In: Handbook of Social Justice ISBN 978-1-60741-713-2 Editors: Augustus Kakanowski and Marijus Narusevich © Nova Science Publishers, Inc. Chapter 10 A STUDY INTO “SENSELESS” VIOLENCE: PRESERVING SACRED V ALUES AND MORAL CONVICTIONS Hein F. M. Lodewijkx ∗ and Mariska Dijke School of Psychology, The Netherlands Open University, Breda, The Netherlands ABSTRACT We applied Tetlock et al.’s (2000) Sacred Value Protection Model (SVPM) and Skitka et al.’s (2005) moral conviction approach to the issue of “senseless” violence in The Netherlands. Participants read a bogus newspaper article in which a victim was stabbed to death and in which different transgressions of sacred values were manipulated. Consistent with hypotheses, we found that pooled strong / ambiguous vs. weak transgression conditions increased people’s senselessness perceptions and their moral outrage and cleansing responses towards the incident. The findings offer fruitful insights into the processes that lead people to label violent events as involving senseless acts of aggression, including their moral reactions to such incidents. Keywords: Moral responses; moral convictions, sacred values; senseless violence INTRODUCTION “Senseless” violence can be defined as an expressive form of aggression that is characterized by its incidental nature and by the instantaneous, situational determined, erratic way in which the victims are chosen by the offenders (Lodewijkx, Wildschut, Nijstad, Savenije, & Smit, 2001; Van den Brink, 2001). Theorizing and research into this field is slowly progressing, but is still scarce. Recent developments indicate that terror management ∗ Correspondence: Hein Lodewijkx, School of Psychology, The Netherlands Open University, Stationsweg 3A, 4811 AX, Breda, The Netherlands.Phone: 31.76.5711608. Fax: 31.76.5715424. E-mail: Hein.Lodewijkx@ou.nl (work) or lodex@ziggo.nl (home).