.C., Ong, A.C.H., La Macchia, S.T. et al. The Impact of Unpunished Hate Crimes: When Derogating the Victim Extends into Derogating the Group. Soc Just Res 29, 310–330 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-016-0266-x

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