The present research investigates leniency for out‐group offenders and differentiates it from the black sheep effect. The authors assume that leniency for out‐group offenders can be used by in‐group members to protect their group's image by displaying that they are not prejudiced. Thus, leniency should disappear when in‐group members have otherwise shown that they are not prejudiced (i.e., moral credentials). In two experiments, offenders' group membership and participants' opportunity to establish moral credentials were manipulated. Results showed that out‐group offenders received the lowest punishment severity ratings (Studies 1 and 2). However, this leniency effect vanished when participants had established moral credentials by either endorsing the participation of out‐group members in lobby groups (Study 1) or writing about a positive experience with an out‐group member (Study 2). These findings suggest that lenient punishments for out‐group offenders may sometimes reflect a relatively easy strategy to display the in‐group as being unprejudiced. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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This research investigates cases in which leniency for offenders from low-status (out)groups reflects a strategy of high-status (in)groups to consolidate intergroup status differentials. In Study 1, we found that participants from a high-status ingroup recommended a more lenient punishment for a low-status outgroup offender only when intergroup status differentials were likely to remain stable. This leniency, however, disappeared when status differentials were fragile. In Study 2, we found that patronizing leniency can even consolidate intergroup status differentials: When participants learned that their ingroup had punished an outgroup offender leniently, they considered an outgroup member who legitimately complained about discrimination more as being a hypersensitive complainer than when they learned that their ingroup had punished the outgroup offender more harshly or similarly as an ingroup offender. These findings suggest that leniency for outgroup offenders can indeed be used strategically by the ingroup to secure its advantaged status.

Two studies explore whether people intuitively approve or rather disapprove of a victim personally retaliating against an offender. Participants in Study 1 were introduced to the case of Ameneh Bahrami, an Iranian woman who had been blinded by a jealous suitor and who was given the opportunity to blind her perpetrator in return. Results show that participants who were instructed to complete a secondary task (cognitive load condition) reacted most positively to Ameneh Bahrami’s decision to retaliate. Participants in Study 2 read vignettes about fictitious offenses. Participants low in need for cognition approved more of the victim retaliating against the offender when they adopted an intuitive (vs. a reflective) mind-set. Together, these findings demonstrate that people intuitively approve of retaliation carried out by victims.

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