To Feel or Not to Feel When My Group Harms Others? The Regulation of Collective Guilt as Motivated Reasoning (original) (raw)
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Antecedents and Consequences of Group-Based Guilt: The Effects of Ingroup Identification
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 2006
Effects of ingroup identification on antecedents and consequences of group-based guilt were examined in two experiments. In the first study, ingroup identification was unrelated to guilt when the negative historical information was said to come from an outgroup source, but was positively related when the same information was said to come from an ingroup source. Among high identifiers it is difficult to dismiss negative information when the source is one's own ingroup. In the second study, people who are low in identification were more in favor of acknowledging the negative aspects of their group's history as a way of alleviating feelings of guilt. We discuss the implications of these results for coming to terms with the legacy of a negative ingroup past.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2006
The authors examined the relationships between 2 modes of national identification (attachment to the in-group and the in-group's glorification) and reactions to the in-group's moral violations among Israeli students. Data were collected during a period of relative calm in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as during a period of great intensification of this conflict. As expected, in Study 1, the 2 modes of identification had contrasting relationships with group-based guilt: Attachment was positively related whereas glorification was negatively related to group-based guilt for in-group's past infractions. Glorification suppressed the attachment effect but not vice versa. Both relationships were mediated by the use of exonerating cognitions. In Study 2, group-based guilt for the in-group's current wrongdoings was increased by priming critical rather than conventional attachment to the in-group, suggesting a causal effect of mode of identification on the experience of negative group-based emotions.
Current Psychology, 2020
Collective guilt is a group-based emotion that extends from recognizing the ingroup has harmed others, and it is known to be predicted by factors related to the ingroup (e.g., ingroup identification, glorification) and by specific details of the event (e.g., temporal distance, ongoing victimization). The current research tested if differences in ingroup members' broader ability to handle inconsistent information also contribute to their experience of collective guilt. In three studies, trait variation in tolerance for contradiction positively predicted collective guilt. Because the relationship could not be explained by specific ingroup perceptions, it may be that tolerance for contradiction enables ingroup members to endure the aversive emotional experience of guilt instead of responding defensively. All three studies also provided evidence that the level of overlap ingroup members perceive between the historical perpetrators and the current ingroup represents a defensive reaction to ingroup wrongdoing that contributes to reduced collective guilt, and this reaction is separate from trait-level perceptions of continuity between past and present ingroup members. Perceived overlap between historical perpetrators and the current ingroup may be a valuable measure of defensive responding in future research on collective guilt.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Intergroup conflicts have detrimental effects on individuals, collectives, and the international community more broadly. During such conflicts, in-group members of each adversarial group behave destructively against members of the rival out-group, sometimes in ways that would be considered by the in-group as violations of accepted moral values and norms (Halperin, 2016). When this occurs, some members of the groups immersed in conflict may experience moral emotions like group-based guilt and shame (Branscombe
Identification with a wrongful subgroup and the feeling of collective guilt
Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 2011
The present study examined the relationship between group identification and the feeling of collective guilt. This study argued that identification with a subgroup of one's ingroup (subgroup identification) would predict the feeling of collective guilt better than identification with the whole ingroup (whole-group identification). To manipulate the level of subgroup identification, we instructed participants to imagine the presence of a close friend (vs a friend of one's close friend) in a fictitious subgroup. In Experiment 1, we predicted and found that high subgroup identifiers experienced less collective guilt compared to low subgroup identifiers, regardless of their degree of whole-group identification. In contrast, the results from Experiment 2 indicated that when the presence of the third party was made salient, high subgroup identifiers experienced more collective guilt in comparison to low subgroup identifiers. The importance of interpersonal connections for collective responsibility and the facilitating role of the third party for reconciliation of the intergroup conflicts are discussed.
This study focuses on whether or not participants' group categorization would impact the standards they used to judge future harm to an outgroup. In this case, harm is referring to current paper waste in university computer labs and the financial and stressrelated consequences this carries for future students. Also of interest is whether or not the participants' judgements of harm would impact collective guilt (the guilt felt on behalf of the ingroup) and if collective guilt would impact willingness to help the outgroup (i.e. engage in conservation of resources-proenvironmental actions). Participants in the inclusive condition (who saw themselves as part of a group including future students) were expected to set lower standards of harm (require less evidence to believe harm had been done), judge more harm had been done, feel more collective guilt, and be more willing to engage in proenvironmental actions, as compared to participants in the exclusive condition (current students only). The manipulation alone was not sufficient to impact the predicted variables; however, the interaction of the group categorization manipulation and level of group identification did differentially impact collective guilt and willingness to engage in proenvironmental actions in an unexpected way. Participants who were highly identified with their group and were in the exclusive condition felt more collective guilt and were more willing to engage in proenvironmental actions than participants who were less identified with their group. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of changing proenvironmental behavior.
Collective Guilt and Collective Guilt Feelings
Oxford University Press eBooks, 2013
Can collectives feel guilt with respect to what they have done? It has been claimed that they cannot. Yet in everyday discourse collectives are often held to feel guilt, criticized because they do not, and so on. Among other things, this paper considers what such so-called collective guilt feelings amount to. If collective guilt feelings are sometimes appropriate, it must be the case that collectives can indeed be guilty. The paper begins with an account of what it is for a collective to intend to do something and to act in light of that intention. According to this account, and in senses that are explained, there is a collective that intends to do something if and only if the members of a given population are jointly committed to intend as a body to do that thing. A related account of collective belief is also presented. It is then argued that, depending on the circumstances, a group's action can be free as opposed to coerced, and that the idea that a collective as such can be guilty of performing a wrongful act makes sense. The idea that a group might feel guilt may be rejected because it is assumed that to feel guilt is to experience a "pang" or "twinge" of guilt-nothing more and nothing less. Presumably, though, there must be cognitions and perhaps behavior involved. In addition, the primacy, even the necessity, of "feeling-sensations" to feeling guilt in the individual case has been questioned. Without the presumption that it is already clear what feeling guilt amounts to, three proposals as to the nature of collective guilt feelings are considered. A "feeling of personal guilt" is defined as a feeling of guilt over one's own action. It is argued that it is implausible to construe collective guilt feelings in terms of members' feelings of personal guilt. "Membership guilt feelings" involve a group member's feeling of guilt over what his or her group has done. It is argued that such feelings are intelligible if the member is party to the joint commitment that lies at the base of the relevant collective intention and action. However, an account of collective guilt in terms of membership guilt feelings is found wanting. Finally, a "plural subject" account of collective guilt feelings is articulated, such that they involve a joint commitment to feel guilt as a body. The parties to a joint commitment of the kind in question may as a result find themselves experiencing "pangs" of the kind associated with personal and membership guilt feelings. Since these pangs, by hypothesis, arise as a result of the joint commitment to feel guilt as a body, they might be thought of as providing a kind of phenomenology for collective guilt. Be that as it may, it is argued the plural subject account has much to be said for it.
Predictors of collective guilt after the violent conflict
Collegium antropologicum, 2013
After a violent conflict many post-conflict communities remain ethnically divided and normalization of the inter-group relations is hindered not only by in-group norms and interpretation of past events, but also by collective guilt. Although collective guilt has proved to be an important indicator of post-conflict social repair, more research is needed to define its predictors. This study, conducted in an ethnically divided community, confirmed that collective guilt acceptance and collective guilt assignment in our sample are typical for the post-conflict pattern of intergroup relations--people readily assign guilt to the outgroup but are unwilling to accept the guilt of their in-group. This suggests that the process of community social reconstruction has not considerably progressed. Our findings also suggest that the two aspects of collective guilt--assignment and acceptance--are predicted by similar sets of variables. Both collective guilt assignment and collective guilt acceptanc...