Desiring to punish leaders: A new test of the model of people as intuitive prosecutors

Abstract

When a national leader is accused of impropriety, people often desire his/her ouster.To explain such desire for punishment, the authors tested two predictions of the model of intuitive prosecutors. While continuing in the position after the allegation activates the prosecutorial mind among people, resigning from the position deactivates it (Prediction 1). The relation between an inappropriate response by the leader and the desired punishment is mediated sequentially by dispositional attribution to, outrage with, and attitude toward him/her (Prediction 2). In Experiment 1, the accused leader had resigned (i.e., already punished) or hadn't resigned from the position (i.e., remained unpunished). In Experiment 2, the leader had also cooperated with (i.e., an appropriate response) or threatened the accusers and the investigators (i.e., an inappropriate response). Participants (Ns = 168 and 200) from India made the dispositional attribution, outrage, attitude, and punishment responses to the leader. Results supported both predictions. Theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.

Prosecuting from the bench? Examining sources of pro‐prosecution bias in judges

“…Psychological literature has considered more general attitudes about norm violations as key to understanding a “prosecutorial model” of thinking about detecting and punishing offending behaviour (Goldberg et al, 1999). “Intuitive prosecutors” are focused on safeguarding their lives, safety, and their communities through a set of core norms: first, they dedicate their thoughts to detecting and understanding norm violators; then, after identifying norm violators, they use their energies and actions, via existing socio‐legal structures, to adequately punish their violations (Singh & Rai, 2021; Tetlock et al, 2007). According to these models, these intuitive attitudes only wane when norm violators are proportionately punished (Goldberg et al, 1999).…”

Validating Cognitive and Emotional Urges in Comprehending One’s Surroundings: The Case of Attraction from Attitudes

“…In early reported mediation tests, positive affect qualified as an MV when it was used alone but not when it was pitted against other potential MVs (e.g., Singh et al, 2007b, 2015). Singh et al (2015, 2017) attributed such anomalies to the widely used parallel mediation model in which the MVs are treated as equally close or distal to the DV and as independently carrying the IV effects to the DV (Singh & Rai, 2021). Given that the MVs and the DV were correlated but distinct constructs, Singh et al (2017) argued for a sequential mediation model in which the effects of a preceding MV presumably also travel through the succeeding one.…”