Psychology
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Item On the Closed-Mindedness of Revenge: Motivated Cognition and Perspective Taking(2013) Boyatzi, Lauren; Kruglanski, Arie W.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The present research examined the extent of desire for, and the likelihood of enacting, revenge as a function of the Need for Cognitive Closure (NFC; Kruglanski, 2004; Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). The studies herein aimed to more fully understand how low (vs. high) NFC individuals are able to refrain from acting on revenge impulses which they were expected to do through greater cognitive processing. Specifically, I demonstrate across four studies that high (vs. low) NFC individuals desire revenge to a greater extent as well as engage in more retributive behaviors. Study 2 showed that perspective taking and attributional reasoning are examples of additional processing engaged in by low (vs. high) NFC individuals, which augment the desire for forgiveness. Study 3 demonstrated that an induction of perspective taking leads to lesser revenge behavior and indeed eliminated the difference in retaliation between high and low NFC individuals. Study 4 conceptually replicated the relationship between the NFC and retaliation using situational manipulations of high (vs. low) NFC. The present studies were unable to show that following a transgression, revenge (vs. forgiveness) is the most cognitively accessible option and were further unable to demonstrate that accessibility of revenge changes over time for high NFC individuals.Item Eye for an eye, but not for everyone: Revenge and its relationship with the need for closure(2011) Boyatzi, Lauren Minacapelli; Kruglanski, Arie W; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The urge for revenge after an individual experiences a transgression is ever-present. However, little is known about why one chooses revenge specifically versus other options. This paper examines the desire for revenge as a function of the need for closure. Specifically, this paper argues that due to its evolutionary benefits, revenge is the most cognitively accessible reaction and thus, individuals high (vs. low) in the need for closure seize and freeze on it after a transgression occurs. Results provide convergent support for the positive association between the need for closure and the desire for revenge but are unable to provide evidence that revenge serves the urgency and permanency desires of high need for closure because of its greater saliency. Methodological limitations and theoretical implications are discussed.