TY - JOUR
T1 - Predicting Lynching Atrocity
T2 - The Situational Norms of Lynchings in Georgia
AU - Ritchey, Andrew J.
AU - Ruback, R. Barry
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported in part by the Instituto Carlos III-Juan March de Ciencias Sociales and the National Science Foundation’s Human and Social Dynamics Program (Grant #0729363 awarded to the second author)
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, © 2017 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
PY - 2018/5/1
Y1 - 2018/5/1
N2 - From 1882 to 1926, lynch mobs in Georgia killed 514 victims in 410 separate events. Based on a new comprehensive dataset, this study examined characteristics of the mobs related to the level of the atrocity of the violence in the lynchings. Consistent with prior research, the size of the crowd was a stable predictor of level of atrocity. However, in contrast to two prior studies, results did not uniformly support the self-attention perspective. Instead, the findings were more consistent with the concept that situational norms were the important mechanism behind collective violence, particularly because the violence used in a lynching event reflected the violence used in nearby lynchings. These results suggest that, rather than losing all norms of behavior through a process of deindividuation, lynchers adopted norms they viewed as appropriate for the situation.
AB - From 1882 to 1926, lynch mobs in Georgia killed 514 victims in 410 separate events. Based on a new comprehensive dataset, this study examined characteristics of the mobs related to the level of the atrocity of the violence in the lynchings. Consistent with prior research, the size of the crowd was a stable predictor of level of atrocity. However, in contrast to two prior studies, results did not uniformly support the self-attention perspective. Instead, the findings were more consistent with the concept that situational norms were the important mechanism behind collective violence, particularly because the violence used in a lynching event reflected the violence used in nearby lynchings. These results suggest that, rather than losing all norms of behavior through a process of deindividuation, lynchers adopted norms they viewed as appropriate for the situation.
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U2 - 10.1177/0146167217733075
DO - 10.1177/0146167217733075
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85042924902
SN - 0146-1672
VL - 44
SP - 619
EP - 637
JO - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
JF - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
IS - 5
ER -