USF St. Petersburg campus Honors Program Theses (Undergraduate)
First Advisor
Mark Pezzo, Ph.D. Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Second Advisor
Eric Odgaard, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, College of Arts and Sciences
Third Advisor
Thomas Smith, Ph.D. Director, Honors Program
Publisher
University of South Florida St. Petersburg
Document Type
Thesis
Date Available
April 2012
Publication Date
2006
Date Issued
September 2006
Abstract
Scarce literature regarding the mechanisms of offense-taking exists. However, a broad survey of literature in social psychology points to several possible mechanisms such as: breaking cultural norms, sensemaking and the correspondence bias (Gilbert, 2000), intent, and individual differences. In this paper two individual differences are examined: need for cognition and narcissism. A survey presenting four scenarios, two generally offensive situations and two personal affronts, showed that those high in need for cognition were less likely to make a negative character judgment about the "offender" in several scenarios, while there was no distinguishable difference between those high or low in narcissism.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
McDougal, Sarah J., "Taking Offense and Individual Differences: Who We Are Determines What Offends Us" (2006). USF St. Petersburg campus Honors Program Theses (Undergraduate).
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/honorstheses/50
Comments
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the University Honors Program, University of South Florida St. Petersburg.