Finally, a third possible mechanism builds on the assumption
that revenge aims at delivering a message to the original offender (and no-one else). From that perspective, the uninvolved third-party
target is merely a messenger, and the ultimate goal of displaced revenge
is to deliver a message to the original offender through this messenger.
In highly entitative groups in which group members are likely to interact and communicate more frequently with each other, transmitting the
message (“don't mess with me”) to the original offender is more likely
than in low entitative groups in which group members do not interact
much (see Gollwitzer & Sjöström, in press). Based on the present data,
we cannot say which of these explanations can sufficiently explain the
results we obtained in our studies. Therefore, it is left to future research
to illuminate the driving forces and the psychological dynamics underlying displaced revenge