Influence of acculturation strategies on the judgement and punishment of an offender of North African descent

Influence of Acculturation Strategies on the Judgment of a Violent Act Committed by a North African Woman

“…We hypothesized that the type of acculturation strategy adopted by the aggressor, the consequences of the act on the victim, and the participants' level of social dominance orientation would influence the judgment of both the act and its perpetrator. Consistent with studies on the effect of acculturation strategies on judgments (Maisonneuve & Testé, 2007;Maisonneuve et al, 2014;Taillandier-Schmitt & Combalbert, 2017), our results are clearly in line with this general hypothesis.…”

“…In certain media or sometimes in political debates in France, criminal behavior tends to be asso-ciated systematically with immigrants, particularly those from North Africa (Mucchielli, 2003). A study in France has shown that participants consider an aggressive act committed by a man of North African origin to be less serious and judge the person less severely when he adopts French culture than when he does not (Taillandier-Schmitt & Combalbert, 2017). Moreover, participants with a high SDO level judged him more harshly and attributed the act to his personality rather than to the context.…”

Too similar or too different: Effect of acculturation strategies on judgments of a violent act committed by a Vietnamese offender

“…Evaluation of the offender. Participants judged the aggressor on two dimensions: an overall assessment and a measure of his dangerousness (Dougez et al, 2018;Taillandier-Schmitt & Combalbert, 2017). First, they rated their overall impression of Chuong T. on a scale of 1 (Very bad) to 7 (Very good), and then his level of dangerousness, also on a scale of 1 (Not at all) to 7 (Absolutely).…”

“…Not adopting French culture and retaining the culture of origin would reduce perceived similarity with the ingroup and increase the perception of threat. This was shown by studies with an offender of North African origin (Taillandier-Schmitt & Combalbert, 2017). On the other hand, non-retention of the original culture and adoption of the majority culture by a member of a valued minority group would increase the perception of similarity but would also threaten the distinctiveness of the ingroup.…”

“…Participants were randomly allocated to one of eight experimental conditions, resulting in a 2 (consequences of the act: low vs high impact) x 2 (retention of original culture: no vs yes) x 2 (adoption of French culture: no vs yes) between-participants design. The variables were manipulated through scenarios, which were identical to those previously used by Taillandier-Schmitt and Combalbert (2017). All the scenarios had the same structure.…”