Expressing equivalence of responsibility and victimhood: How message directionality affects perception of speakers' willingness to reconcile.
(2025) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology — (2025)
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- Abstract
- The present research investigates the effect of discourse framing in messages that acknowledge mutual victimhood or responsibility by one of the involved parties in a dual conflict. Building on the theory of asymmetric similarities (Tversky, 1977), across four experiments, we hypothesize and test the idea that directional framing affects perceptions of speakers’ empathic concern and level of perspective taking, and hence, their perceived willingness to reconcile with the opposing party. Study 1 (N = 270) examined these questions from an observer perspective, while Studies 2 (N = 251), 3 (N = 146), and 4 (N = 147) changed participants’ perspective from observers to actors. Results consistently showed that discourses that put the focus on speakers’ own stance (i.e., “You are just as responsible as I am”) produce a less positive impact on recipients than formally equivalent discourses that are framed to focus on the conflicting party’s stance (i.e., “I’m just as responsible as you are”) or nondirectional discourse (i.e., “We’re both responsible”). Furthermore, the effect of discourse directionality on perception of speakers’ willingness to reconcile is mediated by recipients’ perceptions that speakers are empathetic and displaying high levels of perspective taking, with empathic concern emerging as the relatively stronger pathway. Findings provide valuable insights into the role of language framing on conflicting parties’ reconciliation tendencies.
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Kasper, A., & Demoulin, S. (2025). Expressing equivalence of responsibility and victimhood: How message directionality affects perception of speakers’ willingness to reconcile. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Accepted/in-press. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000508 (Original work published 2025)