Third parties’ reactions to everyday vigilantism: A dual-process perspective

Vigilantism has a long-standing presence in human society but has only recently received attention from social scientists. Based on recent theories on vigilantism and dual-process theories in social psychology, in this dissertation, I provide one of the first investigations into the socio-cognitive and behavioral implications elicited by perceiving vigilantism in social surroundings. I adopt a full-cycle approach, beginning with an examination of my proposed model in an online setting using community samples (Preliminary Study 1). This is followed by experimental replications of the proposed effects in Studies 2a and 2b. Finally, I replicate the proposed model in a field-based organizational setting in Study 3, where I also explore additional moderators. Overall, I found some evidence supporting my proposed model, but some relationships were not supported, preventing me from providing unequivocal conclusions. Across studies, I observed that the perception of vigilantism tends to increase the perception of threat to oneself as well as in the environment, and these perceptions appear to predict both prosocial and antisocial behaviors, though the relationships were not consistently supported in all studies. Potential reasons for the inconsistent and lack of support, along with limitations and future research directions, are discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Chen, Fan Xuan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Restubog, Simon
• Liu, Yihao
• Newman, Daniel
• Cohen, Dov
• Aquino, Karl

• Vigilantism
• Morality
• Social Cognition
• Prosocial Behavior
• Moral Behavior

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Fan Xuan Chen

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/125777

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F125777