Displaced revenge: Can revenge taste “sweet” if it aims at a different target?

What makes displaced revenge taste sweet: Retributing displaced responsibility or sending a message to the original perpetrator?

“…When we talk about "satisfaction," we mean a psychological state in which the victim/avenger experiences (a) a sense of justice achieved (i.e., that everybody got what they deserved), (b) psychological closure (i.e., that s/he can now put up with what had happened and "move on"), and (c) positive affect (e.g., satisfaction, relief, pleasure). Previous research on the hedonic benefits of taking revenge has shown that these three facets are strongly correlated with each other (e.g., Funk et al, 2014;Gollwitzer et al, 2011;Sjöström & Gollwitzer, 2015), which is why they are usually combined into a single measure of "justicerelated satisfaction." It should be noted that previous research had used different sets of items in different studies, with more comprehensive scales yielding higher internal consistencies (e.g., 12 items in Funk et al, 2014; Studies 1 and 2b) than shorter scales (as in Gollwitzer et al, 2011or Funk et al, 2014Study 2a), which sometimes yielded internal consistencies (i.e., Cronbach's alphas) around .60 (e.g., Sjöström & Gollwitzer, 2015; Study 3).…”

“…The experimental manipulation (i.e., high vs. low entitativity) was embedded directly in the vignettes (see Appendix A): The team members were either described as a close and cohesive group of friends (high entitativity) or as a loose and rather unconnected group of individuals (low entitativity). The entitativity manipulation was adapted from Newheiser et al (2012) and Crawford, Sherman, and Hamilton (2002; see also Sjöström & Gollwitzer, 2015; Study 1).…”

“…Extending previous findings, however, Study 1 looked at two potential mediators of this effect: (a) perceived displaced responsibility and (b) perceived effectiveness of sending the message (“Don't mess with me!”) to the original perpetrator. In Study 2, we manipulated the permanence of the perpetrator's group after the initial offense (i.e., whether the perpetrator's group continued to exists in its original form, whether the perpetrator has left the group, or whether the entire group dissolved) and measured the extent to which taking displaced revenge is satisfactory for the victim/avenger (see Sjöström & Gollwitzer, ). According to the message hypothesis, taking displaced revenge should be less satisfying if the perpetrator has left the group compared to when the group continues to exist in its original form.…”

Feeling bad and doing good: The effect of customer mistreatment on service employee's daily display of helping behaviors

“…Service employees may therefore displace their retaliation toward agents that are perceived to be similar to the initial perpetrator (i.e., other customers, Groth & Grandey, 2012). This is supported by Sjöström and Gollwitzer (2015) who found that victims report higher levels of satisfaction and lower levels of regret when they are provided an opportunity to displace their revenge against an alternative target that belonged to the same group as the initial perpetrator. Consequently, the likelihood for employees to cope with customer mistreatment by helping other customers may be lowered due to these retaliation tendencies.…”

Revenge in US Public Support for War against Iraq

“…The effect is generally greater toward those who have engaged in unwanted behavior ("triggered displaced aggression") or who superficially resemble the original offender (e.g., Marcus-Newhall et al 2000;Bushman et al 2005;Pedersen et al 2008;Sjöström & Gollwitzer 2015).…”