Margriet Braun: "Dealing with a deviant group member"

On June 21, 2010 Margriet Braun successfully defended the PhD thesis entitled "Dealing with a deviant group member" at University of Groningen.

Promotors
Prof.dr. S. Otten, University of Groningen
Prof.dr. E.H. Gordijn, University of Groningen
Prof.dr. D.A. Stapel, University of Tilburg

Summary

A couple of years ago a small boy was killed inside his school. In an interview an inhabitant of the village this incident happened in, said that the fact that a fellow village inhabitant committed the crime made the situation even worse. Although this is an extreme example, in daily life we regularly encounter group members who behave in an aggressive or negatively deviant manner and inflict harm onto their own group. This dissertation gives insight into how people respond to such a group member. Three aspects are investigated: the role of perceived intentions of the perpetrator, the role of cognitive resources and the goals people have when responding to such a group member.
The starting point of this thesis is that people strive for a positive group image. Our findings show that also when people respond to a negatively deviant group member, they have the group image at heart.
Perceived intentions of the perpetrator are important, but only when this perpetrator is a group member of the victim. When he or she clearly had the intention to inflict harm and thus forms a threat to the positive group image, a strongly negative reaction occurs. When intentions are ambiguous, the reaction is only mildly negative. The group member gets the benefit of the doubt.
Perceived intentions play no role when someone is not in the circumstances to fully give attention to what is happening. Whether the harm was intentional or not, when attention has to be divided, the automatic association between ingroup and positivity results in an only mildly negative reaction.
Finally, we found that people are not so much inclined to exclude a negatively deviant group member from the group. They rather try to educate this person and teach that the behavior is unacceptable.
A deviant member can elicit strongly negative reactions, but it is ingroup love that ultimately shapes the reactions to such a member.