Committing morally ambiguous acts leads actors to derogate victims

Evidence

Specifically, I would expect that Milgram’s subjects, who were implicitly preselected to put a high value on “science,” might have increased the value they placed on science as an important source of discoveries that would help humankind, and perhaps also derogated the intelligence of the individual who received the shocks. In both these ways, inflicting pain on the learner became justified. There is empirical evidence for the occurrence of these sorts of changes following the commission of a morally ambiguous act. In a set of studies involving an experimental cover story very similar to Milgram’s, and in which subjects were led to give electric shocks to others, Brock and Buss (1962) demonstrated that the subjects’ perceptions of the individual to whom they gave shocks altered in ways that justified their morally ambiguous actions; they derogated the victim, implying that the victim somehow deserved the punishment. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3961

Categorization

• XREF: Brock and Buss 1962 gives an empirical, experimentally demonstrated case of the rationalization-after-action loop, useful as concrete evidence for the conversion dynamic. — connects to: People derogate their victims to justify having harmed them. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3962; Victims’ aggression gets reframed as the victim’s own deviance; Perpetrators excuse harm by displacing blame and dehumanizing victims (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• People derogate their victims to justify having harmed them. #expands (0.97) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3962
• Victims’ aggression gets reframed as the victim’s own deviance #expands (0.95)
• Perpetrators excuse harm by displacing blame and dehumanizing victims #expands (0.93)
• Devaluing victims as weak targets suppresses guilt in wrongdoers. #expands (0.92) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1411