Democracy as a value: support for collective punishment as a function of group political organization

Abstract

This thesis investigates the processes underlying the effect of the political organization of groups on social justice judgments following the transgression perpetrated by one or some group members. Previous research has shown that, following a group misdeed, democratic groups benefit from leniency in legitimacy judgments and collective punishment inflictions as compared to nondemocratic groups. This thesis aims at showing that these effects are due to the fact that democracy has been socially constructed as a value, and is now considered as such. Indeed, people are motivated to defend the values they prize, and values have been shown to influence retributive justice judgments. By examining the conditions in which this leniency effect in favor of democratic groups as compared to nondemocratic ones is observed, we argue that democracy influences retributive justice judgments to the extent that the perceivers are motivated to defend the value of democracy.