University of Twente Student Theses

Waarom nemen daders deel aan bemiddeld contact? : de invloed van afkeuring van de sociale omgeving, bekendheid met het slachtoffer en binding met de sociale omgeving op de intentie tot deelname

Veldhuijsen, Gina van (2016) Waarom nemen daders deel aan bemiddeld contact? : de invloed van afkeuring van de sociale omgeving, bekendheid met het slachtoffer en binding met de sociale omgeving op de intentie tot deelname.

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Abstract:	Restorative Justice (RJ) has developed in the last decades and is being more implemented internationally. Victim-offender mediation is a form of RJ, and little is known about the motivations of offenders to participate in mediated contact with their victims. Current study investigated possible motives of offenders which affect their intention to participate in victim-offender mediation. The first hypothesis was that disapproval (versus understanding) of the social environment of the offender has a positive effect on their willingness to participate in mediated contact with the victim (hypothesis 1a). It was expected that this effect of disapproval applies even stronger for offenders with a stronger bond with their social environment (interaction-effect between disapproval and a strong bond with the social environment, hypothesis 1b). In addition, it was expected that if the victim is an acquaintance of the offender, this will lead to a higher intention to participate in victim-offender mediation, compared to when the victim is unknown to the offender (hypothesis 2). Finally, it was expected that the intention to participate in mediated contact would be extra strong when the social environment disapproves the offense and the victim is known to the offender (interaction-effect between response social environment and familiarity victim, hypothesis 3). Participants (158 Dutch civilians) were exposed to a scenario which was manipulated. The scenario sought the participants to empathize with offenders. An experimental 2 (familiarity victim: known vs. unknown) x 2 (response social environment: disapproval vs. comprehension) between subjects experimental design examined motivations that may play a role in the intention offenders to participate in mediated contact with the victim. According to the scenario that the participants were asked to read, they received money in their bank account by an incorrect transaction and they used this money for a weekend away. This action of the participant (offender) created problems for the sender (the victim). No support was found for the hypotheses. However, additional explorative analyses revealed that the intention to participate in mediated contact increases significantly when the offender is experiencing remorse and there is disapproval from the social environment. Furthermore, a surprising finding was that the intention to participate in mediated contact drops significantly when the expectation of rejection of the social environment is high and the victim is an acquaintance of the offender.
Item Type:	Essay (Master)
Faculty:	BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:	77 psychology
Programme:	Psychology MSc (66604)
Link to this item:	https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/70419
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