Harold Sigall
email: hsigall@psyc.umd.edu

Angelica Mucchi-Faina

Cristina Mosso

Minority Influence is Facilitated When the Communication Employs Linguistic Abstractness

Keywords: indirect influence, linguistic abstraction, minority influence

An experiment tested the hypothesis that minority influence is enhanced when the source of a persuasive communication employs abstract, as opposed to concrete, language. This hypothesis and the research testing it links ideas from two heretofore separate areas of inquiry: minority influence and linguistic abstraction.

It is well known that minority influence increases when the minority is perceived to be consistent. Work on linguistic abstraction has established that when abstract language is used to describe an act, it implies that the act reflects stable, trans-situational characteristics of the actor, whereas concrete language implies that the act reflects isolated, situationally bounded events. We suggest that abstract language therefore conveys greater conviction and thereby increases perceived consistency and, in turn, minority influence.

Source (majority, minority) and language abstractness (abstract, concrete) of a persuasive communication were manipulated. Results revealed that a minority (but not a majority) source was seen as more consistent when using abstract (vs. concrete) language. Although there were no differences among conditions on direct influence, a statistically significant interaction was observed for indirect influence: the abstract-minority source had significantly more indirect influence than did the concrete-minority source, whereas the indirect influence of the majority communicator was not affected by language abstractness.

important role in minority influence effects. The classical explanation for the contribution of consistency to minority influence is essentially attributional: consistency by a minority conveys courage and commitment. A committed communicator induces more careful message processing, which, in turn, facilitates influence. More recently, it has been proposed that consistency enhances minority influence by promoting attention to the minority view [START_REF] Crano | The context/comparison model of social influence: Mechanisms, structure, and linkages that underlie indirect attitude change[END_REF][START_REF] De Dreu | Differential processing and attitude change following majority and minority arguments[END_REF]. According to this argument, minorities are usually overlooked or ignored. By being consistent, i.e. persistently expressing the same view, they draw attention to their position, thereby increasing the likelihood of influence [START_REF] Wood | Minority influence: A meta-analytic review of social influence processes[END_REF].

Whereas there may be some uncertainty about the precise mechanism(s) that account for consistency's part in minority influence, the importance of consistency is not in doubt [START_REF] Maass | Hidden impact of minorities: Fifteen years of minority influence research[END_REF]. But what signals consistency? As [START_REF] Moscovici | Social influence and social change[END_REF] noted, consistency is a multidimensional construct: 'it embraces many forms of behaviour, from persistent repetition or phrase, through the avoidance of contradictory behaviour, all the way up to the elaboration of a system of logical proof' (p. 122). One relatively subtle indicator of consistency may be the language one uses when promoting a point of view. The research reported here investigates the possibility that when certain linguistic features are employed by a communicator his or her consistency is strengthened. As a result, such communication should foster minority influence. We are specifically interested in the effects of linguistic abstractness (e.g. [START_REF] Semin | The cognitive functions of linguistic categories in describing persons: Social cognition and language[END_REF]) on minority influence. [START_REF] Semin | The cognitive functions of linguistic categories in describing persons: Social cognition and language[END_REF][START_REF] Semin | Relocating attributional phenomena within a language cognition interface: The case of actors' and observers' perspectives[END_REF][START_REF] Semin | Language, interaction and social cognition[END_REF] developed the linguistic category model to assess cognitive processes that underlie linguistic abstractness. This model distinguishes descriptive action verbs (DAVs), interpretative action verbs (IAVs), state verbs (SVs), and adjectives (ADJs). These four structures, each of which may be applied in the description of the same action, represent, respectively, increasing degrees of abstraction. Thus, e.g. 'I solved the problem', which employs an IAV describes my behavior more concretely (and less abstractly) than 'I am intelligent', which uses an ADJ. Linguistic abstractness has proved to be a very useful concept in understanding a variety of social phenomena [START_REF] Semin | Cognition, language and communication[END_REF][START_REF] Semin | Language and social cognition[END_REF], especially in intergroup relations, where the research area has been termed the linguistic intergroup bias (LIB; see e.g. [START_REF] Maass | Linguistic intergroup bias: Stereotypes perpetuation through the language[END_REF]. For example, it has been demonstrated repeatedly that positive behaviors by ingroup members and negative behaviors by outgroup members are described in more abstract language than are negative behaviors by individuals in the ingroup and positive behaviors by individuals in the outgroup. [START_REF] Maass | Linguistic intergroup bias: differential Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 9(3) 450 expectancies or in-group protection[END_REF] found strong evidence that, in general, expectancy consistent behaviors are described at a higher level of abstraction than expectancy inconsistent behaviors. After all, by definition, expected information is more stable, typical, global and diagnostic, and is more appropriately represented in abstract terms.

The interpretation of such effects generally is that the more abstract the language, the more the behavior is being characterized as stable across situations and over time. We argue that in this sense, abstract language can communicate consistency. A communicator who uses abstract language suggests that assertions about actions or events reflect a certain consistency in his or her view. In contrast, the use of concrete language contextualizes the communicator's view, thereby lowering his or her perceived consistency. If the use of abstract language increases the perception of a communicator's consistency, it should facilitate the persuasiveness of a minority communicator. Such consistency is not as important to a majority communicator, who is more able to evoke compliance, and whose position does not violate any expectations.

Moreover, the effect of a consistent minority is more likely to be observed on indirect than on direct influence (Forgas & Williams, 2001;[START_REF] Mucchi-Faina | Minority influence effects: Assimilation and differentiation[END_REF][START_REF] Mugny | The power of minorities[END_REF]. Indeed, indirect influence implies that the recipient of the communication has inferred the underlying guiding principles of the minority position and Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 9(3) recognizes their validity as an alternative point of view.

Whereas direct influence would be said to occur when an audience is persuaded precisely on the issue that is the manifest focus of the communication (say, increased agreement that the use of recreational drugs should be legalized in response to a communication advocating legalization), indirect influence might be inferred if the same communication persuaded the audience on a related issue (say, that penalties for recreational drug use should be made more lenient). Minority influence is thought to be primarily indirect because people do not wish to be identified with a minority, or considered deviants, and so they resist revealing that they have been influenced directly.

Why doesn't such enhanced consistency also promote the effectiveness of a majority communicator? It is not so much that it couldn't have such an effect-we are not suggesting that consistency is a liability for majority communicators-but that it is unlikely to have the effect because a majority communicator exerts strong social pressure on the audience, and therefore makes the audience's considerations different. The audience is freer to rely on the heuristic, 'Most others agree, so I guess I should'. In addition, the audience's attention may be focused on issues related to yielding to conformity pressure. In either case, the majority communicator is not as likely to induce the kind of processing that minority communicators are known to do. Minority communicators are perhaps more likely to stimulate indirect influence than majority communicators because the latter are not so likely to promote thinking about linked topics [START_REF] De Dreu | Differential processing and attitude change following majority and minority arguments[END_REF][START_REF] Erb | Beyond conflict and discrepancy: Cognitive bias in minority and majority influence[END_REF].

In the present research, we investigate the possibility that minority influence, especially indirect influence, will be enhanced if the communication is phrased in abstract language. We should note that research on the use of abstract language has generally focused first on what the choice of language reveals about the speakerhow he or she understands the social world, and secondarily on the consequences of the level of language abstraction on the recipient. Thus, in the LIB paradigm, for example, someone is understood to describe a negative act by an outgroup member in abstract terms because that someone views the act as an indicator of a stable quality. The listener, hearing this characterization, will in turn see the outgroup member more negatively than would be so had the act been described more concretely. More recently attention has been directed toward a communicator's choice of language (in terms of abstraction) as a way to influence the communication recipient [START_REF] Rubini | Taking the edge off of disagreement: Linguistic abstractness and self-presentation to a heterogeneous audience[END_REF][START_REF] Semin | Agenda 2000-Communication: Language as implementational device for cognition[END_REF]. In the current study, we manipulated language to study its effect on the audience.

The hypothesis was that abstract language would increase minority influence, particularly indirect influence. Underlying this hypothesized effect is the notion that by using abstract language a minority source will be thought to have greater conviction. As noted above, such effects were not expected to be as strong for majority sources.

Method

Participants and design

One hundred introductory psychology students (39 men and 61 women) in a large state university in the United States participated in the experiment in return for credit that could fulfill, in part, a course requirement; 94% of the participants were native speakers of English. In order to test the hypothesis, participants were presented with an influence attempt from a minority or from a majority source, whose communication was phrased in such a way as to minimize or maximize the use of abstract language. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions created by the 2 (Source: Minority/Majority) ϫ 2 (Linguistic abstractness: Abstract/Concrete) experimental design, and tested individually.

Procedure

Participants were told that the university's Board of Regents had been considering instituting a required comprehensive examination for all students. If put into effect, students would Sigall et al. linguistic abstractiveness facilitates minority influence have to pass the examination in order to graduate. It was further explained that the Regents were studying the matter carefully, and that they were gathering views from various interested parties as part of that effort. The research that participants had volunteered for was, broadly speaking, part of that effort, as faculty in the Department of Psychology were interested in the issue.

Prior to being given further information or being subjected to any influence attempt, participants were asked to indicate their position on the following item: 'The [Name of University] should institute a required comprehensive examination'. Responses were made on an 11-point scale that ranged from 'strongly disagree' (1) to 'strongly agree' (11). These responses were collected by the experimenter. Participants were not identified on the response form, nor on the dependent measures that followed.

The experimenter went on to explain that as the participant may have been aware, there had been a number of forums in which interested students were able to present their views on the matter. Manipulations were presented in writing.

Minority/majority manipulation

Participants were then given a booklet. It indicated that a scientific poll had been conducted to assess student opinion on the question. In the majority condition it was stated that a majority of the campus (78%) supported the introduction of the exam; in the minority condition it was stated that a minority of the campus (22%) supported the exam. Participants then read the arguments of one student who belonged either to the majority or the minority.

Abstract/concrete manipulation

There were seven arguments presented. The arguments in the abstract language condition were phrased using relatively abstract structures. For example, one argument concerned the comparative employability of students from universities that have a comprehensive examination requirement and those who do not. In the concrete version the phrasing was: 'Students from these universities are recruited (DAV) more by employers', whereas in the abstract condition, the phrasing was, 'Students from these universities are preferred (SV) more by employers'. Thus, there was an effort to keep the content of the abstract and concrete arguments equivalent. The concrete version used DAVs and IAVs exclusively; the abstract version used only SVs and ADJs.

The content of the arguments was guided by previous work using the comprehensive examination issue [START_REF] Petty | Communication and persuasion[END_REF]. The arguments were pretested on a group of 40 students from the same population as the study participants. Pretest participants were asked to list thoughts generated by the arguments. Arguments for which thoughts were predominantly positive were kept. The language used to manipulate the abstractness variable was chosen by the experimenters and then coded using [START_REF] Semin | The cognitive functions of linguistic categories in describing persons: Social cognition and language[END_REF][START_REF] Semin | The linguistic category model: Its bases, applications and range[END_REF] linguistic category model by two coders familiar with the system. Intercoder reliability was .90.

Measures

After reading the communication, participants again indicated their agreement with the item, 'The [Name of University] should institute a required comprehensive examination'. Responses were made on an 11-point scale, anchored by 'strongly disagree' and 'strongly agree'. This item measured direct influence. The next four items assessed indirect influence. Responses were made on 11-point scales, labeled as indicated below. These questions comprised items that asked whether the university's performance standards should be lowered (1) or raised (11), whether requirements for receiving a degree should be lowered or raised (on the same scale), the extent of their agreement (1 = strongly disagree; 11 = strongly agree) with statements advocating that it is too easy to get high grades at the university and that students found guilty of academic dishonesty should be expelled. These items were chosen as indirect measures of influence because they address whether the university should make increased demands on students, as does the comprehensive examination issue.

Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 9(3)

In pretesting with students from the same population, correlations (rs) between the indirect items and the direct influence item averaged .28 (p < .05).

Reactions to the communicator: participants were asked to rate how committed to the position and how consistent, confident, and passionate about the issue the presenter was. Responses were made on 11-point scales, ranging from 'not at all' (1) to 'totally' (11). Participants were also asked how persuasive the communicator would be to students at the university.

To check on whether participants attended to and remembered the minority/majority manipulation, they were asked to 'Estimate the percentage of students on the campus who believe that the university should have required comprehensive exams'. Participants were asked to respond by writing in a number between 0 and 100, inclusive.

After the measures had been completed, the experimenter probed for suspicion and debriefed participants.

Results

Participants in the minority influence condition reported, on average, that 24.2% (SD = 8.73) of the students on campus supported the introduction of comprehensive examinations; in the majority condition, the mean was 67.7% (SD = 17.14). This difference is statistically significant and shows that the manipulation of minority/ majority influence had an effect (F(1, 96) = 244.57, p < .001). There was no effect of language on these estimates: (F(1, 96) = .33, ns); nor was there an interaction between source and language: (F(1, 96) = 1.75, ns).

Direct influence

Prior to the introduction of the experimental manipulations, participants' attitudes toward introducing the comprehensive examination were measured. There were no differences in mean attitude by condition. Subsequent to the treatments, attitudes were measured again. Premeasures were covaried out of the postmeasures, and the adjusted means were calculated: M = 5.88 in the majority-abstract condition, M = 6.10 in the majority-concrete condition, M = 6.22 in the minority-abstract condition, and M = 6.20 in the minority-concrete condition. As the analysis of covariance showed, there were no effects of either source (F(1, 95) = .68, ns) or language abstractness (F(1, 95) = .22, ns), and the variables did not interact (F(1, 95) = .15, ns).

Indirect influence

As noted earlier, we intended to assess indirect influence with four items, which asked participants about their views on increasing or decreasing performance standards, raising or lowering requirements for earning a degree, whether it was too easy to get high grades in the university's classes, and what they thought was appropriate punishment for academic dishonesty. However, because a reliability analysis yielded a Cronbach's alpha = .73 if the item asking about academic honesty was deleted (alpha = .47 with that item included), we removed that item; the three remaining individual items used to assess indirect influence were combined to form an indirect influence index. This index was used as the measure of indirect influence in all subsequent analyses.

The correlation between direct and indirect influence was r = .43 (99); p < .001, which demonstrates that the indirect influence measure was related to the direct measure.

As with the direct measure, we covaried the premeasure out of the indirect measure. The resulting adjusted means on the indirect measure are shown in Figure 1. The minority source had more influence (M = 6.57) than did the majority source (M = 6.09). This difference was statistically significant (F(1, 95) = 4.90, p < .05). There was no main effect for language abstractness, although there was a tendency for the abstract communication (M = 6.52) to be more influential than the concrete (M = 6.13) (F(1,95) = 3.49, p < .07). The language abstractness by source interaction was in the predicted direction, and statistically significant (F(1,95) = 4.93, p < .05). The minority communicator had more indirect influence when the communication used abstract language (M = 6.99) than

Sigall et al. linguistic abstractiveness facilitates minority influence

when it used concrete language (M = 6.13); the contrast was significant (F(1, 95) = 7.64, p < .01). However, the influence of the majority source was not affected by language abstractness (F < 1).

Perceived consistency

Participants were asked to rate the communicator on commitment, consistency, confidence and passion with respect to the issue. A reliability analysis indicated that the four items formed a reliable scale (Cronbach's alpha = .83) and the items were combined in a consistency measure.

Because the correlation between the premeasure and perceived consistency was trivial (r(100) = -.097, ns), the premeasure was not covaried out of the perceived consistency measure. For the perceived consistency measure, there was a main effect for language abstractness. Participants in the abstract condition found the source more consistent (M = 9.08) than did participants in the concrete condition (M = 8.48) (F(1,96) = 6.58, p < .05). There was no main effect for source (F(1,96) = 1.51, ns). The language ϫ source interaction was significant (F(1,96) = 4.02, p < .05). The pattern of the interaction was consistent with our hypothesis: for the minority source the abstract communication led to greater perceived consistency (M = 9.45) than did the concrete communication (M = 8.39), whereas for the majority source the difference as a function of language was much smaller (M = 8.70 in the majority-abstract condition, and M = 8.57 in the majority-concrete condition-see Figure 2).

Mediation analyses

Mediation analyses [START_REF] Baron | The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychology research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations[END_REF]) were conducted to examine the possible role of perceived consistency in mediating the relationship between the independent variables and indirect influence. As the primary experimental effect of interest was the language abstractness by source interaction, we tested for mediated moderation. As reported above, the interaction was significant, and the corresponding beta = -.173, p = .043. The interaction effect for perceived consistency, beta = -.193, was also significant (p = .027). After controlling for the interaction, perceived consistency was significantly related to indirect influence, beta = .188, p = .04. Thus the first three criteria for demonstrating mediation were met. When we controlled for perceived consistency, we found that the beta for the relationship between the interaction and indirect influence dropped from -.173 to -.158 (p = .082). This result suggests partial mediation, but the mediation effect is weak. A Sobel test resulted in a value of -1.163, p = .24.

Because the effect of language abstractness was observed primarily in the minority conditions, and because perceived consistency was expected to be important primarily in the minority conditions, we also examined the possibility that perceived consistency mediated that effect. In this analysis we found that the effect of the minority abstract vs. minority concrete conditions on indirect influence yielded a beta = -.331, p = .008. The effect of the independent variable on perceived consistency, beta = -459, p = .001, was also significant. However, the relationship between perceived consistency and indirect influence, controlling for the independent variable, failed to reach statistical significance, and thus a crucial requirement for demonstrating mediation was not met. It may be that this result reflects a problem of multicollinearity. The relationship between the independent variable (minorityabstract vs. minority-concrete) may be so strong that there is insufficient unique variance in perceived consistency to explain indirect influence.

Discussion

The main hypothesis examined in this research was that the indirect influence of a minority would be enhanced by the use of abstract language. The results supported this hypothesis. In particular, the interaction between source and language abstractness demonstrated that whereas a minority communicator had more influence when using abstract language than when using concrete language, no such effect occurred when the communicator represented the majority.

The theoretical basis for this prediction rests in part on the idea that abstract language conveys consistency and on Moscovici's (e.g. 1976) analysis of minority influence effects, which stresses the importance of consistency by the minority for improving its persuasive power. The present findings that the minority communicator who used abstract language was seen as more consistent than was the minority communicator who used concrete language, while the perceived consistency of the majority communicator was relatively unaffected by language, fits with our theoretical analysis. [START_REF] Baron | The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychology research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations[END_REF], there is evidence for partial mediated moderation; i.e. the significant relationship between the interaction and indirect influence was reduced to nonsignificance when the mediator, perceived consistency, was controlled for. On the other hand, the nonsignificant Sobel test showed that the degree of mediation was rather modest. When we examine the relationships between the manipulated language variable within the minority source condition and perceived consistency and indirect influence, the criteria for mediation were not met, as the relationship between perceived consistency (with the manipulated variable controlled for) and indirect influence was not significant. Nevertheless, the effect of the independent variable on both perceived consistency and indirect influence was very strong, as Figures 1 and2 suggest. In sum, indirect influence was enhanced by the use of abstract language by a minority communicator, and that communicator was also viewed as particularly consistent.

As noted earlier, the minority typically fails to achieve direct influence. Although the majority often does obtain such influence, it did not do so in the present experiment. This outcome may very well have been due to certain aspects of the procedure. The premeasure on the direct influence measure was taken shortly before the communication was presented and the postmeasure administered. Thus, commitment to the attitude expressed on the premeasure was likely quite high. We collected the premeasure data when we did to maximize confidence that we knew participant attitudes at the time the communication was introduced. Although we recognized that the timing of the premeasure might make it more difficult to obtain direct influence we pursued this course because we were primarily interested in indirect influence. Although the majority typically has more direct influence than the minority, the majority sometimes fails to have direct influence [START_REF] Alvaro | Indirect minority influence: Evidence for leniency in source evaluation and counterargumentation[END_REF].

This research links heretofore empirically disparate, but conceptually connected literatures, linguistic abstraction and minority influence, and does so by focusing on the importance of perceived consistency. Thus, an interesting implication of the study lies in the potential for identifying strategies that increase minority influence. Additional research might examine more closely the underlying processes implied by linguistic abstractness theory and how they may be applied to increasing persuasive effectiveness (see also [START_REF] Wigboldus | How do we communicate stereotypes? Linguistic bases and inferential consequences[END_REF].

Figure 1 .

 1 Figure 1. Indirect influence as a function of source and language abstractness.

The

  Sigall et al. linguistic abstractiveness facilitates minority influence 449 Figure 2. Perceived communicator's consistency as a function of source and language abstractness.

	9.4 formal mediational analyses provided mixed 9.6 results. Using the criteria set forth by
	9.2
	9
	8.8	Abstract
	8.6	Concrete
	8.4
	8.2
	8
	7.8
	Minority	Majority

Biographical notes

HAROLD SIGALL is professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park. His primary interests are in self-presentation and stereotypes.

ANGELICA MUCCHI-FAINA is professor of social psychology at the University of Perugia. Her main research interests are minority influence, intergroup attitudes and crowd behavior.

CRISTINA O. MOSSO is currently associate professor in social psychology at the University of Turin. Her interests lie in transmission of stereotypes, the dynamics between personal and social identity and, more broadly, psychological and structural factors in intergroup relations.

Sigall et al. linguistic abstractiveness facilitates minority influence


Juan M Falomir-Pichastor

Christian Staerklé
email: christian.staerkle@pse.unige.ch

Marie-Aude Depuiset

Fabrizio Butera

Juan M Falomir
email: juan.falomir@pse.unige.ch

Perceived Legitimacy of Collective Punishment as a Function of Democratic versus Non-Democratic Group Structure

Keywords: aggression legitimacy, collective punishment, decision-making procedures, democracy, group value

The present research tested the hypothesis that the political structure of groups moderates the perceived legitimacy of collective punishment. Participants read scenarios of fi ctitious summer camps in which unidentifi ed members of one group aggressed members of another group. The political structure of both the offender and the victim groups was described as either egalitarian or hierarchical (defi ned with democratic or non-democratic decision-making procedures). Perceived legitimacy of collective punishment directed against all members of the offender group was assessed by measuring the acceptability of sanctions administered by an authority and of revenge actions infl icted by members of the victim group. Results showed that collective punishment was evaluated as less legitimate when the offender group was egalitarian and the victim group was hierarchical. Supplementary analyses showed that this effect was mediated by the higher value attributed to members of the offender egalitarian group when the victim group was hierarchical.

On May 12, 1996, Madeleine Albright, US Ambassador to the UN and future U.S. Secretary of State, was asked on CBS's 60 Minutes whether the death of half a million Iraqi children resulting from the UN sanctions was a price worth paying. Albright replied: 'I think this is a very hard choice. But the price, we think the price is worth it' (cf. [START_REF] Herman | The price is worth it. Anti Imperialist league: Peace and resistance[END_REF]. This quote illustrates a phenomenon that up to now has not been directly investigated by social psychologists: the perceived legitimacy of collective punishment.

Collective punishment

We refer to collective punishment as a negative or harmful treatment that authorities or outgroups infl ict collectively upon an entire social group, in reaction to an offense against a formal or informal rule committed by one or more group members. Examples of collective punishment abound in social life (see [START_REF] Heckathorn | Collective sanctions and the creation of prisoner's dilemma norms[END_REF]. In many traditional societies, for example, the whole family was held accountable for the crimes committed by family members. In modern societies, collective punishment is observed in institutions such as schools, detention facilities or the army, where an entire unit of pupils, inmates or soldiers may be punished for the offences of a few. By adopting international sanctions in reaction to misdeeds of their political leaders, governments punish entire nations, and thereby accept massive civilian suffering.

These examples raise the question of the legitimacy of the sanction of innocent individuals, central in the analysis of attitudes toward collective punishment. Collective punishment may be intentionally directed at group members who are not responsible for the wrongdoing of one of its members (e.g. intergroup aggression), or infl icted unintentionally upon them as a result of what is usually called 'inevitable collateral damage'. In both cases, however, the punisher is well aware and accepts that presumed innocents will be punished. Consequently, collective punishment is at odds with the principle of individual responsibility which lies at the heart of modern conceptions of the criminal justice system [START_REF] Hart | Punishment and responsibility[END_REF], that is, with the common perception that sanctions are fair when they are infl icted upon guilty persons and unfair when they punish innocents [START_REF] Hafer | Experimental research on just-world theory: Problems, developments and future challenges[END_REF][START_REF] Piaget | The moral judgment of the child[END_REF][START_REF] Vidmar | Social psychological processes underlying attitudes toward legal punishment[END_REF]. In other words, attributed responsibility which is required to infl ict a legitimate punishment upon an individual offender is absent when a social group is sanctioned for the wrongdoing of one or several of its members.

This lack of accountability raises the question of the factors that make collective punishment acceptable. In the literature on retributive justice, two major goals of punishment have been described which presumably also apply to collective punishment [START_REF] Darley | The psychology of compensatory and retributive justice[END_REF]. First, if members of the offender group are viewed as potential future offenders, collective punishment may be perceived as a legitimate means for deterrence and prevention. Collective punishment becomes a technique of social control, since the sanctioned group is expected to reinforce the monitoring of the behavior of its members in order to avoid future sanctions. Collective punishment keeps deviant members in check and thereby promotes self-regulation of groups [START_REF] Heckathorn | Collective sanctions and the creation of prisoner's dilemma norms[END_REF][START_REF] Heckathorn | Collective sanctions and compliance norms: A formal theory of groupmediated social control[END_REF]. Second, collective punishment may also be motivated by a just deserts motive in which a wrongdoing is sanctioned as a function of the gravity of the offence, with the aim of restoring justice and enforcing violated group values and norms [START_REF] Carlsmith | Why do we punish? Deterrence and just deserts as motives for punishment[END_REF][START_REF] Tyler | Three strikes and you're out, but why?: The psychology of public support for punishing rule breakers[END_REF].

Among the many factors that may determine judgments of legitimacy of collective punishment, the extent to which individuals or groups violate moral values of groups is particularly important for our concern [START_REF] Tyler | Social justice and social movements[END_REF]. By moral value of the group we refer to a set of rules and norms which defi ne right and wrong within a group, for example by prescribing 'good' conduct of group members and respectful treatment of others. Conversely, the violation of moral values refers to 'bad' and reprehensible conduct which threatens group cohesion [START_REF] Sunshine | Moral solidarity, identifi cation with the community, and the importance of procedural justice: The police as prototypical representatives of a group's moral values[END_REF]. Individuals who symbolize or contribute to maintain and enhance moral values of an ingroup are perceived as more deserving of valued resources than less prototypical group members [START_REF] Feather | Judgments of deservingness: Studies in the psychology of justice and deservingness[END_REF][START_REF] Rasinski | What's fair is fair-or is it? Value differences underlying public views about social justice[END_REF][START_REF] Wenzel | What is social about justice? Inclusive identity and group values as the basis of the justice motive[END_REF][START_REF] Wenzel | A social categorization approach to distributive justice[END_REF]). An analogous reasoning applies to the allocation of negative resources such as punishment. Individuals breaking important moral values should be seen as more deserving of punishment than other offenders [START_REF] Sunshine | Moral solidarity, identifi cation with the community, and the importance of procedural justice: The police as prototypical representatives of a group's moral values[END_REF]. Thus, whether perceivers deem a sanction legitimate or not depends on the extent to which they consider the offence to be a violation of moral values of the group [START_REF] Darley | Just punishments: Research on retributional justice[END_REF][START_REF] Darley | The psychology of compensatory and retributive justice[END_REF][START_REF] Vidmar | Social psychological processes underlying attitudes toward legal punishment[END_REF]. The breaking of group rules should lead to a motivation to assert the validity of group values through the punishment of rule breakers [START_REF] Vidmar | Retributive justice: Its social context[END_REF]. Transgression severity, perceived responsibility, intentionality, and lack of remorse should reinforce punitive attitudes, since deliberate wrongdoing is seen as diagnostic of contempt for group rules [START_REF] Darley | Just punishments: Research on retributional justice[END_REF][START_REF] Vidmar | Social psychological processes underlying attitudes toward legal punishment[END_REF].

The moral value of the group provides its members with a positive identity. We therefore assume that groups which are perceived as respecting moral principles will be attributed higher social value. Conversely, groups which are perceived as violating moral principles will be attributed lower social value. Accordingly, our general contention is that the moral value of groups is a key factor in the perception of legitimacy of collective punishment. More specifi cally, we wish to show that collective punishment infl icted upon more valued groups is perceived as less legitimate than punishment infl icted upon less valued groups, especially when the valued group is to be sanctioned for an offence committed against a less valued group.

Group value and perceived legitimacy of collective punishment

The present research focuses on perceived legitimacy of collective punishment occurring in the context of a confl ict between groups. Many factors may contribute to defi ne the moral group value in this context. Since collective punishment is infl icted on a group rather than on an individual, group perception is likely to be an important factor in the determination of the group value and of the perceived legitimacy of collective punishment. When perceivers evaluate the legitimacy of collective punishment in an intergroup context, they are likely to rely on some stereotypic information regarding the group to be sanctioned. Characteristics of the offender group shape inferences about group members; perceived group entitativity for example increases the attribution of shared responsibility for the offender's action [START_REF] Lickel | A case of collective responsibility: Who else was to blame for the Columbine High School shootings?[END_REF].

The central research question of the present work concerns characteristics of these groups in terms of a democratic and non-democratic group structure. We argue that democratic and non-democratic political group structure is used by perceivers as a cue to infer group members' characteristics [START_REF] Allison | From individual inputs to group outputs, and back again. Group processes and inferences about members[END_REF]. While group features such as wealth and social class may also relate to group value and yield similar effects, the present experiment focuses on political group structure. Prior research has provided support for the political inference hypothesis by showing that democratic and nondemocratic groups elicit particular stereotypical images of their members [START_REF] Staerklé | L'idéal démocratique perverti: Antagonismes dans les représentations du nonoccident[END_REF][START_REF] Staerklé | Representation of human rights across different national contexts: The role of democratic and non-democratic populations and governments[END_REF]. Members of democratic societies are perceived as relatively more autonomous, free, orderly, peaceful and politically involved. Conversely, members of non-democratic societies are associated with psychological weakness, obedience and manipulation by their leaders. They are also more likely to be perceived as disorderly and politically passive. These results suggest that lay perceivers easily associate the system and its members, by endorsing the saying that 'the people get the government they deserve' [START_REF] Staerklé | Representation of human rights across different national contexts: The role of democratic and non-democratic populations and governments[END_REF].

An important implication of this tendency to infer individual characteristics on the basis of democratic and non-democratic group structure is that inferences give perceivers cues regarding the moral value of group members. Research has indeed shown that independence and individual autonomy are culturally more valued than obedience and collectivism, especially in Western societies (e.g. [START_REF] Beauvois | Les illusions libérales, individualisme et pouvoir social: Petit traité sur des grandes illusions[END_REF][START_REF] Lorenzi-Cioldi | Group status and perceptions of homogeneity[END_REF][START_REF] Sampson | The debate on individualism: Indigenous psychologies of the individual and their role in personal and societal functioning[END_REF]. In egalitarian/democratic groups perceivers expect an absence of power relationships between members, and should therefore attribute higher moral value to group members. In hierarchical/non-democratic groups, however, group members are perceived as followers who are easily manipulated and interchangeable, and therefore less valued than 'free' individuals. Similarly, the decisionmaking procedures themselves appear to be value-laden. In line with research on procedural justice, egalitarian/democratic decision-making involving the right to 'voice' is perceived as fairer and more desirable than hierarchical/nondemocratic decision-making, because all group members have their say in the decision-making process [START_REF] Folger | Distributive and procedural justice: Combined impact of 'voice' and improvement of experienced inequity[END_REF]; see also [START_REF] Thibaut | Procedural justice[END_REF][START_REF] Tyler | The psychology of legitimacy: A relational perspective on voluntary deference to authorities[END_REF][START_REF] Tyler | A relational model of authority in groups[END_REF].

Therefore, political group structure should give cues regarding the legitimacy of behaviors performed either by or against group members. Recent research provided evidence for this hypothesis [START_REF] Falomir | Democracy justifi es the means: Political group structure moderates the perceived legitimacy of intergroup aggression[END_REF]. In a fi ctitious summer camp unidentifi ed members of one group aggressed members of another group, thereby ostensibly breaking camp rules. The political group structure was manipulated in a 2 × 2 design where the interacting groups were either egalitarian or hierarchical. Results of two experiments revealed an interaction effect showing that aggressions perpetrated by democratic groups were perceived as less illegitimate than aggressions perpetrated by nondemocratic groups, especially when the victims belonged to non-democratic groups. Indeed, because of the value attributed to egalitarian groups, aggressions against egalitarian victims seem to be strongly condemned independently of the offender group's political structure.

The present experiment, in turn, was designed to examine whether political group structure acts as a moderator of the perceived legitimacy of collective punishment infl icted on the offender group. The same procedure as in Falomir et al.'s studies was used in the present study. Because members of egalitarian democratic groups are more valued than members of hierarchical non-democratic groups, one could predict a victim and a perpetrator main effect indicating that perceived legitimacy of collective punishment of members of the offender group is lowest when this group is egalitarian and the victim group hierarchical and highest when the offender group is hierarchical and the victim group egalitarian. However, in line with fi ndings observed in previous studies [START_REF] Falomir | Democracy justifi es the means: Political group structure moderates the perceived legitimacy of intergroup aggression[END_REF] we rather expect an interaction effect. Collective punishment of members of the offender group should be less supported when they are egalitarian and the offence is committed at the expense of a hierarchical group. Thereby, egalitarian groups attacking other groups are protected from subsequent retribution unless the victim group is an equally valued egalitarian group.

This experiment also intends to contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon of collective punishment by investigating the mediating role of the moral value attributed to the members of the offender group. We reasoned that collective punishment of a democratic group is unacceptable, to the extent that it is perceived as having higher moral value than a non-democratic group. According to our main prediction, this perception should appear when egalitarian groups commit an offence against a hierarchical group, but not when they attack another egalitarian group. In line with this hypothesis, we also expect that this predicted effect is mediated by the attribution of moral value. This prediction is in line with literature showing how negative and devalued stereotypes of victim groups make aggressive and hostile behavior toward them acceptable, for example in ethnic violence [START_REF] Brewer | The psychology of prejudice: Ingroup love or outgroup hate[END_REF][START_REF] Palmer | Colonial and modern genocide: Explanations and categories[END_REF][START_REF] Petersen | Understanding ethnic violence[END_REF][START_REF] Staub | The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence[END_REF].

Finally, we also want to rule out that attribution of responsibility of the offence to the entire social group, rather than to individual perpetrators', accounts for the expected effect of political group structure on perceived legitimacy of collective punishment. Therefore, a measure of perceived shared responsibility of group members in the offence was also included in the questionnaire. This measure will also be used to check whether egalitarian or hierarchical offender groups are perceived as being more co-responsible for the committed offence.

Method

Participants

Participants were 182 psychology undergraduates at the University of Geneva (152 women and 21 men; 9 persons did not report their sex). Their age ranged from 18 to 67 years (M = 22.59, SD = 5.28). All reported effects remained significant when controlling for the sex of participants.

Procedure

The procedure was similar to the one used in Falomir et al. (2005, Study 1). The experiment was carried out during a regular social psychology lab class, and was presented as an exercise on group processes. Inspired by Sherif et al.'s work (1961), participants received a booklet containing a scenario of a summer camp organized by researchers in social psychology. Respondents read that participants (adolescents) were split in two groups at the beginning of the camp, and that researchers observed how the groups spontaneously organized themselves in order to perform tasks such as village building, cooking or maintenance. Researchers concluded that two main types of group structure emerged during the camp: egalitarian and hierarchical. Concerning the egalitarian groups participants learned that: (a) the groups collectively designated a few members as responsible for the coordination of the group activities (i.e. the leaders); (b) important decisions were taken collectively in an assembly in which all group members participated; and (c) all members had equal decision power. With respect to hierarchical groups, participants were informed that: (a) some adolescents proclaimed themselves as leaders; (b) important decisions were taken by these leaders without discussion with other group members; and (c) leaders had more decision power than other members. In order to prevent perceived differences at the level of ingroup agreement or the quality of the camp experience, participants were informed that members of both kinds of groups expressed equal satisfaction with their group and with the holiday camp in general.

Participants were then informed that the present study focused on an event that raised controversy among organizers and researchers. In one of the camps, there was a 'blue' and a 'red' group, described as either egalitarian or hierarchical depending on the experimental condition. One day, the Blues protested against an unfair treatment, since they considered that the organizers gave them less food compared to the Reds. The following night, during a walk in the forest, two angry members of the Blues aggressed and stole money from two members of the Reds. Since it was dark, the victims were unable to identify the two aggressors who remained unsanctioned. Instead, collective punishment of the entire blue group was now discussed. The participants were asked to evaluate several options of collective punishment for the Blues (see below). From now on, the Blue group will be referred to as the 'offender group' (the target of collective punishment) and the Red group as the 'victim group'.

Independent variables

Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions from the 2 (victim group: egalitarian vs. hierarchical) × 2 (offender group: egalitarian vs. hierarchical) experimental design. The group structure was reminded three times in the booklet to make sure that participants accurately associated each group with the respective decision-making structure.

Dependent variables

All answers were given on 7-point scales (1 = not at all, and 7 = totally).

Manipulation checks As a manipulation check, participants were asked to evaluate the extent to which the members of both the victim and the offender groups were having hierarchical relations with their leaders, namely on three items: manipulated by their leaders, independent, and subordinate. A single score was computed, both for the victim group (M = 3.81, SD = 1.29, α = .82) and for the offender group (M = 4.04, SD = 1.29, α = .86), after reversing the scores for the 'independent' item.

Legitimacy of collective punishment

In order to cover different functions of punishment and thus increase the validity of the analyses, three types of collective punishment were assessed.

The fi rst form, reparation, refers to a sanction infl icted by a superordinate authority in order to repair or compensate the harm caused by the offender group to the adverse group (as opposed to punishing the offence; [START_REF] Daly | Restorative justice[END_REF]. Two items were used: 'To what extent the entire group to which the two perpetrators belong should be forced: (a) to restore the robbed money to the victims; and (b) to publicly apologize'.

The second form of collective punishment, expiation, has a markedly more humiliating function than reparation. Two items were used: 'To what extent the entire group to which perpetrators belong should be obliged: (a) to do cleaning work in the Reds' village (i.e. the victim group); and (b) to pay compensation to all members of the Red group'.

Since these two sanctions benefi t all members of the victim group rather than only the victims, they are arbitrary and disproportionate with respect to the initial aggression, and incompatible with the principle of restorative justice.

Finally, the third form of collective punishment under investigation is revenge infl icted by members of the victim group against members of the offender group. Revenge is a special case of collective punishment inasmuch as it is based on an informal attempt to restore justice at the intergroup level [START_REF] Elster | Norms of revenge[END_REF]. Three items were used: 'To what extent do you consider the following actions understandable: (a) aggressiveness in sportive competitions toward the members of the offender group; (b) to humiliate the members of the offender group; and (c) to insult the members of the offender group'.

The seven items assessing collective punishment were submitted to a principal component analysis (Varimax rotation) which extracted three factors explaining 70.06% of the variance: the fi rst one included the three items measuring the legitimacy of revenge actions (28.84% of variance after rotation; M = 2.36, SD = 0.99, α = .74); the second one comprised the two items assessing the legitimacy of reparation (21.66% of variance; M = 5.26, SD = 1.27; inter-item correlation, r = .40, p < .001); and the third one comprised the two items assessing the legitimacy of expiation (18.26% of variance; M = 3.05, SD = 1.09; inter-item correlation, r = .27, p < .001). Three scores were computed by averaging the items comprising the three factors.

These variants of collective punishment vary according to both the reacting agent (authority vs. outgroup) and the function of the punishment [START_REF] Darley | The psychology of compensatory and retributive justice[END_REF]: whereas reparation is mainly related to a compensatory justice motive (i.e. compensation to the victims), expiation and revenge are mainly related to a retributive justice motive.

Perceived moral value of offender group Five characteristics attributed to members of the offender group were used to assess their moral value: moral, fair, respectful, violent and thievish. As an example, they were asked to indicate 'In their character and their relations, to what extent do the members of the 'Blue' group (the offender group) appear to be moral?' A composite score of perceived moral value of the offender group was computed by averaging the fi ve items (M = 3.57, SD = 0.93, α = .80), after reversal of the scores for violent and thievish.

Perceived responsibility of offender group One item assessed the shared responsibility attributed to the members of the offender group: 'To what extent can partial responsibility for the aggression be attributed to all the members of the offender group?' Overall perceived shared responsibility for the offence was high (M = 5.37, SD = 1.38).

Results

Manipulation checks

Scores of hierarchical perception of victim and offender groups were submitted to a 2 (victim group: egalitarian vs. hierarchical) × 2 (offender group: egalitarian vs. hierarchical) × 2 (target group: victim vs. perpetrator) mixed-model analysis of variance (ANOVA), performed with the last factor as a repeated measure. This analysis revealed an effect of the within-participants factor (F(1, 178) = 4.28, p < .04, η 2 = .02). Overall, the members of the offender group (M = 4.04) were perceived as more hierarchical than the members of the victim group (M = 3.81). The within-participants factor interacted with the political structure of the victim group (F(1, 178) = 105.92, p < .0001, η 2 = .37), as well as with the offender group structure (F(1, 178) = 52.63, p < .001, η 2 = .22). The interaction between the three factors was not signifi cant (F(1, 178) = .34, p < .57).

With respect to the perception of the offender group, the 2 (victim group: egalitarian vs. hierarchical) × 2 (offender group: egalitarian vs. hierarchical) ANOVA revealed a signifi cant main effect of group structure (F(1, 178) = 56.64, p < .001, η 2 = .24). Members of the hierarchical offender group were perceived as clearly more hierarchical (i.e. manipulated, subordinate and dependent) (M = 4.64) than members of the egalitarian offender group (M = 3.42), thereby confi rming the effectiveness of the manipulation. The main effect of the victim group structure was also signifi cant (F(1, 178) = 18.48, p < .001, η 2 = .09). Members of the offender group were perceived as more hierarchical when the victim group was egalitarian (M = 4.39) rather than hierarchical (M = 3.70). The two-way interaction was not signifi cant (F(1, 178) = .74, p < .40).

As for the victim group, the same ANOVA showed that members were perceived as more hierarchical when their group was defi ned as hierarchical (M = 4.59) rather than egalitarian (M = 3.00) (F(1, 178) = 112.28, p < .001, η 2 = .38), thereby confi rming the effectiveness of the manipulation. The victim group was also considered more hierarchical when the offender group was egalitarian (M = 4.01) rather than hierarchical (M = 3.62) (F(1, 178) = 6.78, p < .01, η 2 = .03). The interaction was not signifi cant (F(1, 178) = .01, p < .95).

In sum, political group structure markedly affected the way participants perceived the relationships within the groups: when the groups were described in hierarchical terms, its members were perceived as more manipulated, submissive and dependent, compared to egalitarian groups. Consistent with fi ndings obtained by [START_REF] Falomir | Democracy justifi es the means: Political group structure moderates the perceived legitimacy of intergroup aggression[END_REF], the political structure of one group also infl uenced the way members of the other group were perceived. 1

Legitimacy of collective punishment

The 2 (offender group: egalitarian vs. hierarchical) × 2 (victim group: egalitarian vs. hierarchical) multivariate analysis of variance MANOVA performed on the three variants of collective punishment as dependent measures revealed the predicted interaction (F(3, 175) = 3.31, p < .03, η 2 = .054). Means across conditions are presented in Table 1. Collective punishment received the lowest support when the offender group was egalitarian and the victim group hierarchical (M = 3.19). In order to test our main prediction, we performed a planned comparison (1, -3, 1, 1, in the order presented in Table 1), showing that the critical condition significantly differed from the pooled remaining three conditions (M = 3.67) (t(180) = 3.93, p < .001). The two remaining orthogonal contrasts did not signifi cantly add explained residual variance (F(2, 178) = 0.79, p < .46). Considering the overall support across the three types of collective punishment, our hypothesis was confi rmed. More specifi cally (see Table 1), univariate analyses showed that the interaction between experimental factors is significant with respect to reparation (F(1, 177) = 4.77, p < .03, η 2 = .026), and expiation (F(1, 177) = 4.42, p < .04, η 2 = .024), and marginally signifi cant for revenge (F(1, 178) = 3.02, p < .09, η 2 = .017). The planned comparison testing for our main hypothesis was signifi cant for reparation (t(179) = 2.65, p < .009), and expiation (t(179) = 2.47, p < .02), and marginally signifi cant for revenge (t(180) = 1.90, p < .06). None of the residual tests reached the conventional level of signifi cance (Fs < 0.76).

Perceived moral value of offender group

Means of perceived moral value across conditions are presented in Table 2. The 2 × 2 ANOVA revealed a signifi cant main effect of the offender group (F(1, 178) = 14.89, p < .001, η 2 = .077): the egal-itarian offender group was attributed higher moral value (M = 3.83) than the hierarchical offender group (M = 3.33). The analysis also revealed a signifi cant interaction effect (F(1, 178) = 13.33, p < .001, η 2 = .070). The planned comparison testing our main prediction (1, -3, 1, 1, in the order presented in Table 2) showed that the offender egalitarian group was attributed higher moral value when the victim group was hierarchical (M = 4.14), compared to the pooled remaining three conditions (M = 3.39) (t(180) = 5.00, p < .001). Test of residual was not signifi cant (F(2,178) = 2.21, p < .12).

Perceived shared responsibility of the offender group

The 2 × 2 ANOVA showed only a marginally significant main effect of the offender group structure (F(1, 176) = 2.98, p < .09): attributed shared responsibility tended to be lower when the group was egalitarian (M = 5.21) rather than hierarchical (M = 5.52). The interaction effect was not signifi cant (F(1, 176) = 2.03, p < .16). The planned comparison testing for the main prediction was not signifi cant (t(178) = 1.08, p < .29).

Mediation analyses

Following [START_REF] Baron | The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations[END_REF] procedure, we performed a series of regression analyses by using the contrast relative to the predicted effect (1, -3, 1, 1, in the order presented in Table 1) as the independent variable, the three measures of collective punishment as dependent variables and attributed moral value and shared responsibility as mediators, considered separately. First, and as previously indicated, the contrast signifi cantly predicted reparation (β = -.19, p < .009), and expiation (β = -.18, p < .02), whereas this effect was only marginally signifi cant for revenge (β = -.14, p < .06). Second, In sum, mediation analyses suggest that perceived moral value of the group acts as a mediator of the effect of political group structure on perceived legitimacy of collective punishment with respect to authority-infl icted sanctions (i.e. expiation and reparation), but does not mediate the effect on intergroup revenge. Even though shared responsibility attributed to the members of the offender group was positively related to collective punishment (r(180) = .24, p < .001), this factor neither fully nor partially mediated the observed pattern of effects.

Discussion

Collective punishment has only received scant and indirect attention at best by social psychologists. It is a widely observed and fascinating phenomenon not only because it refers to many contemporary debates about the fairness of such techniques (e.g. in international relations), but also because it involves social psychological mechanisms which extend a punitive reaction to an offence committed by a group member to the entire group. Collective punishment therefore requires a justification to overcome a fundamental dilemma between reaching a desirable outcome through collective punishment and sanctioning presumably innocent group members.

The present research analysed the impact of perceptions of democratic and non-democratic groups on the perceived legitimacy of collective punishment. The main fi nding showed that collective punishment is the least legitimate when an offence has been committed by members of an egalitarian group at the expense of members of a hierarchical group, compared to the other three combinations of experimental groups. By eliciting the lowest level of reprehension, the condition in which egalitarian groups aggress hierarchical groups thus clearly stood out. This fi nding was consistent across three types of collective punishment, that is, reparation and expiation infl icted by a superordinate authority and revenge actions perpetrated by the victim group, even if the effect was only marginally signifi cant with respect to revenge.

The key to understand this fi nding is the result showing that members of the egalitarian offender group were attributed higher moral value than the hierarchical offender group. Even more importantly, participants attributed higher moral value to the egalitarian offender group when the victim group was hierarchical rather than egalitarian. Thus, also in terms of perceived moral value the condition defi ned with an egalitarian group attacking a hierarchical group stood out. Furthermore, the fi ndings also revealed that moral value mediated the impact of political organization on perceived legitimacy of collective punishment. The only exception to this pattern was found with respect to revenge, suggesting that perceived moral value is particularly important as a mediator of collective punishment infl icted by authorities rather than by victim groups. Even if unexpected, this fi nding may refl ect that authority-infl icted sanctions require a stronger moral justifi cation than spontaneous acts of revenge. Moreover, it could also be that the reversed roles of the antagonistic groups implied by revenge actions (i.e. the revenge was carried out by the victim group) yielded greater confusion in the scenario which introduced additional concerns about the legitimacy of this act in terms of the political group structure of the avenger.

Before concluding, several issues deserve our attention. One important question is whether an ingroup favoritism hypothesis derived from social identity theory [START_REF] Tajfel | Human groups and social categories[END_REF] could also explain the observed dynamics. Indeed, it could be argued that participants perceive egalitarian groups as ingroups and hierarchical groups as outgroups, and therefore be motivated to prevent the ingroup from negative treatment such as collective punishment. Nevertheless, we think that the present fi ndings are better understood in terms of a higher moral value attributed to egalitarian groups for three reasons. First, although our participants are citizens of a democratic country, there is no indication that they have perceived themselves as members of adolescent summer camp groups, which is the most salient feature in the cover story. Second, this alternative explanation would require that participants identify more with egalitarian than with hierarchical groups. However, our previous work [START_REF] Falomir | Democracy justifi es the means: Political group structure moderates the perceived legitimacy of intergroup aggression[END_REF] has shown that: (a) identifi cation with both victim and offender groups was very low; (b) the greater identifi cation with egalitarian groups was inconsistent across victim and offender groups, as well as across studies; and (c) identifi cation did only weakly and inconsistently mediate the effect of group structure on perceived illegitimacy of the aggression. In other words, the effect of the political structure cannot merely be reduced to a greater identifi cation with egalitarian groups. Third, the alternative explanation also requires that participants overall feel closer to egalitarian groups than to hierarchical groups. Yet, even if egalitarianism is a valued ideal in our society, hierarchical group organizations are ubiquitous and socially valued in many instances, for example in family and work groups, school and army, or youth organizations. Accordingly, there is no reason to think that our participants necessarily feel they are members of egalitarian groups in which leaders are designated collectively and important decisions taken collectively. In sum, participants are presumably well aware of the fact that democratic societies are made up of both egalitarian and hierarchical groups. As a consequence, the higher social, ideological and moral value associated to egalitarian groups [START_REF] Beauvois | Les illusions libérales, individualisme et pouvoir social: Petit traité sur des grandes illusions[END_REF] seems to be a more appropriate explanation of the present findings than ingroup favoritism. However, given that categorization, ingroup identification and moral value attribution are intrinsically related processes, we readily admit that the present study cannot provide a conclusive answer to these concerns. Future research should therefore examine whether the observed fi ndings are consistent across participants identifying with egalitarian vs. hierarchical groups.

The issue of whether the present fi ndings are specifi c to collective punishment or refl ect more general processes of punishment also needs to be addressed. Indeed, the main dependent measures referred to the entire offender group, without differentiating perceived legitimacy of collective and perpetrator punishment. This is a limitation of the present study, although we did address the dilemma of assigning punishment to innocents as a supplementary prediction to the main hypothesis concerning the higher value of egalitarian groups. In future studies, additional measures that orthogonally assess the punishment of individuals vs. groups, or punishing guilty vs. innocent group members, should be included in order to gain a better understanding of the motivations underlying different modalities of punishment.

Another potential explanation for our fi ndings might be differential perceptions of shared responsibility. The results on this measure of responsibility, however, were not conclusive. The egalitarian offender group tended to be perceived as less responsible for the aggression than the hierarchical offender group, and perceived shared responsibility was positively related to perceived legitimacy of collective punishment. However, shared responsibility did not mediate the effect of political group structure on perceived legitimacy of collective punishment. One possible explanation is that opposing predictions can be made with respect to shared responsibility. On the one hand, the positively valued egalitarian offender group should be perceived as less responsible for a misdeed than the negatively valued hierarchical group, and the results showed a marginal effect in this direction. On the other hand, since members of egalitarian groups are seen as participating in group decision making, they may also be perceived as more responsible for actions performed in the name of the group [START_REF] Staerklé | Representation of human rights across different national contexts: The role of democratic and non-democratic populations and governments[END_REF].

The conflict between these two tendencies may have worked against the emergence of a clear role for shared responsibility in our study. Furthermore, it is also possible that the one-item measure used to assess shared responsibility was not reliable. Future research should reconsider the contribution of shared responsibility in the construction of legitimacy judgments of collective punishment.

Finally, still other processes could account for our fi ndings. It could be argued, for instance, that collective punishment against egalitarian groups was perceived as less legitimate in the observed conditions because of stereotypes associated with members of egalitarian (e.g. autonomous, independent) and hierarchical groups (e.g. submissive, dependent; see [START_REF] Staerklé | L'idéal démocratique perverti: Antagonismes dans les représentations du nonoccident[END_REF]. Political group structure may also shape perceptions of the way the group reacts to misdeeds perpetrated by some group members. The higher moral value attributed to egalitarian groups may for example lead perceivers to consider that egalitarian groups react more appropriately to offences by showing guilt, remorse and empathy toward victims. Future studies should examine whether factors such as stereotypes, perceived group entitativity [START_REF] Yzerbyt | The psychology of group perception: Perceived variability, entitativity, and essentialism[END_REF] and collective guilt [START_REF] Branscombe | A social psychological process perspective on collective guilt[END_REF] affect judgments of the legitimacy of collective punishment.

To sum up, the observed fi ndings extend those obtained by [START_REF] Falomir | Democracy justifi es the means: Political group structure moderates the perceived legitimacy of intergroup aggression[END_REF] on perceived legitimacy of intergroup aggression to the realm of compensatory and retributive justice [START_REF] Darley | The psychology of compensatory and retributive justice[END_REF][START_REF] Feather | Judgments of deservingness: Studies in the psychology of justice and deservingness[END_REF][START_REF] Vidmar | Retributive justice: Its social context[END_REF]. They provide further evidence for the basic assumption that the perceived value of groups, attributed namely as a function of their political structure, is a key factor in judgments of legitimacy of aggressive behavior carried out in the name of groups [START_REF] Staerklé | L'idéal démocratique perverti: Antagonismes dans les représentations du nonoccident[END_REF][START_REF] Staerklé | Representation of human rights across different national contexts: The role of democratic and non-democratic populations and governments[END_REF]. The perceived moral value of groups drives perceptions of legitimacy of both aggressive conduct and collective punishment, an observation consistent with the idea that outgroup stereotypes become symbolic devices justifying political projects [START_REF] Klein | When group representations serve social change: The speeches of Patrice Lumumba during the decolonization of Congo[END_REF][START_REF] Reicher | Self and nation[END_REF].

Social functions of collective punishment

Given the deliberately infl icted harmful treatment on innocents, collective punishment is a severe reaction to an offence which is in need of strong justifi cation. Two general motives for collective punishment can be identifi ed: the deterrence motive and the just deserts motive. The deterrence motive aims to prevent future wrongdoing. Because of the characteristics of the present research (e.g. the aggression was presented as an isolated and specifi cally motivated act and the possibility of future camps was not evoked), it seems diffi cult to understand the observed fi ndings as the consequence of such a motive. However, this motive deserves attention because collective punishment is not only a technique to dissuade individuals from violating group rules. It is also a technique fostering social control, as it implies the delegation of responsibility of preventing future wrongdoing at the level of the ingroup [START_REF] Heckathorn | Collective sanctions and compliance norms: A formal theory of groupmediated social control[END_REF]. Thereby, ingroup members are expected to keep their potentially deviant and aggressive ingroup members in check. It is therefore a powerful technique to restore or maintain order.

With respect to the just deserts motive, two views may be consistent with the common fi nding of the primacy of this motive in punishments [START_REF] Darley | The psychology of compensatory and retributive justice[END_REF]. On the one hand, the group should be punished because it is to some extent held accountable for the offence committed by one of its members. Here, all members of the offender group are punished, because they are considered guilty by association [START_REF] Doosje | Guilty by association: When one's group has a negative history[END_REF]. Indeed, the positive relationship between perceived coresponsibility and collective punishment suggests that a just deserts motive underlies support for collective punishment.

On the other hand, the interpretation in terms of a just deserts motive is also consistent with the symbolic function of punishments, destined to reassert the validity of violated values: innocents are punished because the group needs to pay for the wrongdoings of one of its members. Such a retributive motivation has been evidenced in contexts involving punishment of individual offenders [START_REF] Darley | Just punishments: Research on retributional justice[END_REF], for example concerning the legitimacy of severe punitive measures [START_REF] Tyler | Three strikes and you're out, but why?: The psychology of public support for punishing rule breakers[END_REF], racial bias in punitive attitudes [START_REF] Green | Symbolic racism and Whites' attitudes toward punitive and preventive crime policies[END_REF], or the tendency to punish ingroup offenders more severely than outgroup offenders [START_REF] Marques | Being better by being right: Subjective group dynamics and derogation of in-group deviants when generic norms are undermined[END_REF]. The observed fi ndings suggest that such a motivation may also underlie the desire to punish all members of the offender group, especially when perceived moral value of the group is low. Which are the values and rules violated in our experimental context ? First, the principle of non-violence and fair treatment that should be observed in any summer camp was violated by some members of the offender group. Second, hierarchical groups may be seen as violating the values of equality and participation. Hence, participants may have accepted to punish innocents in order to symbolically reassert the status of these two values. These various explanations suggest that justifi cation of collective punishment can be based on two major types of motivations. First, support for collective punishment may be initially motivated by the offence perpetrated by individual group members. In this case, the diffi culty of identifying them and the characteristics of the group justify the extension of the punishment to all the members, accepted as undesirable but necessary 'collateral damage' in order to do justice. Second, collective punishment may be motivated, or at least facilitated, by group attributes violating valued ideals such as equality, participation and democracy. In this case, the initial offence is a mere excuse to infl ict sanctions on the devalued group. This second interpretation would imply a deliberate willingness to punish members of the offender group, admittedly innocents. Egalitarian and democratic values become, paradoxically, the basic motive to punish innocents, provided that some triggering event such as the initial aggression is present. Future research is needed in order to clarify these motives.

Our fi ndings raise the question of whether wrongdoings committed by democratic groups are always more likely to be condoned than those committed by non-democratic groups. Our past [START_REF] Falomir | Democracy justifi es the means: Political group structure moderates the perceived legitimacy of intergroup aggression[END_REF] and present research suggests that egalitarian offences are more acceptable when the victim group is hierarchical. However, severity of the punishment may also increase when the offender violates important ingroup values [START_REF] Marques | Being better by being right: Subjective group dynamics and derogation of in-group deviants when generic norms are undermined[END_REF][START_REF] Vidmar | Retributive justice: Its social context[END_REF]. Hence, it could also be expected that the motivation to punish egalitarian rather than hierarchical rule breakers should be stronger.

This contradiction may also apply to an international level of analysis, even if democracy is a complex notion that cannot be reduced to the way it was operationalized in the present research. Military interventions by democratic against non-democratic nations may be better supported if they are carried out in the name of the value of democracy. At the same time, however, democratic countries are expected to resolve confl icts in a more peaceful way than are non-democratic countries (e.g. [START_REF] Doyle | Kant, liberal legacies, and foreign affairs[END_REF][START_REF] Healy | Terrorist and democrats: Individual reactions to international attacks[END_REF]. Therefore, democratic military solutions may be more strongly condemned since they violate the principle of peaceful solutions to confl ict. Future research is necessary to examine such paradoxes in more detail, because they are likely to be a key factor in understanding how intergroup dynamics shape attitudes toward individual and collective punishment.

Notes

1. This fi nding suggests that group perception is relative rather than absolute: given the aggression, group perception (both hierarchical and egalitarian) was polarized when the rival group was different rather than similar. This fi nding also illustrates an implicit association between egalitarian groups and peaceful solutions of confl ict, on the one hand, and hierarchical groups and aggressive solutions, on the other. Indeed, the offender group was perceived as more hierarchical than the victim group, and this effect was enhanced both when the offender group was described as hierarchical (i.e. more in line with aggressive solutions) and when the victim group was egalitarian (i.e. more in line with peaceful solutions). Despite these concerns, it is worth noting that this contrast effect is symmetric within independent factors (overall interactions were not signifi cant) and, therefore, it cannot account for the main interaction hypothesis. Furthermore, precautionary covariance analyses were performed and showed that these group perceptions did not affect the perceived legitimacy of collective punishment. Accordingly, these results have no impact on our understanding of the main fi ndings.

Table 1 .

 1 Means of perceived legitimacy of collective punishment against the offender group as a function of the political structure of offender and victim groups

			Offender group
		Egalitarian			Hierarchical
	Victim group:	Egalitarian	Hierarchical	Egalitarian	Hierarchical
	Reparation
	M	5.36 a	4.83 b	5.28 ab	5.56 a
	SD	1.19	1.46	1.32	1.02
	Expiation
	M	3.33 a	2.70 b	3.07 ab	3.12 ab
	SD	1.04	1.17	1.06	1.05
	Revenge
	M	2.44 ab	2.12 a	2.35 ab	2.54 b
	SD	0.93	0.98	0.96	1.10
	Overall score
	M	3.71 a	3.19 b	3.56 a	3.74 a
	SD	0.73	0.81	0.68	0.59

Notes: All scales ranged from 1 not at all to 7 totally. Higher means indicate higher perceived legitimacy of collective punishment. Means not sharing subscripts differ at least at p < .05. Number of cases per cell from left to right:

44, 45, 46, 47.

Table 2 .

 2 Means for attributed moral value and shared responsibility of members of the offender group as a function of the political structure of offender and victim groups

			Offender group
			Egalitarian		Hierarchical
	Victim group:	Egalitarian	Hierarchical	Egalitarian	Hierarchical
	Moral value
	M	3.51 a	4.14 b	3.49 a	3.17 a
	SD	0.81	0.89	0.93	0.84
	Shared responsibility
	M	5.22	5.20	5.28	5.77
	SD	1.30	1.45	1.16	0.92
	44, 45, 46, 47.

Notes: All scales ranged from 1 not at all to 7 totally. Higher means indicate higher moral value and shared responsibility. Means not sharing subscripts differ at least at p < .001. Number of cases per cell from left to right:

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the 'Avenir' program of the Rhône-Alpes regional council (France). This article was partly written while Christian Staerklé was a visiting fellow at UCLA funded by an advanced researcher fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Part of this work was presented at the EAESP small group meeting 'War and Peace' (Geneva, 2004).