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Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft, Bd. 25 (2022): Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft

In Phase 1 of this project, we used person-centred methods to determine if there is heterogeneity in people’s self-generated utopias which reflect the three functions of utopian thinking (per Fernando et al., 2018; see also Levitas, 2013). Overall, our results indicate that there is indeed heterogeneity in people’s self-generated utopias; but also suggests greater complexity than we initially anticipated. Rather than reflecting differences in people’s willingness to criticise, change, or escape from (compensate for) the status quo, the profiles reflected diversity in people’s willingness to imagine desirable or beneficial future societies in and of themselves. Therefore, Phase 2 of this project seeks to clarify these unexpected findings by further probing the psychologies of the three profiles we derived (change-oriented utopian thinkers, ambivalent future thinkers, and dystopian thinkers). To do this, we will adopt a computerized natural language processing approach using Linguistic Inquiry Wordcount (LIWC; Pennebaker et al., 2015) to analyse people’s written descriptions of their self-generated futures. This approach will allow us to examine the prevalence of certain linguistic markers (described below) which may reflect underlying psychological differences between the profiles, potentially helping to explain how and why these groups construct and view the future in these unexpected ways, and their varied support for social change.

This research investigates whether different narrative prompts may lead offenders to work through a recent interpersonal wrongdoing in different ways, and subsequently impact their self-forgiveness trajectory.

Victims of crime often express a need to know the truth about what happened. Knowing the truth is supposed to allow victims to come to terms and achieve closure, a psychological state of resolution where the event feels completed, and the victims feel ready to put the incident behind them and move on. But what value does truth have? Does knowing the truth per se help achieve closure?

This project aims to investigate the social and emotional effects on group members who belong to social groups that have been treated in a dehumanising way by other social groups.

Victims of crime often want the truth about what happened, to achieve closure. But, how exactly is knowing truth valuable? Commonly, knowing the truth is thought to be beneficial for victims because specific information may afford re-appraisals or greater understanding/meaning. The present research shows knowing the truth may have value independent from information content by providing a meta-cognitive feeling of knowing the truth. In two pre-registered studies, Study 1 (N = 200), Study 2 (N = 195), participants imagined themselves as victims of crime and were presented with one of two reports that were identical in content but designed to appear either complete or incomplete. Results indicated that the complete report led to greater knowing the truth and, through this, greater closure, reduced negative affect, and increased forgiveness. These findings suggest a subjective sense of knowing the truth irrespective of content facilitates the recovery of victims.

Behavioural Study

The Role and Requirement of Truth in Victim-Offender Dialogue. Victim-offender dialogue is a conflict management strategy that aims to help victims and offenders to move past the wrongdoing. Dialogue places considerable emphasis on the interactive processes between victim and offender, in particular, the informative, and restorative communications. Victims approach dialogue with an expectation (or hope) that they will get information, get some answers, or get ‘the truth’ about what happened (Borton, 2009; Van Camp & Wemmers, 2014). Offenders seemingly approach dialogue with the intention of providing the truth by offering their perspective on the crime, and also to apologise for their actions, as previous research suggests offenders often do, when they have agreed to dialogue (Braithwaite, 1989). Yet, what are the effects of a victim feeling satisfied with their level of truth after receiving the offender’s perspective, or, conversely, what happens if a victim continues to feel in the dark about what happened? There remains a general lack of understanding the dynamics within dialogue that contribute to the ultimate success or failure of victim-offender dialogue (Choi et al., 2010). The perceived requirement of truth for repairing moral violations has been taken on in processes of repairing intergroup conflict such as truth and reconciliation commissions (Rotberg, 2010; Walker, 2015). But what is less clear is what the role and requirement of truth is in processes of repairing moral violations at the interpersonal conflict level such as victim-offender dialogue. Accordingly, this study investigates how victims’ perceived level of truth affects their readiness for an apology, their appraisals of the apology provided in dialogue by the offender (e.g., the perceived completeness of the apology), and openness to further repair dialogue with the offender. We aim to test this idea by asking participants to imagine being the victim of a cyber-related crime. Our manipulation will ask participants to either reflect on the completeness of their knowledge of the crime or reflect on the incompleteness of their knowledge about the crime.

This pre-registration outlines the rationale and analytic approach for a meta-analysis examining the relationship between hope and collective action.

An experimental study of the effects of victim forgiveness on offender self-forgiveness.

This study examines the potential alleviating effects of victims knowing the truth about wrongdoing on post-transgression rumination. We are testing the idea that rumination is reduced by victims having a sense of truth knowing, a metacognitive feeling of having complete information. The study is an experiment in reference to a wrongdoing that participants experienced in the past. The experimental manipulation involves randomly allocating participants to either reflect on what they know about the wrongdoing or to reflect on what they do not know about the wrongdoing. Thus, making salient the complete (versus incomplete) level of information available to them. Following the manipulation, there will be a 10-minute reading task (see files for the reading task text) with 10 intermittent thought probes. The thought probe presents three options: “My mind was on the task or something related to the task (e.g. atoms or cells)”; “My mind was on something related to the wrongdoing I wrote about in the previous task” ( our item tapping rumination); “My mind was elsewhere (e.g. blank, other worries, external noise, hunger, boredom etc.)”. The order of responses will be counterbalanced between participants. Each participant will be randomly allocated to view 1 of 6 possible combinations of presentation ordering. This is to avoid anchoring (see Weinstein, 2018). A thought probe occurs once every minute on average. However, the time ranges from 45s-75s between reading and presentation of the next thought probe. For example, the time between beginning the reading task and the first presentation of a thought probe is 75 seconds. The second probe occurs 50s after returning to the reading task following the first thought probe. The participant will continue with the reading task (after answering each thought probe) until completing the tenth and final thought probe (total reading time of 10 minutes). The outcome measures of closure, anger, anxiety, sadness, forgiveness, and the individual difference measures will follow the final thought probe. Participants will then be debriefed.

This study is a follow up to the pilot we conducted to understand political despair (What is political despair? Mapping the concepts, its antecedents, and outcomes). This is a cross-sectional study that builds on from the results of the pilot with additional tests of the antecedents, nature, and outcomes of political despair. We look at political despair in the context of racial inequality in the US.

The current project uses Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) to identify meaningful sub-groups of people whose utopias have similar features (in terms of criticising/changing the status quo versus compensation) and are empirically distinct from other sub-groups. We will also examine whether different types of utopian thinking are more effective in lower system-justifying tendencies, mobilizing people on behalf of a cause, and aiding the formation of key motivations which underpin action.

This study is a follow up to the pilot and Study 2, we conducted to understand political despair (What is political despair? Mapping the concepts, its antecedents, and outcomes). This is a cross-sectional study that is a replication of study 2, and a build on from the pilot study, in a different context. In study 3, we look at political despair in the context of combatting climate change in Australia, whereas the previous studies were in the context of racial inequality in the US.

Does knowing the truth lead to a simpler understanding and in turn reduced negative affect and greater forgiveness?

Recent research has found that self-concept authenticity (i.e., perceptions that one was their true or core self) in the context of wrongdoing may relate to reduced engagement with a process of genuinely working through one’s offence, without deflecting responsibility, to arrive at restored positive self-regard (i.e., genuine self-forgiveness). In this way, self-concept authenticity following a wrongdoing may present as a barrier to intra- and interpersonal restoration. However, a limitation of this research is that it has been correlational only. The current study aims to experimentally manipulate offender perceptions of self-concept authenticity to consider the effect on genuine self-forgiveness following a recent (< 48 hour prior) wrongdoing. It is hypothesised that those primed to endorse greater self-concept authenticity regarding their transgression will report less engagement with genuine self-forgiveness than those primed to perceive themselves as less self-concept authentic. Participants will be recruited on the basis of having committed a recent (