Mecanismos psicossociais da favorabilidade ao linchamento: julgamento moral, empatia e motivações para linchar

• Ano de defesa: 2023
• Autor(a) principal: Alexandre, Maria Edna Silva de
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal da Paraíba; Brasil; Psicologia; Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia Social; UFPB
• Palavras-chave em Português: Psicologia social; Motivações para linchar; Julgamento moral; Empatia; Lynching; Motivations for lynching; Moral judgment; Empathy; Favorability towards lynching; CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::PSICOLOGIA
• Link de acesso: https://repositorio.ufpb.br/jspui/handle/123456789/31417

Lynching, a form of collective violence targeting individuals or groups accused of violating social norms, is a pressing issue in Brazil, with at least one occurrence reported daily. This alarming situation presents a significant challenge to public security entities, infringes upon human rights, and undermines peaceful societal existence. However, there is a notable lack of attention to the factors influencing societal favorability towards lynching. The current thesis aims to illuminate this issue by devising and testing an explanatory model of the psychosocial mechanisms underpinning favorability towards lynching. This model incorporates variables such as moral judgment, empathy, social and emotional motivations for lynching, and the type of crime committed, whether heinous or against property. The thesis is segmented into three empirical articles detailing the results of five conducted studies. The first article outlines two studies focused on the development and validation of the Attitudes towards Lynching Scale (EAL). The first study, involving 428 participants, demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties, suggesting a bifactorial structure of the EAL (crimes against property and heinous crimes). This structure was further corroborated in the second study with 481 participants. The second article presents two additional studies dedicated to the development and validation of the Motivations for Lynching Scale (EML). Study 1, with 454 participants, validates the bifactorial structure of the EML (social and emotional motivations for lynching) via psychometric adequacy, while study 2, with 455 participants, indicates that the two factors are likely replicable in subsequent studies. The third article outlines the results of testing an explanatory model of the psychosocial mechanisms of favorability towards lynching. The sample comprised 536 Brazilian individuals, ranging in age from 18 to 71 years (M = 34.4; SD = 11.82). Structural equation modeling outcomes revealed that the degree of moral judgment significantly influenced favorability toward lynching in the context of heinous crimes, mediated by both social (b = .469, SE = .099, p = .001) and emotional motivations (b = .169, SE = .071, p = .017) for lynching. In contrast, the moral judgment's influence on favorability toward lynching in response to property-related offenses was mediated by social motivations (b = .876, SE = .092, p = .001), but not emotional motivations (b = .028, SE = .058, p = .625). Empathy did not moderate the influence of moral judgment in any of the lists of motivations according to the types of crime.These results may support interventions that consider the multifactorial nature of favorability to lynching, with the promotion of post-conventional justice thinking as a strategy for its reduction.