Taking up offenses: secondhand forgiveness and group identification (original) (raw)
Related papers
The impact of a victim-focused apology on forgiveness in an intergroup context
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 2015
Although it is well-established that interpersonal apologies promote forgiveness, the apology–forgiveness link at the intergroup level is more tenuous. A possible reason for this tenuous relationship is that many intergroup apologies focus on the offender group’s feelings about the transgression as opposed to the victimized group’s suffering. In this spirit, we manipulated focus of a collective apology in two experiments. Consistent with predictions, a victim-focused apology (relative to offender-focused apology) heightened perceptions of offender group remorse, perceived empathy of the offender group, and trust in the offender. In turn, perceptions of remorse, empathy, and trust uniquely increased intergroup forgiveness. Results have implications for facilitating restorative effects between groups in situations of social injustice.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2012
The present research identified why and under what conditions perpetrator groups expect forgiveness from victims when focused on common humanity. In Experiment 1 (N ¼ 41), thinking about victims as fellow humans increased expectations of forgiveness among perpetrator group members. Experiment 2 (N ¼ 74) revealed the important role of subjective temporal distance in qualifying the effect of appealing to common humanity. Forgiveness expectations increased when a transgression was perceived as temporally distant rather than close. Experiment 3 (N ¼ 70) found that expecting forgiveness was associated negatively with remorse for wrongdoing and revealed reduced empathy for victims as a mediator of the effect. Taken together, the findings reveal that factors shown to encourage forgiveness among victims can also create corresponding expectations among perpetrators. Unfortunately, this process is more likely to damage than repair intergroup relations.
There is mixed evidence on the role of national identification in intergroup forgiveness after historical crimes. We propose that this is due to the dual character of national identification, which consists of a general sense of belonging (shared with supranational identifications) and a more specific sense of distinctiveness. Study 1, performed on a Polish student sample (N = 314), showed that national identification decreases the level of intergroup forgiveness, when its shared variance with supranational identifications is partialled out. On the contrary , broader identifications (with all humanity, with the European Union) have clearly positive effects on inter-group forgiveness. Study 2 replicated these findings in a larger nationwide Polish sample (N = 1006) in the context of two groups of historical perpetrators (Germans, Russians) and explored the impact of supranational identifications on forgiveness to the groups who are not members of such shared categories (e.g. Russians not belonging to the category " European Union "). Both studies support the view that broad, supranational identifications – including both victims and perpetrators – are important individual difference antecedents of reconciliation and intergroup forgiveness.
Predictors of Intergroup Forgiveness
The present study examines the effects of contact and common-ingroup identification on intergroup forgiveness and outgroup behavioral tendencies. A sample of Bosnian Muslims (N = 180) were asked to report their readiness to forgive the misdeeds committed by Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A path analysis of the presumed antecedents and consequences of forgiveness revealed that frequent and good quality contact with members from the perpetrator group predicted forgiveness (positively) and desire for social distance (negatively). Moreover, the positive relationship between contact and forgiveness was mediated by empathy and trust towards the outgroup and by perceived outgroup heterogeneity. Common-ingroup identification was also found to be positively associated with forgiveness and negatively with social distance towards the outgroup. Finally, intergroup forgiveness also predicted social distance from the outgroup. The theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed.
In the current study, we investigate factors that facilitate or otherwise obstruct reparations of a perpetrating group (i.e. Muslims) to a victim group (i.e. Christians). The study (N = 200) reveals that among Muslim participants, the role of dual Abrahamic categorization in positively predicting reparation attitude towards Christians was mediated by the first group's prosocial emotions of empathy and collective guilt towards the latter group. In addition, relative Muslim prototypicality negatively predicted dual Abrahamic categorization and each of the two prosocial emotions. Empathy and collective guilt in turn mediated the role of relative ingroup prototypicality in negatively predicting reparation attitude. Moreover, as hypothesized, we found that the roles of empathy and collective guilt in predicting reparation intention, as manifested in participants' willingness to engage in collective action on behalf of the victim group, were not significant on their own, but were mediated by reparation attitude. These findings shed light on the importance of the relationship between the perpetrating group's shared identity with the victim group, reduced ingroup focus and its support for making reparations to the victim group. Theoretical implications, study limitations and practical strategies highlighting how to decrease relative Muslim prototypicality are discussed.
Emotional responses to intergroup apology mediate intergroup forgiveness and retribution
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2011
According to intergroup emotion theory, the impact of many intergroup events on intergroup outcomes is mediated by group-directed emotions. We demonstrate that the ability of apology to reduce retribution against and increase forgiveness of a transgressing outgroup is contributed to by discrete intergroup emotions. We examined both negative (anger and fear) and positive (respect and satisfaction) emotions directed toward the transgressing outgroup. Apology reduced the desire for retribution whereas lack of apology increased it, and outgroup-directed anger uniquely mediated this effect. In contrast, apology increased and lack of apology decreased forgiveness, particularly when the ingroup responded to the transgression, and only outgroup-directed respect mediated this effect. These results provide the first evidence that intergroup emotions can mediate the impact of apology on intergroup relations outcomes.
Forgiving Significant Interpersonal Offenses: The Role of Victim/Offender Racial Similarity
Psychology, 2011
The influence of victim/offender racial similarity on victim forgiveness was investigated in a study of interpersonal transgressions. It was hypothesized that racial similarity between victim and offender would influence forgiveness only for transgressions that were less distressing for the victim. Participants were 104 adults (45 Black and 59 White) who provided a narrative description of a significant interpersonal transgression they had experienced and completed measures of transgression-related distress and forgiveness. Forgiveness was measured as positive (benevolence) and negative (revenge, avoidance) motivations toward the offender. For negative motivetions, revenge and avoidance, there was no effect of racial similarity: more severe distress was associated with less forgiveness for all victim/offender pairings. However, the results revealed a significant interaction of victim/offender racial similarity and distress for positive motivations: Black victims reported increased benevolence towards Black offenders after more distressing transgressions. Victims in other racial combinations reported reduced benevolence for more distressing transgressions. In group favoring of Black offenders by Black victims may be an unexplored aspect of forgiveness. Little research has addressed the potential influence of context on interpersonal forgiveness, and this study suggests that these influences may play an important role.
Usually, national identification is negatively related to intergroup forgiveness, but several studies found no relation between these variables. In order to examine this inconsistency, we conducted a study on a nationwide sample of Polish adults (N = 1006). We analyzed two ways in which national identification is connected to reconciliation: a general sense of belonging and openness to others (shared with supranational identifications, e.g., human) positively predicting intergroup forgiveness, and the more specific sense of ingroup distinctiveness and superiority (shared with collective narcissism and other defensive forms of identification), negatively predicting willingness to forgive. The results confirmed the dual character of national identification in relation to intergroup forgiveness and showed that collective narcissism and human identification are parallel suppressors of the relationship between national identification and intergroup forgiveness. Blind patriotism played only a minor role in this relationship, and constructive patriotism was unrelated to intergroup forgiveness.