Citation

Reijntjes A, Thomaes S, Kamphuis JH, Bushman BJ, Reitz E, Telch MJ. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 2013; 115(1): 180-187.

Affiliation

Department of Psychosocial Development in Context, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands; Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: a.h.a.reijntjes@uu.nl.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jecp.2012.11.010

PMID

23374606

Abstract

People often displace their anger and aggression against innocent targets, sometimes called scapegoats. Tragic historic events suggest that members of ethnic minority out-groups may be especially likely to be innocent targets. The current experiment examined displaced aggression of Dutch youths against Dutch in-group peers versus Moroccan out-group peers. Participants (N=137, M(age)=11.6years) completed a personal profile that was allegedly evaluated by Dutch peer judges. After randomly receiving negative or neutral feedback from these peers, participants were given the opportunity to aggress against other innocent Dutch and Moroccan peers by taking money earned away from them. Results showed that in response to negative feedback, participants displaced aggression disproportionally against innocent Moroccan out-group targets. This effect was not driven by ethnic prejudice; in both conditions, participants holding more negative attitudes of Moroccans engaged in higher levels of aggression regardless of the ethnicity of the target.

Language: en