Word count: 9,984 Stepping Into Perpetrators’ Shoes: How Ingroup Transgressions and Victimization Shape Support for Justice Through Perspective-Taking with Perpetrators

Three experiments examined the morally disengaging function of perspective-taking with perpetrators in intergroup conflict. In the context of the Iran-U.S. conflict, Experiment 1 demonstrated that American participants who strongly glorified their country showed increased perspective-taking with perpetrators and reduced support for justice in response to violence committed rather than suffered by the ingroup. Further, perpetrators perspective-taking explained the effect of ingroup’s role as the victim or perpetrator on support for justice. Experiment 2 compared people’s reactions following a conflict involving their ingroup to those following a conflict involving two third parties. The findings indicate that the morally disengaging function of perpetrators perspective-taking was more pronounced in conflicts that involve the ingroup than in conflicts that do not. By experimentally manipulating perpetrator perspective-taking, Experiment 3 demonstrated its causal effect on justice support, again moderated by ingroup glorification. The negative implications of understanding perpetrators for intergroup relations and conflict resolution are discussed. Word count: 150