Vengeance

To Blame or Not to Blame

Research on aggression has much to offer our understanding of vengeance. For instance, aggression studies point to the critical element of attributing blame to specific individuals as instigators of

harm or provocation. If a victim does not attribute blame to a particular person, that person tends to be safe from aggressive retaliation. However, researchers have also found evidence for “triggered displaced aggression,” which occurs when hostility has been aroused in one provoking incident and a relatively minor event later triggers the expression of that hostility, even against persons who were unrelated to the initial incident. Thus, not being seen as the direct cause of a victim's frustration, hostility, or hurt feelings does not always protect innocent parties from retaliation. When vengeance turns especially violent (e.g., school shootings, suicide bombings), innocent bystanders can also become accidental victims.

Sometimes the attribution of blame goes awry, as when a person is hypervigilant and overly suspicious, looking everywhere for evidence to support a predetermined judgment of another's blamewor-thiness. When this occurs, it can produce a hostile attribution bias, in which the suspicious individual makes unwarranted inferences, misconstruing ambiguous acts and intentions in the most negative ways possible. Evolutionary psychologists have noted that such biases may occur when a person feels threatened by potential rivals, which can lead the threatened partner to engage in aggressive tactics designed to defend his or her social territory. Sometimes these tactics can turn violent, especially when one partner suspects the other of infidelity. Indeed, infidelity and suspicion of infidelity are among the leading causes of homicide across cultures, putting vengeance at the heart of one of society's greatest ills.

Culture, Personality, and Saving Face

Cultures differ in the degree to which they accept vengeance as a response to perceived transgressions. Research on “cultures of honor,” found in the southern United States, Latin America, the Middle East, and elsewhere, reveals that some cultures tolerate vengeance as a means of restoring a threatened sense of honor, especially for threats to one's family, reputation, or property. When infidelity occurs in a culture of honor, severe retribution by the wronged party (particularly by males) is often accepted by society, and sometimes expected. Vengeance norms also operate at more [Page 1672]local levels, such as within organizations or families, and to the extent that victims within such defined groups believe that their grievances will be handled fairly by those in power, they are less likely to seek personal vengeance. Likewise, research with romantic couples has shown that more constructive responses to conflict are associated with preconflict levels of commitment and intimacy, as well as with the perception by each party that the quality of alternative partners is relatively low—thus, they perceive it to be worthwhile to work through their conflicts constructively rather than escalating to the level of vengeance and the possible dissolution of the relationship. Similarly, recent research on forgiveness in close relationships has shown that revenge and avoidance (precursors to relationship dissolution) are two key indicators that a victim has failed to forgive his or her offender. Within close relationships, avoidance of intimacy (giving one's partner the “cold shoulder”) might even serve as a nonviolent and subtle form of vengeance.

...