Abstract
It has been suggested that unconditional respect for persons, i.e. respect that is due to everyone simply as a function of their being persons, is the most fundamental kind of respect. Showing unconditional respect towards someone involves recognizing their integrity as a person and their status as an autonomous rational actor. This idea is a cornerstone of much moral, social and political theory. While the idea implicitly underlies some contemporary psychological work on respect, for the most part this fundamental moral orientation has been neglected in psychology. The concept needs clear explication and measurement if its explanatory and predictive value is to be fully realised. This paper will explore the concept of unconditional respect, describe a scale for measuring individual differences in this attitude, and then go on to position unconditional respect, both conceptually and empirically, amongst other relevant social psychological constructs such as Social Dominance Orientation, Right-Wing Authoritarianism, Empathy and Perspective-taking. We then provide some evidence on, as well as speculation about, the role of unconditional respect in interpersonal and intergroup relations.
Zusammenfassung
Bedingungsloser Respekt für Personen: Eine sozialpsychologische Analyse
Es wurde vorgeschlagen, bedingungslosen Respekt für Personen, also Respekt, der gezollt wird, einfach weil der/die Andere ein Mensch ist, als die fundamentalste Form des Respekts zu sehen. Jemanden bedingungslos zu respektieren beinhaltet Andere in ihrer Integrität als Personen und in ihrer Autonomie as rationale Akteure zu anzuerkennen. Diese Grundidee stellt das Kernelement unzähliger moralischer, sozialer und politischer Theorien dar. Während diese Idee implizit auch einigen derzeitigen psychologischen Arbeiten zu Respekt zugrunde liegt, so wird generell in der Psychologie diese Art des moralischen Respekts eher ausgespart. Das Konzept braucht jedoch klare Explikation und Messbarkeit, wenn seine erklärende und vorhersagende Funktion voll ausgeschöpft werden soll. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird daher das Konzept des bedingungslosen Respekts exploriert, eine Skale zur Messung individueller Differenzen in dieser Einstellung beschrieben, sowie eine konzeptionelle wie auch empirische Positionsbestimmung vorgenommen, in der das Konzept im Verhältnis zu anderen relevanten sozialpsychologischen Konzepten, wie etwa Neigung zur Sozialen Dominanz, rechtextreme Autoritätsneigung, Empathie und Perspektivübernahme, diskutiert wird. Im Anschluss zeigen und spekulieren wir über die Rolle von unkonditionalen Respekt in interpersonalen und Intergruppen-Beziehungen.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The authoritarian personality. New York: Harper.
Altemeyer, B. (1981). Right-wing authoritarianism. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.
Bar-Tal, D. (1990). Causes and consequences of delegitimization: Models of conflict and ethnocentrism. Journal of Social Issues, 46(1), 65–81.
Batson, C. D., Chang, J., Orr, R., & Rowland, J. (2002). Empathy, attitudes, and action: Can feeling for a member of a stigmatized group motivate one to help the group? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1656–1666.
Batson, C. D., & Moran, T. (1999). Empathy-induced altruism in a Prisoner’s Dilemma. European Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 909–924.
Batson, C. D., Polycarpou, M. P., Harmon-Jones, E., Imhoff, H. J., Mitchener, E. C., Bednar, L. L., Klein, T. R., & Highberger, L. (1997). Empathy and attitudes: Can feeling for a member of a stigmatized group improve feelings toward the group? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 105–118.
Ben-Ze’ev, A. (2000). The subtlety of emotions. Cambridge, MA, US: The MIT Press.
Branscombe, N., Spears, R, Ellemers, N. & Doosje, B. (2002). Intragroup and intergroup evaluation effects on group behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 744–753.
Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press.
Chopra, S. (2006). The role of unconditional respect for persons and emotion in moral judgment. MSc Thesis, University of Oxford.
Costa, P. T. & McCrae, R.R. (1992). NEO-PI-R: Professional manual. Odessa, Fl: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 113–126.
De Cremer, D. (2002). Respect and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas: The importance of feeling included. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1335–1341.
Dillon, R. S. (2003). Respect. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Duriez, B., & Hiel, A. V. (2002). The march of modern facscism: A comparison of social dominance orientation and authoritarianism. Personality and Individual Differences, 32, 1199–1213.
Dworkin, R. (1983). In defense of equality. Social Philosophy and Policy, 1, 24–40.
Dworkin, R. (1987). What is equality? Part 3: The place of liberty. Iowa Law Review, 73, 1–54.
Ekehammer, B., & Akrami, N. (2003). The relation between personality and prejudice: A variable-versus a person-centred approach. European Journal of Personality, 17, 449–464.
Ellemers, N., Doosje, B., & Spears, R. (2004). Sources of respect: The effects of being liked by ingroups and outgroups. European Journal of Social Psychology, 34(2), 155–172.
Galinsky, A. D., Ku, G., & Wang, C. S. (2005). Perspective-taking and self-other overlap: Fostering social bonds and facilitating social coordination. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 8, 109–124.
Galinsky, A. D., & Moskowitz, G. B. (2000). Perspective-taking: Decreasing stereotype expression, stereotype accessibility, and in-group favoritism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(4), 708–724.
Glover, J. (2002). Dignity and violence. Frederic William Atherton Lecture, Harvard.
Graziano, W. G., & Eisenberg, N. H. (1997). Agreeableness: A dimension of personality. In R. Hogan, J. A. Johnson, & S. R. Briggs (Eds.), Handbook of personality psychology (pp. 795–824). SanDiego, CA. Academic.
Gutman, A., & Thompson, D. (1996). Democracy and disagreement. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.
Haslam, N. (2006). Dehumanisation: An integrative review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 252–264.
Haslam S.A., McGarty, C. & Turner, J.C. (1996). Salient group memberships and persuasion: The role of social identity in the validation of beliefs. In J. L. Nye and A. M. Brewer, (Eds.) What’s social about social cognition? London: Sage.
Honneth, A. (1995). The struggle for recognition: The moral grammar of social conflicts. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hu, L. & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indices in covariance structure analysis: Conventional versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6, 1–55.
John, O. P. (1990). The “Big Five” Factor Taxonomy: Dimensions of personality in the natural language and in questionnaires. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.) Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 66–100). New York: Guilford.
John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The big five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John(Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 102–138). New York: Guilford.
Jost, J. T. (2006). The end of the end of ideology. American Psychologist, 61, 651–670.
Kant, I. (1785/1997). Grundlegung zu Metaphysik der Sitten, translated as Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, I. (1797/1996). Metaphysik der Sitten, translated as Metaphysics of morals, by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kymlicka, W. (2002). Contemporary political philosophy (2nd Edition). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Laham, S. M., Hewstone, M., & Lalljee, M. (2007). Unconditional respect in an intergroup context. Unpublished manuscript.
Lalljee, M., Tam, T., Hewstone, M., & Lee, J. (2007). Unconditional respect for persons and its relationship with intergroup attitudes and action tendencies. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Mackie, D.M., Worth, L.T. & Ascuncion, A.G. (1990). Processing of persuasive in-group messages. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 812–822.
Mead, G.H. (1934). Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Meyers, L. (2006). Worrying for a living? Monitor on Psychology, 37, 74–75.
Monteith, M. J., & Walters, G. L. (1998). Egalitarianism, moral obligation and prejudice-related personal standards. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 186–199.
Opotow, S. (1990). Moral exclusion and injustice: An introduction. Journal of Social Issues 46(1), 1–20.
Pervin, L A., Cervone, D. & John, O. P. (2005). Personality theory and research. New Jersey: John Wiley.
Piaget, J. (1932). The Moral Judgement of the Child. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Pratto, F. (1999). The puzzle of continuing group inequality: Piecing together psychological, social and cultural forces in social dominance theory. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, (Vol. 31, pp. 191–263). San Diego: Academic Press.
Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., Stallworth, L. M., & Malle, B. F. (1994). Social Dominance Orientation: A personality variable predicting social and political attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 741–763.
Roseman, I. J. (2001). A model of appraisal in the emotion system: Integrating theory, research, and applications. In K. R. Scherer, A., Schorr, & T. Johnstone, Tom (Eds), Appraisal processes in emotion: Theory, methods, research. (pp. 68–91). New York, NY, US: Oxford University Press.
Saucier, G. & Goldberg, L. R. (1998). What is beyond the Big Five? Journal of Personality, 66, 495–524.
Schwartz, S. H., & Bilsky, W. (1987). Toward a universal psychological structure of human values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 550–562.
Schwartz, S. H., & Bilsky, W. (1990). Toward a theory of the universal content and structure of values: Extensions and cross-cultural replications. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 878–891.
Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press.
Simon, B. & Stürmer, S. (2003). Respect for group members: Intragroup determinants of collective identification and group-serving behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 183–193.
Smith, H. J., & Tyler, T. R. (1997). Choosing the right pond: The impact of group membership on self-esteem and group-oriented behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33(2), 146–170.
Staub, E. (1989). The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence. New York, NY, US, Cambridge University Press.
Tam, T., Hewstone, M., Kenworthy, J., Voci, A., & Cairns, E., (2006). Positive emotions in intergroup conflict? The mediational role of intergroup emotions and empathy in contact between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Unpublished Manuscript.
Tyler, T. R. & Smith, H. J. (1999). Justice, social identity, and group processes. In T.R. Tyler, R.M. Kramer, & O.P. John (Eds.), The psychology of the social self (pp 223–264). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
White, S. (1991). ’Dignity, Self-Ownership and the Redistributive State’. M.Phil. thesis, Oxford University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Dr. Mansur Lalljee is a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College Oxford. He moved from India to Oxford to study psychology and continued there as a member of the faculty. Besides his main focus on respect, his other research interests include attitudes, explanations, communication and cultural and political psychology.
Dr. Simon Laham completed his undergraduate work and doctorate at the University of New South Wales, before moving to a post-doctoral position at Oxford University to work on respect. He is now a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Melbourne. His main current interests include cultural and political psychology.
Dr. Tania Tam is a social statistician at the Legal Services Research Centre, London. She has degrees in German and in Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley and a doctorate from the University of Oxford. Her research interests have focussed on intergroup conflict, including issues of respect, forgiveness and trust; and on the effects of communication between grandparents and grandchildren on ageism.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lalljee, M., Laham, S.M. & Tam, T. Unconditional respect for persons: A social psychological analysis. Gruppendynamik 38, 451–464 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11612-007-0037-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11612-007-0037-0
Keywords
- unconditional respect
- Social Dominance Orientation
- Right-wing Authoritarianism
- empathy
- perspective-taking
- action tendencies