Terror management and pro-social values: Does mortality salience facilitate forgiving only in-group transgressors?

The main goal of the current research was to examine the existential motivations that underlie forgiveness and punishment in the intergroup context. The personal importance of self-transcendence and self-enhancement values and the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) were also investigated for their potential contributions to the moral judgment process. The results of 2 (Condition: Mortality Salience, Control) x 2 (Group Affiliation of the Transgressor: Out-Group, In-Group) MANCOVA and follow-up two ANCOVAs demonstrated a main effect of group affiliation of the transgressor. Participants were less forgiving towards and harsher in sentencing the in-group offender (M.H., a Turkish citizen) than the out-group offender (M. H., with a Syrian origin). Contrary to the expectations, mortality salience did not result in the heightened tolerance for the wrongful in-grouper. Higher scores on the self-enhancement values predicted lower levels of forgiveness. Additionally, penalty toughness was negatively predicted by the self-transcendence value, and positively by the self-enhancement value. The findings were discussed for their contributions to the related literature.