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In the name of truth: People’s reactions to ingroup and outgroup members who self-disclose a severe error

Rullo, M.Rullo@kent.ac.uk, Monaco, Sharon, Giannini, Federico, Livi, Stefano, Presaghi, Fabio (2018) In the name of truth: People’s reactions to ingroup and outgroup members who self-disclose a severe error. The Social Science Journal, . ISSN 0362-3319. (doi:10.1016/j.soscij.2018.07.003) (KAR id:69237)

Abstract

Usually people consider morality traits to be highly valuable, both in themselves and in others. Moreover, they tend to select moral groups and are often motivated to protect the positive identity of their groups by derogating immoral ingroup members. However, sometimes even moral ingroup members could represent a threat to the group and therefore be negatively evaluated, such as in the case of people who report another person’s wrongdoing (whistleblowing). To date an investigation of people’s judgments of someone who self- disclose his/her own wrongdoing is still missing. Our study aims to investigate how group members react to an ingroup and an outgroup member who confessed to having committed a severe wrongdoing. Results of a study conducted by using a real episode concerning a surgeon who confessed a fatal error, confirm our expectation; even if medical students appreciated the confession of the surgeon, they are less positive in evaluating his behavior compared to other students

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1016/j.soscij.2018.07.003
Uncontrolled keywords: Self-disclosure; Morality; Moral judgments; Whistleblowers; Confession
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User: Matthias Werner
Date Deposited: 25 Sep 2018 09:48 UTC
Last Modified: 08 Dec 2022 22:12 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/69237 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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