INFLUENCE OF THE VICTIMIZERS ACTIVITY AFT ER UNEXPECTED INCIDENT ON HIS HER EVALUATION BY THE INJURED PERSON

The influence of the reaction of an unexpected accident victimizer on the critical event on the evaluation of his/her conduct in the inciden t from the viewpoint of the victim was experimentally studied. We assu med that the new step of interaction (reaction of the victimizer on th e incident) would influence the interpretation of the immediately prec eding action (critical event). This assumption is contiguous to the th esis that any concrete interpersonal act is intepreted in the context of the whole interaction sequence. 400 partipipants (subjects) took pa rt in the experiment 4 x 2 (factors: reaction of the victimizer after the incident, sex); from the position of victim they evaluated the con duct of the victimizer in a short story describing an unexpected accid ent. Participants were to imagine that the described event happened to them. Four experimental conditions in a between subject project diffe rentiated in the fact that after an identical description of the criti cal event a description of different reactions of the victimizer follo wed: apologize, unconcern, assertive transfer of the responsibility on the victim, and a hostile accusation of the victim. The victimizer's reaction strongly influenced the evaluation of his/her conduct in the critical event as hostile, aggressive, ruthless, purposeful, sanctiona ble, breaking norms, and unjustified. The most positively evaluated co nduct was the conduct of an accident victimizer who apologized, confes sed his guilt and promised help. The consecutive hostile conduct of th e victimizer was evaluated in the most negative way.