Adolescents Implicit Theories and Desires for Revenge After Conflicts in School

1
Adolescents Implicit Theories and Desires for
RevengeAfter Conflicts in School
David Scott Yeager Stanford University School
of Education Department of Psychology
Funding from the Spencer Foundation RTG and the
Stanford School of Education Dissertation Support
Grant.

• Thanks to Carol Dweck, Allison Master, Kate
  Belden, Jason Singer, Whitney Worthen, Kirsi
  Tirri, Petri Nokelainen, Ann Porteus, S. Shirley
  Feldman, William Damon, the Stanford Center on
  Adolescence the Dweck-Walton Lab

2
Adolescent Vengeance in Schools

• There is no accurate or useful profile for
  school shooters (U.S. Secret Service, pg. 10)

3

• Eric Harris
• I hate you people for leaving me out of so many
  fun things. And no don't say, 'Well that's your
  fault,' because it isn't, you people had my phone
  , and I asked and all, but no. No no no don't
  let the weird-looking Eric KID come along
  sic.
• (FBI, 2009)

4
Adolescent Desires for Revenge

• After victimization or conflicts, why do some
  adolescents
• Feel overwhelmed by bad feelings about themselves
• Feel hatred for the transgressor
• And comfort themselves with the thought of
  revenge?
• Perhaps because they believe that people are
  fixed and cant be changed

5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7
(No Transcript)
8
(No Transcript)
9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
The Present Research

• Establish a correlation between an entity theory
  and vengeance in 9th and 10th grade adolescents
• Why are they related?
• Manipulate an incremental theory and see its
  effect on desires for vengeance

12
Study 1

• Two different samples of 9th and 10th graders
• Inner-city Oakland (N 120)
• The nation of Finland (N 420)
• Measures
• Implicit theories
• A recalled incident of conflict or victimization
  in school

13
Implicit Theories About Bullies, Victims,
Winners and Losers

• Theories about others and about the self
• There are two types of people Bullies and their
  victims
• Everyone is either a winner or loser in life
• Six items one factor agt.80

cf. Dweck (1999) or Dweck, Chiu Hong (1995) for
validation of similar items
14
Revenge Wishes After An Actual Incident in High
School

• Tell us about a time that an acquaintance upset
  you in school
• Victimization, conflicts and slights

15
They called me a outsider because of my leather
jacket
someone called me a fag
seeing them and they just looks you in the face
without a hi or smile sic. makes me feel
invisible.
16
Revenge Wishes After An Actual Incident in High
School

• How much did you feel like
• Hurting them
• Getting back at them
• Wishing that someone would hurt them
• Dreaming of a way to give them what they deserved
• Eight items one factor agt.80

17
(No Transcript)
18
(No Transcript)
19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
(No Transcript)
23
Incremental Felt like getting revenge A
little Entity Felt like getting revenge A
lot
24
No differences between groups
Stronger for boys, still significant for girls
25

• Why might
• an entity theory
• be related to
• a greater desire
• for vengeance?

26
Implicit Theories and Dispositional Attributions

• Entity theorists are more likely to attribute
  peoples actions to fixed and lasting traits
• (Chiu, Hong Dweck, 1997)
• Maybe bullies and jerks act that way because
  they are bad people
• and bad people deserve to be punished
• (Chiu, Dweck, Tong Fu, 1997)
• Item What do you think about this
  acquaintance?
• 1 An extremely good person
• 7 An extremely bad person

27
N640
Bullies Jerks Cant Change
Desire for Vengeance
ß.41
28
Other Person is Bad
N640
Bullies Jerks Cant Change
Desire for Vengeance
ß.41
29
Implicit Theories and Feeling Bad About the Self

• Entity theorists may feel like they will always
  be a nothing after negative events happen to
  them
• Which may inflate the emotional significance of
  the event and make them feel worse about it
• Item How bad did you feel about yourself after
  the incident?
• 1 Not at all bad 5 Extremely bad

30
Other Person is Bad
N640
Bullies Jerks Cant Change
Desire for Vengeance
ß.41
31
Other Person is Bad
N640
Bullies Jerks Cant Change
Desire for Vengeance
ß.41
Bad Feelings About the Self
32
Other Person is Bad
N640
ß.42
ß.13
Bullies Jerks Cant Change
Desire for Vengeance
ß.41
ß.33
Bad Feelings About the Self
ß.15
ß.20
?2 (165) 285 CFI .96 RMSEA .040
33
Other Person is Bad
N640
ß.42
ß.13
Bullies Jerks Cant Change
Desire for Vengeance
ß.41
ß.33
Significant partial mediation
Bad Feelings About the Self
ß.15
ß.20
?2 (165) 285 CFI .96 RMSEA .040
34

• Can learning an
• incremental theory reduce hatred, shame and
• wishes for revenge
• after bullying?

35
Study 2Bullying Scenario Experiment

• Subset of Finland sample 1 month later (N240)
• Online reading comprehension task in schools
  computer lab
• Control
• Read scenario about bullying
• Incremental
• Scenario you and bullies can change advice

36
Bullying Scenario

• Eric/Emily embarrasses himself/herself in school
• Gets made fun of by bullies in the halls every
  day
• They threaten to post it on blogs and websites
• Prompt Imagine the events in the story had
  actually happened to YOU

37
Incremental ArticleYou and Bullies Can Change

• Relative Plasticity
• People can change who they are. Who knows
  whether theyll grow out of it down the road?
• (Lerner et al, 2006)

• And Situationism
• Saying theyre just jerks isnt the best way
  to look at it. Can you think of any other
  reasons that theyre acting that way?
• (Ross Nisbett, 1990)

38
Manipulating Implicit Theories
39
Desire for Vengeance
A Moderate Amount
Cohens d .37

Somewhat
A little
Control M .38 Incremental M .30 t(252)
2.93, plt.01
40
Hatred and Shame
A lot


A moderate amount
Somewhat
Control M .57 Incremental M .48 t(252)
2.05, plt.05
Control M .54 Incremental M .40 t(252)
2.97, plt.01
41

• Do hatred and shame
• mediate the
• effect on vengeance?

42
You and the Bullies Can Change
Vengeance
ß -.18
43
Hatred (Bad Person)
You and the Bullies Can Change
Vengeance
ß -.18
Shame (Bad Self)
44
Hatred (Bad Person)
ß.60
ß -.12
You and the Bullies Can Change
Vengeance
ß -.18
ß -.11
Significant partial mediation
Shame (Bad Self)
ß -.17
?2 (17) 21 CFI .99 RMSEA .030
45
Proportion Honestly, Hoping They Would Die

Proportion
.10
Control 19 Incremental 8 Z 2.15,
plt.03
46
Conclusions

• Implicit theories predict vengeance
• In diverse samples of youth from America and
  Finland
• For an actual, recalled incident
• However Implicit theories can be manipulated,
  reducing desire for vengeance

47
Conclusions

• Mediators help us to explain why
• Bad person attributions and feelings of hatred
• Feeling bad about yourself

48
Future Research

• Investigate the effects of subtle entity cues
• Teachers, parents and youth workers may say
• Dont worry about him, hes just a bully
• Do some entity theorists externalize
• i.e., violence and hatred of others
• While others internalize?
• i.e., cutting and hatred of self

49
Acknowledgements

• Thanks to
• Kirsi Tirri
• Petri Nokelainen
• Spencer Foundation
• Members of the Dweck-Walton lab
• William Damon
• Deborah Stipek
• Kate Belden
• Jason Singer

• Kali Trzesniewski
• Christel Anderson
• Ann Porteus
• Alan Weyland
• Allison Master
• Whitney Worthen
• Rebecca Johnson
• Stanford University School of Education