RT Article
T1 Worry about victimization, crime information processing, and social categorization biases
JF Legal and criminological psychology
VO 23
IS 2
SP 148
OP 162
A1 Gouseti, Ioanna
LA English
YR 2018
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1846254167
AB Purpose. This study explores associations between worry about victimization, crime information processing, and social categorization biases. Its results speak to the public communication of the crime-risk. Methods. The study tests hypotheses that draw on the construal-level theory of psychological distance and the uncertainty-identity theory. Through an online experiment that was conducted in 2015 on Amazon Mechanical Turk (N = 312), three experimental groups were exposed to different modes of crime information processing and were then asked about their worry about victimization and attitudes to social categorization. Results. The results suggest that passive engagement with information about real crimes, that is only reading about them, is more likely to decrease levels of worry about victimization compared to engaging with such information actively, that is by thinking about causes or consequences of crime. It is also found that worry about victimization is significantly related to social categorization biases, namely in-group identification, outgroup derogation, and racist attitudes. Conclusions. The mode of crime information processing (active vs. passive) appears to be a strong ‘predictor’ of worry about victimization. In turn, worry about victimization is related to social categorization biases that damage collective well-being. These findings can feed into evidence-based strategies for the public communication of crime that keep people informed but free from fear.
NO Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 159-162
NO Gesehen am 26.05.2023
NO First published: 29 June 2018
K1 crime information processing
K1 psychological distance
K1 public communication of crime
K1 social categorization
K1 worry about victimization
DO 10.1111/lcrp.12130