For the greater good: a social psychological account of how third parties evaluate violence
Why do people sometimes support violence while rejecting it in other situations? This dissertation examines how people who are not directly involved in violence (for example, citizens observing a war from another country) decide when violence appears justified, excessive, or even protective.
Across three studies, I investigated judgments of both war and extreme individual violence. During Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, support for military intervention increased as the aggressor’s actions escalated. People who felt closer to Ukrainians were also more likely to support military action. In the context of the Israel–Hamas war, however, a clear boundary emerged: support declined when retaliation became increasingly removed from the original perpetrators and therefore appeared less proportional. In a study of a high-profile assassination in the United States, participants rarely viewed the violent act itself as helpful or prosocial. Yet some were more willing to attribute protective or prosocial motives to the perpetrator when they placed part of the responsibility on broader social or systemic circumstances.
The central conclusion is that support for violence does not simply reflect aggression or a fixed pro- or anti-violence attitude. Instead, people evaluate violence through social norms concerning reciprocity, proportionality, relational closeness, and responsibility. These judgments make support for violence conditional and reversible: it can emerge when violence is seen as a warranted response to harm, but erode when the response appears excessive, misdirected, or insufficiently justified.