REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS

The Relationship between Authoritarianism, Group Membership and Reactions to Norm Violations Sample Student Mercer University

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS Abstract Social norms are rules of behavior that society uses to assess the population. How people respond to a violation of social norms depends on a number of different factors. This

study looks at the difference between prescriptive and descriptive norm violations and how ingroups and out-groups react to them while looking to see if high and low authoritarians respond differently to these different types of norms. In the present study, 50 participants rated the perceived negativity of eight scenarios depicting an individual who was either part of the in-group or out-group who violated a specific norm. The results showed that participants viewed prescriptive norm violations more negatively than descriptive norm violations. Additionally, participants desired to interact more with their in-groups than with the out-groups, even when the in-groups committed prescriptive norm violations. These results show that people do respond differently to immoral acts which affect the way they view the character of the norm violators. This also suggests that people are connecting on a deeper level and tend to want to associate themselves with people who share some of the same ideals as them.

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS The Relationship between Authoritarianism, Group Membership and Reactions to Norm Violations Social norms are important because they help govern our society. They develop naturally and provide a sense of normalcy pertaining to how a society should run. Social

norms are generally specific to regions and allow individuals to judge whether or not a person is acting out of the norm. Norms can be categorized by two types; descriptive norms and prescriptive norms. Forsyth (1999) explained that descriptive norms are what most people do, feel, and think in a situation. People who violate these norms are usually viewed as unusual. An example of a violation of this norm would be someone who dresses differently from the norm, someone who has tattoos covering every inch of their body, or someone who covers their car completely in bumper stickers. According to Forsyth (1999), a prescriptive norm involves certain behaviors that people should perform. When people violate these norms, they are considered bad, and are frowned upon by other people in society. For example, kicking puppies, drinking and driving, slapping ones girlfriend, and shoplifting are seen as bad and are therefore classified as prescriptive norm violations. Certain norms a person does or does not follow, can often affect what type of group they identify with. If a person is a member of a group, they view themselves as the in-group. If a person is not a member of a group, they see that crowd as the out-group. For example, if an individuals favorite baseball team is the Atlanta Braves, they would consider everyone else who supports the Braves as part of the in-group. On the other hand, they would also consider those people who support the New York Yankees as part of the out-group simply because they support a team other than the Braves. Concerning in-group and out-group status, Kessler and Cohrs (2008) concluded that if people identify with a social group, they perceive

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS everything affecting this group, the in-group, as important. On the other hand, on a general level, an example of an out-group would be a group that one does not identify with. In many ways, prescriptive norm violations are more serious than descriptive norm violations. Accordingly, group members judge those norms differently. Marques, Abrams, and Serodio (2001) showed that group members are especially sensitive to deviance from generic

prescriptive norms when the in-groups claim to be embracing those norms is undermined. In view of that, Kreindler (2005) illustrated that we choose groups that accord with our values and leave groups that we do not fit into. When groups are based on the same values, they hold similar moral ideals. When group members violate prescriptive norms, they are defying those values and those members no longer wish to be associated with that group. Kreindler (2005) looked at group processes and individual tendencies, which focused on both authoritarianism and on social dominance as a product of group dynamics. Kreindler (2005) also showed how individuals are judged within the group. A member who violates an important norm provokes normative differentiation; other members judge him severely and seek to distance him from the group. Although norm violations are often reprimanded, there are a few exceptions. Kreindler (2005) showed that fondness for ones in-group and conformity to its norms do not in themselves imply hostility toward nonconforming fellow members. Holders of nonnormative opinions are sometimes shown leniency by virtue of their shared group membership. Under some conditions, groups cherish their more extreme members. Someone who holds a non-normative opinion would fall under the less serious category of a descriptive norm where they would often be judged less harshly and sometimes even be appreciated. Not all group members identify strongly with their group. Kreindler (2005) demonstrated that low identifiers responded to negative in-group members by further

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS

detaching themselves from the group. Therefore, because they do not feel a strong connection with their group, they find it much easier to distance themselves from the group then to try and fit in. On the other hand, Kreindler (2005) showed that high identifiers believe that adhering to important group norms is significant to group membership and members will be reprimanded if they threaten the preservation of those norms. However, evidence shows that members may not initially follow up on a norm that was only violated once. Kreindler (2005) showed that group members only punished an antinorm deviant when the relevant norm was threatened by frequent violation. Generally speaking, in-groups tend to care more about their own group members so they strive to uphold their important norms and become less concerned with the out-group behavior. Marques, Abrams, and Serodio (2001) showed that individuals are motivated to try to persuade deviant in-group, but not deviant out-group, members to change their opinion. In general, groups tend to reprimand members who violate the norms that most people view as morally wrong, like prescriptive norms. Kreindler (2005) recognized that people to whom a group membership is salient and valuable are likely to express normative attitudes or even to advocate extremitized moral majority ideas. Individuals that have an authoritarian personality also hold group membership as something valuable however, they tend to advocate ideas and norms that are specific to the group, and not necessarily what the majority believes. According to the Adorno (1950) theory, authoritarians are categorized by conventionalism, submission, aggression, superstition, stereotypy, power and toughness, cynicism, projectivity, and destructiveness. In general, authoritarians have a fondness for order. Kreindler (2005) showed that authoritarian desire for social control is an outgrowth of their fear of social disorder and rebellion, so they

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS become particularly anxious about social disorder and the harmful actions of social deviants. Therefore, authoritarians should be less fond of norm violations in general, regardless of whether a person violated a descriptive or prescriptive norm. Kessler and Cohrs (2008) showed that, authoritarians tend to be aggressive against people or groups of people if they perceive that these targets deviate from established norms and conventions. So, whereas in general, in-groups tend to be most concerned with members who violate the norms that most people view as morally wrong, like prescriptive norms, authoritarians in the in-group tend to reprimand in-group members who violate the specific norms that they establish within their group, which could encompass both descriptive and prescriptive norms. Therefore, authoritarians may also express aggression or disapproval towards those who violate both descriptive and prescriptive norms. Authoritarians often have aggressive tendencies and have a desire to punish

individuals who do not behave in a conventional manner. Kessler and Cohrs (2008) illustrated that authoritarianism has been shown to correlate with preferences for severe punishment of lawbreakers, unless wrongdoers were admired officials or the crimes were targeted against unconventional, norm-violating victims. Authoritarians also have a very strict view on the cooperation of all in-group members. Although authoritarians dislike the violation of norms in general, Kreindler (2005) states, authoritarians practice normative differentiation which involves evaluating group members on the basis of their prototypicality regarding salient attributes. This shows that as with in and out-groups in general, authoritarians also evaluate individuals on the basis of more important attributes of their members. So, it seems that if they are evaluating members regarding important attributes, they would be slightly less judgmental of descriptive norms compared to prescriptive norms, yet they still believe in

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reprimanding both. Overall, authoritarians view deviations from the out-group as very serious and view the out-group in a much more negative way than the in-group. According to Kreindler (2005), individuals who ignore the norms are perceived as anti-norm deviates that belong to society but do not fit in, which represents a threat to societys purity. Accordingly, Kessler and Cohrs (2008) suggested that authoritarianism has been shown to correlate with positive attitudes toward conventional groups and negative attitudes toward unconventional groups. This finding demonstrates that authoritarians care about what the out-group is doing and if it doesnt coincide with the in-groups values, the out-group will be judged accordingly. Furthermore, Block (1951) revealed that authoritarians view in-groups as rightly dominant and out-groups as subordinate. Overall, setting norm violations aside, authoritarians view the out-group more negatively than the in-group and according to Downing and Monaco (1986), those who scored high on the authoritarianism scale favored in-group over out-group members more so than low authoritarian people do. Most past researchers have not looked at the difference between prescriptive and descriptive norm violations and how in-groups and out-groups react to them while looking at how it affects a specific personality. Previous studies have just looked at norms in general or general social norm violations among groups. The present study is designed to look at a combination of variables that will test to see if high and low authoritarians respond differently to these different types of norms. I hypothesize that overall, perceived positivity scores for individuals who violate descriptive norms will be lower than prescriptive norm violation scores (i.e., a main effect for norm type). People who identify high on authoritarianism will give lower positivity scores overall compared to those low in authoritarianism (i.e., a main effect for authoritarianism). I

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS expect a three-way interaction between norm type, authoritarianism, and group status. For descriptive norm violations, people high in authoritarianism will rate the in-group members more negatively than the out-group members, whereas people low in authoritarianism will rate out-group members more negatively than in-group members. For prescriptive norm violations, people high and low in authoritarianism will rate in-group members more negatively than out-group members. The rationale for this hypothesized interaction is that authoritarians want their own group norms to be followed, so they should dislike when ingroup members do so, more than when out-group members do so. The group of people who should have the least difficulty tolerating deviations from the norm should be those low in authoritarianism (who are less concerned with following the rules) looking at in-group members (for whom we are more likely to recognize variety) violating descriptive norms (which are seen as less serious than prescriptive violations). Method Participants Participants were 73 undergraduate students from a medium sized university in the southeast who participated in the study in return for partial course credit. Materials Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale: The Right Wing Authoritarianism scale (RWA)

was developed by Altemeyer (1981). The scale is made up of 24 items and each item is scored on a 6-point scale ranging from disagree strongly to agree strongly. A high score represents the presence of high authoritarianism. The reliability for this measure is high (alpha = .88 to .95) (Altemeyer 1981; Zwillenberg, 1983). Although highly reliable scales do not always have predictable validity because they narrowly measure a construct, when tested, the

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS RWA scale had the highest correlation with the criterion validity variables in each case. This scale is most appropriate for my study because it was meticulously constructed and appropriately measures specific characteristics I am looking to test including, authoritarian aggression, authoritarian submission, and conventionality. Refer to Appendix A. Demographic Survey: Participants were given a short demographic survey which showed what groups they belonged to. Participants were divided based on objective

characteristics that would establish themselves as either part of the in-group or part of the outgroup. These dividing characteristics were gender, age, and race, American vs. NonAmerican, region, Greek status, and housing location. I also asked for the phone number and e-mail address of each participant so I could contact them for the actual experiment. Refer to Appendix B. Norm violation scenarios. The criteria needed in order to qualify as a prescriptive norm violation would mean that the person had to break the law, harm another person, or do something that is considered morally wrong. Prescriptive norm violations included reading about: A male cheating on his girlfriend, someone who is seen shoplifting, cheating on an exam, and, abusing or neglecting animals. In order to be considered a descriptive norm violation, that person would have to engage in some sort of cosmetic change, engage in some sort of odd behavior, or break one of the unwritten rules of the social code. Descriptive norm violations included reading about: people who colored their hair bright pink, someone with tattoos covering his/her entire body, someone who had an extensive collection of McDonalds figurines, and someone who assigns inappropriate nicknames to people they have just met. See Appendix C for the actual scenarios used.

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS Procedure The experiment used a 2 (norm type: prescriptive, descriptive) x 2 (authoritarianism: high, low) x 2 (group membership: in-group, out-group) design, with norm type and group

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membership as within subject factors. In the first session, participants were asked to complete the Right Wing Authoritarianism scale. Of the 73 participants who took part in the screening session, I took roughly the top and bottom thirds to create the high and low authoritarianism groups, resulting in 26 high authoritarianism participants and 24 lows. The scores of participants who were categorized as high authoritarians ranged from 102-120, and the scores of participants who were categorized as low authoritarians ranged from 65-90. Participants were then given a short demographics survey. I then organized participants into their groups and contacted them for the second session which was the actual experiment. Participants were told I was assessing social perception. Each participant was given eight written scenarios. Three scenarios were created for the in-group regarding a descriptive norm violation, three scenarios were created for the in-group regarding a prescriptive norm violation, one scenario was created for the out-group regarding a descriptive norm violation, and one scenario was created for the out-group regarding a prescriptive norm violation. Participants were given scenarios relevant to the group they identified with; i.e., their in-group. For example, males were given scenarios regarding males violating norms and females were given scenarios depicting females violating norms. After reading each scenario, participants rated their overall opinion of the person in the paragraph using a seven-point scale (1 = very negative, 7 = very positive). I also included some filler questions so participants did not catch on to the intended purpose of the study regarding their desire to

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS interact with the person such as asking, Would you hire this person for a job? and Would you like to be neighbors with this person? See Appendix C. Results A 2 (authoritarianism: high, low) x 2 (group membership: in-group, out-group) x 2

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(norm type: descriptive, prescriptive) mixed analysis of variance, with group membership and norm type as within subjects variables, was conducted on the opinion measure. The test was performed to analyze how people who either scored high or low in authoritarianism would rate their opinion of people who violated both prescriptive and descriptive norms and are either part of the participants in-group or out-group. Tests revealed that there was a significant main effect for norm type F(1, 48) = 413.51, p < .001. Participants opinion of people who committed a descriptive norm violation was more positive than of people who committed a prescriptive norm violation. The strength of this relationship, shown by , was .90. This indicates a very strong effect. There was a significant interaction between group membership, norm type, and authoritarianism F(1, 48) = 4.47, p = .04. Even though the overall interaction was significant, simple main effects tests revealed that the only significant differences between cells was between descriptive norm violations and prescriptive norm violations (the main effect). The strength of this interaction, shown by , was .09. This indicates a moderate effect. Please see Table 1 for means and standard deviations by condition for the opinion measure, and Figure 1 for graphical display of these means. A 2 (authoritarianism: high, low) x 2 (group membership: in-group, out-group) x 2 (norm type: descriptive, prescriptive) mixed analysis of variance, with group membership and norm type as within subjects variables, was also conducted to assess how much participants desired to interact with people who violated both prescriptive and descriptive norms and were

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS either part of the participants in-group or out-group. The desire to interact with norm

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violators variable was created by taking the average of three separate measures: participants desire to hire, be neighbors with, and be friends with the person they read about. Tests revealed that there was a significant main effect for group membership F(1, 48) = 8.89, p = .005. Participants desired to interact more with the in-group (M = 3.40) than the out-group (M = 3.12). The strength of this relationship, shown by , was .16. This indicates a strong effect. There was also a significant main effect for norm type, F(1, 48) = 189.80, p < .001. Participants desired to interact more with people who committed a descriptive norm violation than a prescriptive norm violation. The strength of this relationship, shown by , was .80. This indicates a very strong effect. There was a marginally significant interaction between group membership, norm type, and authoritarianism F(1, 48) = 3.58, p = .07. Even though the overall interaction was marginally significant, simple main effects tests revealed that the only significant difference between cells was between in-group prescriptive norm violations and out-group prescriptive norm violations for participants low in authoritarianism (p = .009). The strength of this interaction, shown by , was .07. This indicates a weak effect. Please see Table 2 for means and standard deviations by condition for the desire to interact measure, and Figure 2 for graphical display of these means. Discussion In accordance with my hypothesis, tests revealed that there was a significant main effect for norm type. Forsyth (1999) described that when people violate prescriptive norms, they are considered bad, whereas when people violate descriptive norms, they are viewed as unusual. Accordingly, tests revealed that overall, participants opinion of people who committed a descriptive norm violation were more positive than of people who committed a

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS prescriptive norm violation. Therefore, indicating that participants viewed prescriptive norm

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violations more negatively than descriptive norm violations. Subsequent tests for the desire to interact variable also revealed that participants desired to interact more with people who committed a descriptive norm violation than a prescriptive norm violation. This suggests that people take prescriptive norm violations more seriously than descriptive norm violations. Participants viewed scenarios of descriptive norm violations as simply unusual and not as defining characteristics of their personality that would completely sway their opinion of them or sway their desire to interact with them to the negative side. However, participants viewed scenarios of prescriptive norm violations as considerably more representative of the person that they are enough to sway their opinion of the person further to the negative side. Tests further revealed that there was a significant main effect for group membership on the desire to interact measure. Participants desired to interact more with the in-group than the out-group. One must take into account that the in-group contained examples of people who committed both descriptive and prescriptive norm violations. Kreindler (2005) showed that holders of non-normative opinions are sometimes shown leniency if they are part of the in-group, and under some conditions, groups cherish their more extreme members. This suggests that even though participants who read scenarios of people in their in-group violating both descriptive and prescriptive norms, the norm violators were granted a form of leniency just because they were part of the in-group. Therefore, there is still a desire to interact with them and have them be a part of the in-group. Another possibility in support of the results is presented by Kreindler (2005), who showed that group members only punished anti-norm deviants when the relevant norm was threatened by frequent violation. Therefore, even though group members violated norms, people from the in-group only read about the person in the

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS scenarios violating each specific norm one time and may not see a onetime violation as a

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threat to group membership and desirability to interact with the person. This may explain why participants desired to interact more with the in-group than the out-group. However, this same effect was not found for the opinion variable. I am not sure why the results came out this way because if participants desired to interact with the in-group more than the out-group, they should also have a less negative opinion of the in-group as opposed to the out-group. One reason for this outcome may be that participants not quite as concerned about interacting with a person even if they have a negative opinion of him or her. For both dependent variables, I predicted a three-way interaction between norm type, group membership, and authoritarianism. This interaction was significant for the opinion measure, and marginally significant for the desire to interact measure. Further analysis of the interaction for the desire to interact measure revealed that the only significant difference between cells was between in-group prescriptive norm violations and out-group prescriptive norm violations. For participants low in authoritarianism, participants desired to interact more with the in-group who committed prescriptive norm violations, than with the out-group who also committed prescriptive norm violations. This finding is not consistent with my hypothesis, I predicted a significant three-way interaction between norm type, authoritarianism, and group status and that there would be significant differences for participants who rated both high and low in authoritarianism. I also predicted that for prescriptive norm violations, people high and low in authoritarianism would rate in-group members more negatively than out-group members. This finding suggests that there is perhaps variation in group status among low authoritarians. It is not surprising that the variation is among prescriptive norm violations because those are the violations that are the most

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS shocking. The finding that participants low in authoritarianism desired to interact more with the in-group who committed prescriptive norm violations, than with the out-group who also committed prescriptive norm violations suggests that low authoritarians may be more forgiving of their in-group members. It also suggests that even though in-group members violated a prescriptive norm, group members would rather interact with someone from a

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group they identify with on other levels than with someone who they may not identify with at all. This finding is inconsistent with the research where Kreindler (2005) revealed that when a member violates an important norm, other members judge him severely and seek to distance him from the group. It is important to note, however, that the effect described above was only one difference between cells in a marginally significant interaction for one measure. Extracting meaning from this one difference should be done with caution at best. Even though significant (or marginally significant) interactions emerged for both measures, the most meaningful differences within these interactions which are apparent are the main effects for norm type, i.e., that people rated descriptive norm violations more positively than prescriptive norm violations. I predicted there would be a main effect for authoritarianism, and people who identified high on authoritarianism would have higher negativity scores overall compared to those low in authoritarianism. However, the findings were not consistent with my hypothesis; there was no main effect for authoritarianism. Although I predicted authoritarians would rate prescriptive norm violations more negatively than descriptive norm violations, this was not the case. One reason for this outcome was suggested by Kessler and Cohrs (2008) who showed that, authoritarians tend to be aggressive against people or groups of people if they

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perceive that these targets deviate from established norms and conventions. This may indicate that, authoritarians are less fond of norm violations in general, regardless of whether a person violated a descriptive or prescriptive norm. One of the limitations of this study was that the conditions were affected by the number of scenarios each participant read. The original intention was to create two of each type of scenario which would result in a total of eight scenarios. However, three scenarios were inadvertently created for the in-group regarding a descriptive norm violation, three scenarios were created for the in-group regarding a prescriptive norm violation, one scenario was created for the out-group regarding a descriptive norm violation, and one scenario was created for the out-group regarding a prescriptive norm violation. This unintended change only allowed participants to judge the out-group once for each type of norm violation. In the conditions where participants could read three examples of a specific type of norm violation, I was able to use the average score of the three scenarios as opposed to just looking at one score of one scenario. For participants reading only one scenario, their ratings were more likely to have been affected by the specifics of the story depicted in that scenario. A different specific story may have resulted in a very different rating, even if it were of the same norm type. The process of averaging ratings for multiple scenarios was intended to deal with this issue in all conditions, but unfortunately an error prevented this from happening. Another limitation of the study was that I only used Mercer students as a defining ingroup characteristic. So, when participants read scenarios about Mercer students, they were reading about their in-group, and when they read scenarios about students from another university, they were reading about the out-group. There was too much variation among the other in-group characteristics I screened for through the demographic survey, which is why I

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS did not use them. Moreover, I reasoned that using the Mercer status as representative of the

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in-group status is a common thread students are most likely to identify with. Students identify themselves as Mercerians while they are on campus and even after they graduate as alumni. Accordingly, it is something that students cannot change easily, unlike a political ideology. However, there is a chance that some students may not have picked up on the idea of nonmercer students being part of the out-group. Therefore, future research could investigate other dimensions along which to form the in-group/out-group membership. Future research in this area could also consider using a measure other than the RWA scale. Perhaps using a measure such as the Counterbalanced F Scale, which includes items that are only worded in a positive manner, would be a better indicator of authoritarianism because the items would be less confusing to the reader. In conclusion, the results seem to reveal an overall trend that participants viewed prescriptive norm violations more negatively than descriptive norm violations. This effect for norm type shows that students do care about how others are treated and that when people engage in immoral acts such as, stealing, cheating, or treating animals inhumanely, it should be taken as a serious offense and should affect the way they view that person. Additionally, participants desired to interact more with their in-groups than with the out-groups, even when the in-groups committed prescriptive norm violations. The results suggest that individuals both high and low in authoritarianism have their own morals, ideals, and standards which they use to judge other peoples character and their desire to interact with them in several different situations. In accordance with the research, people must view prescriptive norm violations as bad actions, which are frowned upon and seem to not want to associate themselves with those types of people. However, the results also showed the power of group membership. If

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS you are part of the in-group and you do something that others frown upon, the members of your group would still rather interact with you than interact with people they didnt associate with who violated a prescriptive norm. This could suggest that people are connecting on a

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deeper level and join common groups for multiple different reasons which are partly based on accordance with their own morals. The rationale for this conclusion supports the finding that people would rather interact with someone they know who did something bad than someone they didnt know who did something bad. Social norms structure the way in which we live our lives and we must continually learn to adapt to the constant change of what is seen as behaviorally acceptable. Therefore, this topic warrants continued research in order to understand why people react to norm violations in different ways and why norm violators are viewed as negative.

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS References Block, J. (1951). An investigation of the relationship between intolerance of ambiguity and ethnocentrism. Journal of Personality, 19, 303-311. Downing, L., & Monaco, N. (1986). In-Group/Out-group Bias as a Function of differential contact and authoritarian personality. Journal of Social Psychology, 126, 445-453. Forsyth, D. R., (1999). Group Dynamics (3rd ed.). Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Kessler, T., & Cohrs, J. (2008). The evolution of authoritarian processes: Fostering cooperation in large-scale groups. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 12, 73-84. Kreindler, S. (2005). A dual group processes model of individual differences in prejudice. Personality & Social Psychology Review, 9, 90-107. Marques, J., Abrams, D., & Serdio, R. (2001). Being better by being right: Subjective group dynamics and derogation of the in-group deviants when generic norms are undermined. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 81, 436-447.

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REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS Table 1 Means and Standard Deviations for the Opinion of Norm Violators ________________________________________________________________________ Low Auth High Auth

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________________________________________________________ Norm Type In-group Out-group In-group Out-group

________________________________________________________________________ Descriptive Prescriptive 4.18 (.60) 2.03 (.61) 4.54 (1.06) 1.75 (1.11) 3.97 (.69) 1.64 (.63) 4.15 (1.38) 2.00 (1.06)

________________________________________________________________________ Note. Standard deviations appear in parentheses. Ns = 24 for Low Auth, 26 for High Auth.

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS Table 2 Means and Standard Deviations for the Desire to Interact with Norm Violators ________________________________________________________________________ Low Auth High Auth

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________________________________________________________ Norm Type In-group Out-group In-group Out-group

________________________________________________________________________ Descriptive Prescriptive 4.41 (.67) 2.57 (.60) 4.26 (1.01) 2.01 (1.17) 4.19 (.67) 2.45 (.64) 3.87 (1.24) 2.33 (.88)

________________________________________________________________________ Note. Standard deviations appear in parentheses. Ns = 24 for Low Auth, 26 for High Auth.

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Low Authoritarianism
Positivity of Opinion

High Authoritarianism
Positivity of Opinion

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Ingrp Outgrp Group Membership Desc Presc

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Ingrp Outgrp Group Membership Desc Presc

Figure 1. Participants positivity of opinion ratings of norm violators.

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Low Authoritarianism
7
Desire to Interact
Desire to Interact

High Authoritarianism
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Ingrp Outgrp Desc Presc

6 5 4 3 2 1 Ingrp Outgrp Group Membership Desc Presc

Group Membership

Figure 2. Participants desire to interact ratings of norm violators.

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS Appendix A RWA Please circle the response that best reflects the extent to which you agree or disagree with each statement. 1. Laws have to be strictly enforced if we are going to preserve our way of life. DISAGREE DISAGREE DISAGREE AGREE AGREE AGREE STRONGLY SOMEWHAT SLIGHTLY SLIGHTLY SOMEWHAT STRONGLY 2. People should pay less attention to the Bible and the other old traditional forms of religious guidance, and instead develop their own personal standards of what is moral and immoral. Women should always remember the promise they make in the marriage ceremony to obey their husbands. Out customs and national heritage are the things that have made us great, and certain people should be made to show greater respect for them. Capital punishment should be completely abolished.

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3.

4.

5. 6.

National anthems, flags, and glorification of ones country should all be de-emphasized to promote the brotherhood of all men. The facts on crime, sexual immorality, and the recent public disorders all show we have to crack down harder on deviant groups and troublemakers if we are going to save our moral standards and preserve law and order. A lot of societys rules regarding modesty and sexual behavior are just customs which are not necessarily any better or holier than those which other peoples follow. Our prisons are a shocking disgrace. Criminals are unfortunate people who deserve much better care, instead of so much punishment. Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

Organizations like the army and the priesthood have a pretty unhealthy effect upon men because they require strict obedience of commands from supervisors. One good way to teach certain people right from wrong is to give them a good stiff punishment when they get out of line.

12.

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS 13.

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Youngsters should be taught to refuse to fight in a war unless they themselves agree the war is just and necessary. It may be considered old-fashioned by some, but having a decent, respectable appearance is still the mark of a gentleman and, especially, a lady. In these troubled times laws have to be enforced without mercy, especially when dealing with the agitators and revolutionaries who are stirring things. Atheists and others who have rebelled against established religions are no doubt every bit as good and virtuous as those who attend church regularly. Young people sometimes get rebellious ideas, but as they grow up they ought to get over them and settle down. Rules about being well-mannered and respectable are chains from the past that we should question very thoroughly before accepting. The courts are right in being easy on drug offenders. Punishment would not do any good in cases like these. If a child starts becoming a little too unconventional, his parents should see to it he return to the normal ways expected by society. Being kind to loafers or criminals will only encourage them to take advantage of your weakness, so its best to use a firm, tough hand when dealing with them. A womans place should be wherever she wants to be. The days when women are submissive to their husbands and social conventions belong strictly in the past. Homosexuals are just as good and virtuous as anybody else, and there is nothing wrong with being one. Its one thing to question and doubt someone during an election campaign, but once a man becomes the leader of our country we owe him our greatest support and loyalty.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS Appendix B

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Demographic Survey
1. M 2. Are you Male or Female? F What is your age? ________. 3. What race are you? (Circle one) Pacific Islander Native American

White Hispanic African-American Asian Other 4.

Where did you grow up (city, state, and country if applicable)?

5.

What year are you? 1ST 2ND 3RD 4TH 5TH

6.

Are you part of a sorority or fraternity on campus? YES (Which one?):________________________ NO

7.

Do you live on or off campus? ON OFF

8.

Generally speaking, do you consider yourself to be a: Democrat Republican Other

9.

Have you ever attended a university other than Mercer? If so, which university? YES (Specify):___________________________ NO

If you qualify for the later study, we will need to contact you to set up an appointment. Please provide up-to-date contact information below. NAME: ___________________________ PHONE#:________________________ EMAIL(the one you check most often):____________________________________

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS Appendix C

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For each of the scenarios below, please read each one and answer the questions beneath it. Thank you. 1. Daniel (Susan) recently enrolled as a student at Mercer and was assigned a roommate named Alex. From the first time they met, Alex noticed that Daniel always wore long sleeves and pants, even in the summer. Alex always wondered about his choice of clothing but never felt comfortable enough to ask him. After a few months of living together they became close friends and Daniel finally revealed that he had tattoos covering three fourths of his body which is why he always covered up while on campus. What is your opinion of this person? 1 Very Negative 2 3 4 Neutral 5 6 7 Very Positive

How likely would you be to hire this person for a job? 1 Very Unlikely 2 3 4 Neutral 5 6 7 Very Likely

To what extent would you like to be neighbors with this person? 1 Not at all 2 3 4 Neutral 5 6 7 Very Much

To what extent would you like to be friends with this person? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not at all Neutral Very Much -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2. Eric (Erika) is a senior at Mercer. He enjoys going camping, playing the guitar, and hanging out with his fraternity brothers. For his theatre class, he and his partner, Jennifer had to practice their performance for the play they were going to be acting in tomorrow night. Eric volunteered to have them practice at his apartment. When his partner walks in, she notices Eric has an extensive collection of over 150 McDonalds Happy Meal toys displayed on his desk. 3. Mark (Wendy) has a girlfriend named Whitney. They have been dating for about 4 years. They always seem so happy whenever they are together and are often referred to as the perfect couple by their Mercer classmates. Recently, Mark confessed to one of the couples close friends that he had been cheating on Whitney for almost a year now with a girl from his hometown and he was certain Whitney had no idea what he was up to. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REACTIONS TO NORM VIOLATIONS 4. Ryan (Tina) goes to Mercer and joined a fraternity his freshman year. He is taking his Sociology final and needs to get an A on the exam in order to pass the class with a C. He is stuck on one of the questions but knows that he has the answer to it in his notes. He debates whether or not he should try and sneak a look at them. The professor leaves the room for a minute and Ryan decides to take a quick look at his notes. By the time the professor comes back, he has already put them away. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5. Drew (Mandy) lives in California and enjoys waterskiing at the beach. He dyes his hair a different color each month. Last August it was orange, September it was green, and by January it was blue. His friends call him the chameleon because he is always changing his hair color. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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6. Nick (Melissa) attends Mercer and is a very outgoing guy and enjoys meeting new people and making friends. Right after meeting new people, he quickly comes up with a nickname for them based on their characteristics such as, blondie or stretch and begins calling them that name throughout the entire conversation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7. Jake (Jackie) attends Florida State University and lives off-campus in a small one bedroom apartment on the fifth floor. He owns two small dogs named Casper and Max. He never plays with his dogs even though they beg him to and will often forget to put food out on the small balcony where he leaves them for the majority of the day. He rarely gives them baths and will kick them if they climb on his bed since he doesnt like them up there. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8. Sean (Jessica) rarely has any free time because he is always busy taking classes at Mercer so, Saturday afternoon he decided to take a break from studying and go to the mall. He needed to look for a new watch so he visited a couple of stores but, did not see anything he liked until he saw a watch in a store window. He went into the store and asked the lady how much the watch was. When the lady told him it was $400, he almost walked away but then he noticed that the lady was very busy helping other customers and that he could probably take the watch without getting caught. Sean casually slipped the watch into his pocket when the storekeeper was not watching and walked out of the store without getting caught.