Article
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract

Two studies examined the effects of social identity concerns on the moral justification of torture. British and American nationals read a media report concerning the torture of a terrorist suspect that they were led to believe had been perpetrated either by members of their own nation's security services or by another nation's security services. When the torture was perpetrated by the ingroup, participants described it as more morally justified than when the torture was perpetrated by the other nation's security services. This effect was mediated by participants’ decreased empathy for the ingroup's torture victim (Study 1), as well as increased victim blame and perceiving the perpetrators as prototypical of their national group (Study 2). We consider how social identity concerns enable moral justification of harm doing.

No full-text available

Request Full-text Paper PDF

To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.

... In-group bias/partisan bias (e.g., Tarrant et al., 2012) Seeing one's own group in a more favorable light than other groups (e.g., morally superior, less responsible for harm) Ultimate attribution error (e.g., Hewstone, 1990) External (vs. internal) attribution for negative (vs. positive) behaviors of in-group members; reverse pattern for out-group members Linguistic intergroup bias (e.g., Maass et al., 1989) Using more abstract (vs. ...
... "Subtyping," for instance, allows for holding on to a belief by categorizing belief-inconsistent information into an extra category (e.g., "exceptions"; for an overview, see Richards & Hewstone, 2001). Likewise, the application of differential evaluation criteria to belief-consistent and belief-inconsistent information systematically fosters "belief perseverance" (e.g., Sanbonmatsu et al., 1998;Trope & Liberman, 1996; see also Koval et al., 2012;Noor et al., 2019;Tarrant et al., 2012). Partly, people hold even stronger beliefs after facing disconfirming evidence ("belief-disconfirmation effect"; Bateson, 1975; see also "cognitive dissonance theory"; Festinger, 1957;Festinger et al., 1955Festinger et al., /2011 All of the phenomena mentioned above are expressions of the principle of belief-consistent information processing (see also Klayman, 1995). ...
... This notion of biased information processing is utterly absent from the Bayesian world (see also next section). Take, for instance, the finding that the same behavior (e.g., torture) is evaluated differently depending on whether the actor is a member of one's own group or of another group (e.g., Noor et al., 2019;Tarrant et al., 2012). Or likewise, take the differential evaluation of the same scientific method depending on whether its result is consistent or inconsistent with one's prior belief (e.g., Lord et al., 1979). ...
Article
Full-text available
One of the essential insights from psychological research is that people's information processing is often biased. By now, a number of different biases have been identified and empirically demonstrated. Unfortunately, however, these biases have often been examined in separate lines of research, thereby precluding the recognition of shared principles. Here we argue that several-so far mostly unrelated-biases (e.g., bias blind spot, hostile media bias, egocentric/ethnocentric bias, outcome bias) can be traced back to the combination of a fundamental prior belief and humans' tendency toward belief-consistent information processing. What varies between different biases is essentially the specific belief that guides information processing. More importantly, we propose that different biases even share the same underlying belief and differ only in the specific outcome of information processing that is assessed (i.e., the dependent variable), thus tapping into different manifestations of the same latent information processing. In other words, we propose for discussion a model that suffices to explain several different biases. We thereby suggest a more parsimonious approach compared with current theoretical explanations of these biases. We also generate novel hypotheses that follow directly from the integrative nature of our perspective.
... For example, sacrificing outgroup members was seen as more morally acceptable than sacrificing ingroup members (Watkins & Laham, 2019; see also Watkins & Goodwin, 2020). People also justified torture as moral when it was perpetrated by ingroup members, compared to outgroup members (Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). Also, in the context of intense intergroup competition, people engaging in deceit out of loyalty to their group were perceived as more ethical than people who were honest but not loyal to the group (Hildreth & Anderson, 2018). ...
... Insofar as group identity biases social cognition, the stronger individual's identification with the group, the stronger bias we should observe in his or her moral judgments. Yet, most past research which directly examined perceptions of ingroup versus outgroup morality either did not examine (e.g., Tarrant et al., 2012;Watkins & Laham, 2018) or did not detect (e.g., Abrams et al., 2013) a moderating role of ingroup identification in judgements of (im)moral acts of ingroup and outgroup members. ...
... In this research, we sought to contribute to the scarce literature on intergroup processes involved in moral cognition (Ellemers et al., 2019 (Baron et al., 2013;Bialobrzeska et al., 2015) or actions taken in the context of overt conflict (Tarrant et al., 2012;Watkins & Laham, 2018), ...
Article
Full-text available
In this article, we examine how group identity and protection of group interests shape morality judgments. We argue that actions serving ingroup interests are more likely to be judged as moral (or less immoral) than the same actions that do not serve ingroup interests. However, this group-interest bias should be especially strong among those high in collective narcissism—a defensive belief in ingroup greatness that is not appreciated by others. In Studies 1 (N = 185, Polish and British participants) and 2 (N = 404, British participants), participants judged actions favouring interests of outgroup members as less moral than similar actions favouring interests of their ingroup. However, this effect was only present for those high in national collective narcissism. In Study 3 (N = 400, American participants), moral judgements of the US Senate’s decision about Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination depended on partisanship, but this effect was strengthened by partisan collective narcissism. Finally, in Study 4 (N = 711, American participants), the association between national collective narcissism and morality judgments of President Trump’s decision to remain an ally of Saudi Arabia was especially strong when national interest was salient (vs. not). None of the studies observed similar moderating effects of conventional ingroup identification. Overall, these results suggest that ingroup interests shape moral judgments, but this bias is most prevalent among those who are defensive about their group identity.
... Recent experimental research in social psychology has addressed the relevance of historical victimization and issues of social identity in attribution of blame and moral obligation (Branscombe, Warner, Klar, & Fernández, 2015;Warner & Branscombe, 2011, 2012, research which has clear salience when examining Arab-Jewish relations in Israel. In particular, work by Tarrant and colleagues has shown that social identity concerns enable moral justification of perpetration by an in-group member through processes of decreased empathy for the victim and increased victim blaming (Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). In addition, a historical perspective, places prosocial obligations on a group who has experienced prior collective victimization (which could be considered relevant for both Jews and Arabs) as a consequence of attribution of benefit finding and sense-making (Warner & Branscombe, 2011, 2012. ...
... Social psychology emphasizes the importance of social judgment for understanding how social category information, especially race, interacts with observer information to influence judgment (Quillian, 1995;Riek et al., 2006;Tajfel, 1982). Findings support previous experimental research suggesting that social identity concerns impact on attribution of blame towards out-group members (Tarrant et al., 2012;Warner & Branscombe, 2011). Our findings are also consistent with studies in diverse geopolitical contexts, as the Northern Ireland conflict and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Niwa et al., 2016;Schori-Eyal, Klar, & Ben-Ami, 2017;Schori-Eyal, Klar, Roccas, & McNeill, 2017), suggesting that intergroup conflict may affect judgment of in-group/out-group perceptions on judgments of victims and perpetrators. ...
... More specifically, it was only in the case of a Jewish (in-group) victim, that a significant relationship was found between threat perception and punishment severity. Results extend previous literature that has not yet examined the effect of both the observer ethnicity and the victim ethnicity on negative aspects of appraisal (Chiricos et al., 2004;Pickett, 2016;Saucier et al., 2006Saucier et al., , 2010Tarrant et al., 2012;Warner & Branscombe, 2011). Results reinforce previous studies (Cohen-Raz et al., 1997;Halabi et al., 2015) suggesting that punitive attitudes depend on the similarity between the victim and the observer who is judging the out-group perpetrator behavior. ...
Article
In cases of inter-group crime, research has shown that attitudes of majority population members toward a supposed defendant are influenced by his or her ethnicity, and, moreover, that levels of perceived (group) threat toward out-group defendants can impact on levels of punishment severity which members of the majority population believe they should receive. However, little research has focused on the ethnicity of the victim and/or on blaming attribution. Based on the theory of Defensive Attribution and Integrative Threat Theory, the purpose of the current study was to extend current understandings to examine a conceptual model in which 1) victim ethnicity moderates and 2) blaming attribution mediates the relationship between ethnic threat perceptions and the support for harsh punitive sanctions toward an out-group perpetrator involved in an intra/inter-racial offence. The study included 230 Israeli-Jewish students, who read a scenario describing an Arab perpetrator of crime and either a Jewish or Arab victim, and answered questions regarding perceived Arab threat, perpetrator blaming and attitudes to punishment. In line with hypotheses, findings showed that blaming attribution toward the perpetrator partially mediated the relationship between threat perceptions and support for harsh punitive sanctions. Furthermore, results showed that ethnic similarity between the observer and victim moderated the relationship between threat perceptions and punitiveness. Results suggest the importance of highlighting understandings of majority-minority relations in the field of criminology.
... Other forces may also contribute to dominant group members' reduced reactivity to observing dominant-on-disadvantaged ostracism. In particular, the motivation to maintain a positive social identity should presumably push these individuals toward downplaying the negativity of the target's treatment, perhaps by considering it as provoked or justified [31]. Relatedly, dampened reactions may be particularly evident when the observer and perpetrators share an advantaged group membership, the target is a member of a disadvantaged group, and the former perceive their advantage as legitimate [32,33]. ...
... Overall, the present results are not consistent with the possibility that dominant group members, as a result of an empathy gap [23], bystander apathy [36,37], or motivation to maintain a positive social identity [31], will be less impacted by witnessing ingroup members ostracize a disadvantaged group member as compared to a fellow dominant group member (reduced reactivity hypothesis). In fact, results of the meta-analysis conducted across the four studies indicated that in no condition were participants' affective reactions significantly weaker when the target was a disadvantaged ethnic minority group member as opposed to a dominant group member. ...
Article
Full-text available
The importance of social connection to well-being is underscored by individuals’ reactivity to events highlighting the potential for rejection and exclusion, which extends even to observing the social exclusion of others (“vicarious ostracism”). Because responses to vicarious ostracism depend at least in part on empathy with the target, and individuals tend to empathize less readily with outgroup than ingroup members, the question arises as to whether there is a boundary condition on vicarious ostracism effects whereby individuals are relatively immune to observing ingroup-on-outgroup ostracism. Of particular interest is the case where members of a dominant ethnic group observe fellow ingroup members ostracize a member of a disadvantaged ethnic minority group, as here there is a compelling potential alternative: Perceived violation of contemporary social norms condemning prejudice and discrimination might instead lead dominant group members to be especially upset by “dominant-on-disadvantaged” ostracism. Accordingly, the present research examines, across four studies and 4413 participants, individuals’ affective reactions to observing dominant-on-disadvantaged versus dominant-on-dominant ostracism. In each study, dominant group members (White/Europeans) observed dominant group members include or ostracize a fellow dominant group member or a disadvantaged ethnic minority group member (a Black individual) in an online Cyberball game. Results revealed that dominant group members felt more guilt, anger, and sadness after observing severe ostracism of a disadvantaged as opposed to dominant group member. Although no direct effects emerged on behavioral outcomes, exploratory analyses suggested that observing ostracism of a disadvantaged (versus dominant) group member had indirect effects on behavior via increased feelings of anger. These results suggest that observing ostracism may be a sufficiently potent and relatable experience that when it occurs across group boundaries it awakens individuals’ sensitivity to injustice and discrimination.
... However, this is not always the case. In fact, individuals view torture more favorably, and have lower levels of empathy for the victim, when torture was committed by someone who shares their national identity (Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). Additionally, in-group members can engage in a form of dehumanization in which they deny the attribution of complex cognitive secondary emotions such as 'hope' and 'love' to out-group victims (Leyens et al., 2000). ...
... Participants completed a number of questionnaires at least 24 hours in advance of their testing time, including a demographics questionnaire and measures of emotion regulation, ethnic identity, nationalism, and other questions developed by the researchers (described below). These measures were posed to account, post hoc, for any variability in the dependent variables, as these characteristics have been shown to influence emotional responding (Bresnahan, Ohashi, Nebashi, Liu, & Shearman, 2002;Tarrant et al., 2012). ...
Article
Full-text available
It is well documented that individuals respond with negative emotions to racial and ethnic out-groups. Yet, it is unknown whether the responses are a measure of simple emotional reactivity or if they are also influenced by emotion regulation. Given the importance of emotions in out-group evaluation (see Intergroup Emotion Theory; Smith and Mackie, 2008), we investigated emotional reactivity and regulation in response to out-group victimization. Forty-one undergraduates completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and viewed three sets of images: lynching of African-Americans, torture of Abu Ghraib prison detainees, and IAPS images depicting graphic violence. Participants rated 13 emotions before and after viewing the images. A factor analysis identified four emotional response categories: Distress, Sympathy, Arousal and Avoidance. Analyses at both the individual emotion level and factor level indicated that negative emotions (e.g., anger, disgust, and guilt) were greater in response to violence against ethnic groups relative to violence depicted in the IAPS images. Emotional suppression predicted blunted distress and arousal to ethnic victimization. These findings highlight that emotional responses to out-group victimization are complex and tempered by emotional suppression. Individuals’ emotion regulation may provide further insight into responses to ethnic and racial out-groups.
... Thus, the awareness that torture is sometimes used by one's own group is another driving force behind the justification of torture. Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, and Weston (2012) examined the impact of social identity on the torture endorsement, and across two studies using British and American participants, found that participants viewed torture as more morally justified when they learned their own nation used torture compared with when a member of the other nation used torture. This bias toward one's own group was explained by both a lack of empathy, and increased blame for the victim tortured by one's own nation. ...
... Taken together, this research suggests that while people generally hold negative views of torture, they also justify its use at least some of the time. While there are likely many reasons why this happens, the empirical evidence to date has identified personality characteristics and political ideology (Homant & Witkowski, 2011;Houck & Conway, 2013), gender (Fallahi et al., 2008), and biased beliefs about torture (e.g., Arrigo & Wagner, 2007;Houck, Conway, & Repke, 2014;Janoff-Bulman, 2007;Tarrant et al., 2012) as factors that can contribute to the attitude that torture is sometimes justified. What implications do these findings have, and how can we translate what we know from psychology research to applied torture contexts? ...
Article
Full-text available
There is an ongoing debate about the treatment of detainees, torture use, and torture efficacy. Missing from this debate, however, is empirical research on the psychology of torture. When and why do people justify the use of torture, and what influences torture endorsement? Psychological science has a valuable opportunity to address the applied problem of torture by further investigating when and why people justify its use. Our goals are to (a) contribute to the public debate about torture with empirical arguments, and (b) inform and promote the inclusion of psychological expertise in the development of policy related to torture. With those goals in mind, this article provides an overview of the psychology research on torture to date, and discusses how this research translates to the torture debate and policy-making. Further, we highlight the need for conducting additional empirical research on torture’s ineffectiveness, as well as the need for researchers to engage in the public discussion of issues related to torture.
... 136 Rhetorical devices of norm evasion, however, stand in the way, making it difficult for groups to apologise and offer reparations. 137 This comes at a cost: when in-group members psychologically disengage from in-group wrongdoings, they are more likely to condone ongoing and future violence. 138 Has Japan's evasion been effective? ...
Article
Full-text available
The growing focus on the agency of norm violators has led to new insights on various rhetorical strategies that states accused of norm violation deploy. However, few studies have simultaneously examined both specific rhetorical devices that enable norm evasion and their social psychological underpinnings. Building on International Relations (IR) research on norm evasion and social psychological research on in-group wrongdoings, this paper conceptualises states’ rhetoric of norm evasion as a social psychological coping strategy: aimed at protecting in-group esteem. Empirically, the paper offers a systematic analysis of Japan’s rhetoric of norm evasion regarding its colonial and wartime past, as well as its social psychological underpinnings. Five rhetorical strategies of norm evasion are identified: (1) claiming legality, (2) claiming the inapplicability of relevant treaties, (3) claiming the inapplicability of relevant norms, (4) equivocating, and (5) citing non-disparagement pledges. These strategies, as well as the psychological disengagement they enable, have culminated in the promotion of non-remembrance, or behavioural manifestations of norm regress.
... Facets of religiosity actually include a mixture of moral influences that can work at cross-purposes in promoting as well as inhibiting prosocial behavior. Some components of religion (e.g., an emphasis on empathy and the Golden Rule) promote prosociality, but other aspects, such as authoritarianism, erode prosociality (Malka and Soto 2011;Tarrant et al. 2012). By contrast, the nonreligious are less likely to have authoritarian impulses that limit prosociality to only in-group members. ...
Book
This book surveys the growing field of secularity and non-religion, focussing on the North American context. The introductory overview article explains that the field encompasses a wide and disparate set of people and processes. These include the religious nones and unaffiliated, atheists and agnostics, secular humanists and secular activists, and many other kinds of the “traditionally nonreligious” along with novel forms of secular identities, organizations, and worldviews. Chapters highlight the key topics, findings, arguments, and controversies from the past 20 years of research, including issues of secular and nonreligious identity, health, organization, family, inequality, discrimination. The book is illustrated throughout with over 60 images and each chapter includes guidance on further reading. A glossary of key terms and concepts is included. This is a much-needed resource for teaching secularity and non-religion, as well as the sociology of religion.
... Evidence from moral psychology supports this assumption suggesting that moral judgments could be used either to legitimise the actions of allies (ingroup) or to condemn the actions of rivals (outgroup). For instance, people morally justify torture to more extent when it is perpetrated by their own than by the other nation's security services (Tarrant et al., 2012). ...
Article
Full-text available
Alliance Theory can substitute or complement current theories of ideological belief systems and morality by satisfying the principle of parsimony. If scientists face theories that fit data equally, they should choose the simple theory. However, the data fit is not the only criterium for the parsimony principle. Predictive accuracy, explanatory power, fruitfulness in generating new insights and repeatability of results, to name but a few, are further criteria guiding theory choice (Gauch, 2002). I firmly believe that Alliance Theory not only provides a simple and functional explanation of belief systems and morality but also does it accurately, might have higher explanatory power than other theories and, most importantly, generates novel insights about past and future research in the field of political and moral psychology.
... One important feature of interpreting evidence within moral epistemology is determining what kinds of considerations bear on moral questions and which do not; 20 See Sidanius et al., 2013, Radke et al., 2017, and Sanders & Mahalingam, 2012. 21 See Galinsky et al. 2006, Lammers at al. 2008, and Vorauer, 2006 Tarrant et al., 2012. in other words, deciding which features are morally relevant and which are not. So, for example, when deciding whether someone morally ought to be punished for stealing, we might notice the age of the individuals involved, what was stolen, when the event occurred, the hairstyles of the individuals, and the weather at the time. ...
Article
Full-text available
One of standpoint theory’s main claims is the thesis of epistemic advantage, which holds that marginalized agents have epistemic advantages due to their social disadvantage as marginalized. The epistemic advantage thesis has been argued to be true with respect to knowledge about particular dominant ideologies like classism and sexism, as well as knowledge within fields as diverse as sociology and economics. However, it has yet to be analyzed with respect to ethics. This paper sets out to complete this task. Here, I argue that we have good reason to believe that the marginalized are epistemically advantaged with respect to moral knowledge overall, including moral facts other than those about the morally problematic features of systems of domination. To do so, I first articulate the connection between marginalization and the moral domain, drawing on the rich history of feminist and non-ideal ethics. Then, I argue that the marginalized are more likely to have several particular epistemic skills that are necessary to come to have moral knowledge. Utilizing real-world cases where moral knowledge is at stake, I show how marginalized agents have better access to evidence (broadly), as well as advantages distinguishing between considerations that are morally relevant and those that aren’t (sorting), determining the weight a certain piece of evidence has with respect to determining a moral matter (significance), and using concepts which bear on moral questions (conceptual competency). I close by considering the upshots my analysis here has for other areas of moral epistemology like moral testimony and expertise.
... 12 For example, when crime was committed by ingroup members, participants described it more morally justified than when it was committed by outgroup members. 13 Due the importance of ITT in shaping attitudes towards outgroup members, this article focused explicitly on the potential correlation between perceived threat and justifying intergroup violence and argued that group threat should be thought of as negative intergroup stressor. Based on previous studies, 14 we hypothesised that: H1: Perceived threat towards Israeli-Arabs correlates with violence justification. ...
... In addition, empathy is significantly reduced towards outgroup members (e.g. Richins et al., 2018), and human rights violations against outgroups are more readily tolerated (Tarrant et al., 2012), which serves to mobilise support for persecution of dissenters. ...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract: When viewed as a war story, the COVID-19 narrative framed in corporate media urges citizens to be on a constant “war footing” and yet reveals symptoms of a much deeper and more widespread pathology whose roots can be clearly identified in the context of the emergence of corporate personhood. Contemporary life itself reveals the rise of a new technocratic corporate order and the ways in which its managers plan to govern the new medicalized global society through (a) ongoing events of shock and awe, (b) the identification of official enemies (human, non-human and conceptual), (c) the sustained imposition of threat-perception and incitement of fear, (d) the use of mantras and smear campaigns against dissident views, (e) the fascist enforcement of a rigid official reality, (f) the incubation of intergroup thinking (“us” vs. “them”), (g) the imposition of confusion and uncertainty, (h) the repetition of key phrases and terms, and (i) the offer of salvation (or associated incentives) by the state. This article analyzes the leading narrative as a concoction of the technocratic mind and offers a recipe for readers to follow in their efforts to be more aware of the manipulations unfolding everywhere in the public discourse.
... Empathy occurs when a person perceives themselves to share a self-category with another person and thereby internalizes that other person's emotional state. Tarrant et al. (2009) have shown, for example, that university students feel more empathy for a target person and express a greater desire to help that target when the target was a student at the participant's own university rather than a student at a rival university (see also Tarrant, Branscombe, et al., 2012). Similarly, Stürmer et al. (2005) found that AIDS volunteers felt greater empathy and offered greater assistance when the recipient of assistance was an ingroup member rather than an outgroup member. ...
Article
Full-text available
In this article, we formally present the Integrated Self-Categorization model of Autism (ISCA). This model brings together the cognitive-perceptual and social-communication features of autism under a single explanatory framework. Specifically, ISCA proposes that the social-communication features that are related to theory of mind dysfunction emerge from the cognitive-perceptual features related to enhanced perceptual functioning and weak central coherence, and proposes that they are linked by dysfunction in the self-categorization process. We present the assumptions on which the model is based, and from these, we derive a set of precise, testable hypotheses, including a set of novel hypotheses that do not emerge from any existing models of autism. We then provide evidence that supports the model, derived from a number of direct tests of the hypotheses that it generates. We conclude by discussing the implications of the model for understanding autism and for intervention to improve the lives of autistic people, as well as future directions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
... Ingroup bias may also act as a powerful motivator; individuals become more defensive when an ingroup member commits a moral violation than when an outgroup member does (Van Der Toorn et al., 2015), and they are more likely to justify immoral acts when committed by ingroup but not outgroup members (Tarrant et al., 2012). Additionally, ingroup bias leads to considering ingroup members as possessing more morality than outgroup members (LeVine & Campbell, 1972), and identity fusion, or a strong sense of "oneness" with their group, can lead individuals to engage in personally costly, pro-group behaviors (Swann & Buhrmester, 2015). ...
Thesis
Full-text available
Implicit bias seems to be at the heart of a number of pressing societal problems. Efforts have been made to reduce bias through spreading information about implicit attitudes and implementing bias training programs. To adequately address these issues, though, greater attention needs to be given to how individuals process and respond to information about implicit bias. The current study explored moral judgments of behaviors stemming from implicit bias, with a focus on gender-based discrimination. We also considered how ingroup status (sharing the same gender as the perpetrator) may affect these judgments. Participants read a short scenario about a man or woman who exhibited either implicit or explicit bias toward the opposite gender; participants then reported their judgments of the perpetrator’s moral responsibility. Results revealed that less responsibility was attributed to behavior stemming from implicit (relative to explicit) bias. Implicit bias reduced responsibility regardless of whether or not the perpetrator was an ingroup member (same gender as the participant). Additionally, both male and female participants held the male perpetrator more responsible for his actions than the female perpetrator. This research provides a clearer picture of how people evaluate implicit bias, which is central to understanding why implicitly biased behaviors often result in minor consequences for the perpetrators. Future research should seek to more fully understand how individuals process and respond to information regarding implicit bias in an effort to reduce any potential negative consequences of spreading such information and construct the most effective methods for reducing bias.
... Since one's ingroup is given preferential treatment (Brewer, 1999), the lack of preferential treatment for outgroup members permits a restriction of rights for a target group that is not one's own. We are less willing to provide negative attributions to ingroup members who are deviant (Harrison & Abrishami, 2004) and give higher approval of misdeeds from ingroup members compared to outgroup members (Schruijer et al., 1994;Tarrant et al., 2012). Individuals show increased levels of trust for ingroup members (Foddy et al., 2009), cooperate more with ingroup members (Balliet et al., 2014) and provide more positive resources to their ingroup within the minimal group paradigm (Tajfel et al., 1971). ...
Article
Full-text available
Individuals express support for civil liberties and human rights, but when threatened tend to restrict rights for both others and themselves. However, the question of whether or not rights are restricted to punish others or protect ourselves remains unclear. This meta-analysis integrates the findings of perceived threats effect on support for restrictions of civil liberties from 1997 to 2019. It includes 163 effect-size estimates from 46 different papers involving 91,716 participants. The presence of threat increased support for restrictions against outgroup members significantly more than ingroup members, providing a possible punitive explanation for support for restrictions of civil liberties. These findings contribute to the debate of rights and their relationship with deservingness, suggesting that we delineate those who deserve human rights and those who do not.
... Findings show that individuals who draw a large part of their identity from their nationality are motivated to keep a positive view of their nation. For example, a study by Tarrant et al. (2012) found that British and U.S. nationals reading accounts of terrorist torture described them as more morally justified when the torture was perpetrated by their national group, even though they rejected such behavior in general. This discrepancy was explained by Rothschild and Keefer (2017) as a means of defusing guilt and protecting their group's moral identity. ...
Article
Full-text available
In this article, we explore intergenerational moral emotions as a psychological root of ethical management practices. We develop a conceptual model of next-generation guilt in family business by building on family systems and identification theories. We test it with a scenario approach depicting an ethical dilemma. Our findings suggest that the less identified the next generation is with the family, the more likely vicarious guilt emerges. Guilt then leads to intentions of more responsible behaviors, such as reparative actions, apologies, and change in business practices. The implications encourage future research on family business guilt and moral decisions across generations.
... focusing on the Jewish-Arab conflict in the Middle East. Recent research has shown that intergroup conflict resulting from historical tensions can increase motivation to protect social identity and ingroup reputation(Branscombe, Warner, Klar, & Fernández, 2015;Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). The Israeli-Jewish and Israeli-Arab ethnic groups can shed light on this phenomenon, as the long-standing tension between them appears to influence law enforcement policy and sentencing decisions(Grossman, Gazal-Ayal, Pimentel, & Weinstein, 2016), and contribute to threat, hostility, and negative stereotypes(Canetti, Elad-Strenger, Lavi, Guy, & Bar-Tal,- 2017;Canetti-Nisim, Ariely, & Halperin, 2008;Metcalfe & Cann, 2020;Rozmann & Walsh, 2018). ...
Article
We investigated whether evidence direction (incriminating versus exonerating) moderated the influence of intergroup bias on alibi credibility assessments. Israeli Jewish participants (n = 160) assessed the credibility of an alibi statement provided by either an Israeli-Jewish or an Israeli-Arab suspect. Along with the alibi statement, half of the participants were presented with incriminating evidence, while the other half were presented with exonerating evidence. The results indicated that evidence direction influenced credibility assessment regarding both in-group and out-group suspects. Specifically, under incriminating evidence, Israeli-Jewish suspects were perceived as more deceptive than Israeli-Arab suspects, whereas under exonerating evidence, no such differences were found. These results emphasize the significance of group bias in assessing the credibility of alibi statements.
... For instance, people tend to blame the enemy or the circumstances for acts of cruelty performed by the own nation but not by other nations (Bilali et al., 2012;Doosje and Branscombe, 2003). Also, they apply different standards of moral and justice for the ingroup and for outgroups (Liu, et al., 2009;Tarrant et al., 2012), and they express this bias in subtle linguistic ways. According to the Linguistic Intergroup Bias Model (Maass et al., 1989), positive behaviors performed by ingroup members are more likely to be described with more abstract language (i.e., adjectives, e.g., ''cooperative") compared to when the same behavior was performed by an outgroup member (e.g., with concrete verbs such as ''cooperated"). ...
Article
The aim of this study is to identify linguistic categories which could be bias indicators in both English and Spanish versions of Wikipedia articles about international conflicts. In this sense, Appraisal analysis -particularly, engagement- is used to examine whether the articles are biased in favor of a group (in-group bias). In the present study, only two kinds of these resources are focused: attribution and counter. The hypothesis we are discussing is that, in these articles, engagement categories serve as linguistic indicators of in-group bias. The analysis shows important associations between engagement resources and in-group bias. The findings seem to confirm that bias is usually expressed implicitly rather than explicitly.
... This is consistent with the model of subjective group dynamics (Marques, Abrams, Paez, & Martinez-Toboada, 1998;Marques, Abrams, & Serôdio, 2001) stating that, in some circumstances, group members may foster intragroup differentiation to promote positive intergroup distinction. However, in other contexts people will judge immoral behavior of outgroup members more severely, while justifying immoral acts of ingroup members (e.g., Iyer, Jetten, & Haslam, 2012;Rotella & Richeson, 2013;Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). Both routes are interpreted as strategies to sustain the moral superiority of the ingroup, granting positive intergroup differentiation and social and self-identity (Abrams & Hogg, 1990;. ...
Article
In the last decade, a growing body of research has revealed that morality is the most important driver of impression formation. As such, social targets lacking morality are disliked and kept at distance, while moral targets are liked and respected. Here, we investigated whether social targets lacking morality elicit positive reactions in the observer. Study 1 revealed that participants reported an enhanced self-view when confronted with an immoral (vs. moral) behavior performed by a political opponent. Study 2 revealed the key role of morality in this process, as differential perceptions of the target’s incompetence had no comparable effect on the observer self-view. Importantly, such results emerged when participants were highly identified with their ingroup. Taken together, these findings suggest that outgroup immorality can elicit positive self-related responses in the observer. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications for social judgment and intergroup relations.
... For instance, individuals selectively omit unfavourable information about the ingroup (Sahdra & Ross, 2007), and they attribute a more important and powerful position to the ingroup (Mackie, Devos, & Smith, 2000;Oeberst & Matschke, 2017). Furthermore, they view the ingroup systematically as less immoral than the outgroup by applying different standards of morality and justice depending on whether the same negative behaviour (e.g., torture) was committed by the ingroup or an outgroup (Liu, 2009;Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012; see also Brewer, 1999). Finally, people blame others or the circumstances for the negative behaviour of the ingroup (Bilali, 2013;Bilali, Tropp, & Dasgupta, 2012;Doosje & Branscombe, 2003;Hewstone, 1990;Levin, Henry, Pratto, & Sidanius, 2003;Pettigrew, 1979). ...
Article
Full-text available
Individuals tend to present their own group (the ingroup) in a systematically more favourable way (ingroup bias). By examining socially negotiated and publicly accessible Wikipedia articles about intergroup conflicts, we investigated ingroup bias at a collective level. Specifically, we compared articles about the same intergroup conflicts (e.g., the Falklands War) in the corresponding language versions of Wikipedia (e.g., the Spanish and English Wikipedia articles about the Falklands War). Study 1 featured a content coding of translated Wikipedia articles by trained raters, which showed that articles systematically presented the ingroup in a more favourable way (e.g., Argentina in the Spanish article and the United Kingdom in the English article) and, in reverse, the outgroup as more immoral and more responsible for the conflict. These findings were replicated and extended in Study 2, which was limited to the lead sections of articles but included considerably more conflicts and many participants instead of a few trained coders. This procedure allowed for separate analyses for each conflict, which showed considerable variance in the results pattern with a stronger ingroup bias for (1) more recent conflicts and (2) conflicts in which the proportion of ingroup members among the top editors was larger. Finally, a third study ruled out that these effects were driven by translations or the raters’ own nationality. Therefore, this paper is the first to demonstrate ingroup bias in Wikipedia – a finding that is of practical as well as theoretical relevance as we outline in the discussion.
... Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) postulates that group members who identify more strongly with the in-group should be more motivated to maintain a positive image of the ingroup. A large literature in social psychology has shown that, when reminded of in-group transgressions, higher in-group identification is associated with lower levels of critical emotions such as collective guilt (e.g., Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 1998;Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). When faced with accusations of mass violence and genocide, group members who identify strongly with their in-group are more likely to deny the accusations. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
Denial of genocide and other forms of mass violence is the most common response to confrontation with in-group atrocities. Denial is detrimental to peace, reconciliation, and justice. In this chapter the authors provide a social psychological analysis of genocide denial and review the nature of denial as well as the collective (e.g., group and conflict narratives) and individual-level (e.g., in-group identification, ideology) processes that perpetuate it. Then, the second part of the chapter provides an overview of strategies to address and counteract denial of atrocities. These include confrontational strategies (specifically, introducing factual information about the atrocity, introducing information about moral exemplars, and perspective-taking/engaging with out-group’s narrative) and nonconfrontational strategies (interventions targeting genocide construal in general, lay theory interventions, and affirmation strategies). The authors discuss the potential and possible drawbacks of each strategy to effectively reduce denial and discuss avenues for future research.
... While 196 nations ratified this set of codified, social norms proclaiming that all humans deserve certain rightssuch as freedom of speech, freedom from torture, and freedom from invasion of privacy-serious civil liberties violations continue to take place across the globe (Human Rights Watch, 2018). Individuals express support for human rights, but then drop their support in the next instant (Drolet, Hafer, & Heuer, 2016), subjugate subgroups to only marginal access to liberty (Abrams, Houston, Vyver, & Vasiljevic, 2015), and staunchly support their in-group while condemning an out-group for the same activity (Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). The threat of the "other" pervades the discussion of who deserves rights (Beck & Plant, 2018;Carriere, 2019;Huddy & Feldman, 2011;Huddy, Feldman, & Weber, 2007;Welch, 2016). ...
Article
Despite the widely ratified United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, support for civil liberties is easily eroded in times of threat. Understanding which factors moderate the relationship between threat and support for civil liberties is critical, yet remains relatively unexplored. In this study, we test a double moderation model in which support for the restriction of civil liberties in the face of threat is moderated by both right‐wing authoritarianism and political sophistication. In a national representative dataset (N = 12,507), those low on right‐wing authoritarianism became more like their high right‐wing authoritarian peers in the face of threat. Also, those more sophisticated about political issues were less supportive of restrictions on civil liberties, but only when threat was low. We tested this model on both restrictions for the in‐group, in terms of being wiretapped, and for the out‐group, in terms of torturing suspected terrorists. Our results suggest that increasing political sophistication may have desirable consequences when considering the outcomes for in‐group members, and we argue for increased efforts to expand the in‐group we seek to protect.
... Considering personalized dilemmas involving the threat of a loved one increases the likelihood people will endorse torture -a situational effect that occurs for persons of different personality and political orientations (Houck & Conway, 2013). Similarly, when evaluating instances of torture carried out by their ingroup (compared to an outgroup member), people were less empathetic and more dehumanizing towards torture victims, consequently justifying its use at higher rates (Ames & Lee, 2015;Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). Higher levels of desired retribution have also been associated with support for torture, as have the presentation of extreme scenarios such as the "ticking time bomb" (e.g., Bagaric & Clarke, 2005;Costanzo & Gerrity, 2009;Lefebvre & Farley, 2007). ...
Article
Full-text available
Does believing in torture’s effectiveness shape the endorsements of its use? Using a multi-method approach across 6 studies, we provide converging evidence that efficacy beliefs can help increase understanding of individual differences and situational influences on torture support. Studies 1a and 1b found that torture opinions contained more efficacy-based language than other types of harm, and that people relied more on torture efficacy than torture’s inherent morality when conveying their views. Study 2 assessed predictors of torture favorability including effectiveness and other key covariates, revealing that efficacy beliefs strongly predicted torture favorability - an association that retained its predictive validity above and beyond individual differences known to influence torture support. Mediation analyses further showed that efficacy beliefs explained key associations with torture support. Studies 3 and 4 used moral dilemmas requiring decisions about torture versus other harm. Results showed that individuals who believed harm would be effective were more likely to endorse its use; this was especially evident for torture judgments. Study 5 replicated the torture-efficacy effect while also revealing efficacy effects for other interrogation techniques, thus suggesting the effect is driven more by the instrumental objective of torture than harm or moral violations. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
... Leidner, Castano, Zaiser, & Giner-Sorolla, 2010, p. 1126) that focuses purely on nationstates, increased as perceptions of terroristic threat increased, which was associated with greater support for restrictions of civil liberties for one's ingroup (Sekerdej & Kossowska, 2011). Individuals justify torture when it is their own in-group members preforming the torture due to reduced empathetic concern for targets (Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). Not only do we support our ingroup more, but we are willing to take steps to protect it at all costs. ...
Article
Full-text available
It has been seventy years since signing the Declaration of Human Rights, yet human right violations are still happening across the globe. This review asks the question – what is the impact of perceived threat on changing support for human rights into support for not-all-humans’ rights? In approaching human rights violations with a four-level model – institutions, cultures, groups, and individuals –, issues of capabilities, historical emotions, connectedness, and personality emerge. At the heart of these is the impact perceived threat has at each level within each issue. Limitations of current work, disagreements across the literature, and future directions are discussed.
... Importantly, this is no longer a climate problem with implications for general morale but instead, the representative's behavior has implications for one's self-image. Such a shift suggests that group members might experience collective guilt or shame when they witness a group representative's poor behavior (Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 2006;Iyer, Jetten, & Haslam, 2012;Leach, Iyer, & Pedersen, 2007;Lickel, Schmader, Curtis, Scarnier, & Ames, 2005;Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). Although a thorough review of these group-based emotions is beyond the scope of this article, how group members respond to these feelings of guilt or shame can determine how they react to the group representative's behavior. ...
Article
Full-text available
When organizational authorities or representatives discriminate, it not only impacts the discrimination target; it also affects those who witness it. In this article, we argue that discrimination within workplace and educational contexts implicates the larger organization in which it occurs in two ways. First, it communicates to targets the extent to which the representatives of an organization respect their group. Second, discrimination implicates the morality of the larger group or organization in which it occurs. This second threat to the organization's morality affects all observers, even those who do not share a social category with the target. We argue that both forms of threat can decrease organization identification, well‐being, and increase withdrawal. For all observers, whether one is a member of the targeted group or not, to witness an organizational authority clearly discriminate against another organizational member is distressing and leads to withdrawal. We offer recommendations for policy and decision‐making procedures aimed at (1) adopting organizational decision‐making structures that minimize the opportunity for personal acts of bias (to prevent discrimination before it occurs), and (2) offering those who witness (or experience) discrimination clear avenues for addressing it (to minimize its destructive consequences). If organization members, especially organizational authorities, confront discrimination, it offsets the negative consequences of a single organizational representative's biased behavior.
... Because the image of the group ultimately rests on the perceptions of others, we suggest that moral image threat is less susceptible to psychological mechanisms usually used to deal with the threatening 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 F o r P e e r R e v i e w IMAGE THREAT CAN MOTIVATE ACTION 8 aspects of ingroup transgressions. Prior research has shown that high identifiers often use psychological mechanisms such as rationalization, moral disengagement, or moral justification to reduce the threat of transgressions to their personal identity (see Roccas, et al. 2006, Leidner, et al. 2010, Tarrant, et al., 2012. These mechanisms usually lead to a lack of guilt among high identifiers, but we suggest that these mechanisms are less capable of reducing a threat to the group's moral image, and thus image threat can raise levels of guilt among high identifiers. ...
Article
Full-text available
When transgressions are committed by a group, those highly identified with the group are often least likely to recognize the transgressions, feel collective guilt, and engage in action to address them. We hypothesized that especially among high identifiers, demonstrating that ingroup transgressions threaten the group’s image can induce normative conflict and thus collective guilt and action. In the first study, we demonstrate that high (vs. low) image threat increases normative conflict among high identifiers. In Study 2, we show that inducing normative conflict through image threat leads to increased collective guilt and collective action among high identifiers. In Study 3, we replicate this effect with the addition of an empty control condition to demonstrate increased normative conflict and collective guilt relative to both a low threat and base-line conditions. In Study 4, we again replicate these effects with a modified manipulation that more precisely manipulated image threat. Together, these studies indicate that image threat can be an effective motivator for high identifiers to address ingroup transgressions.
... Research supports such anecdotal evidence that group membership affects decisions in courts. In mock trials, people are more likely to grant clemency to in-group members than to out-group members who commit immoral acts, like torture (Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). Similarly, group membership influences actual punishment decisions; data from felony trials in Florida between 2000 and 2010 found that juries formed from all-White jury pools convicted Black defendants 16% more often than White defendants, a percentage that remained about the same even when adjusting for the number and type of offenses these decisions were made for (Anwar, Bayer, & Hjalmarsson, 2012). ...
Chapter
Despite universal aspirations to hold all people equal before the law and guarantee a fair trial to defendants regardless of their race, religion, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation, disparity continues to pervade the justice system. People who belong to some social groups are particularly likely to receive harsher legal outcomes than others. The justice system attempts to remedy such inter-group bias by collecting and considering evidence that speaks to the ‘objective’ truth of an event, some of the most potent forms of which include pictorial images and video footage. While such visual evidence is itself considered objective, it can perhaps counter-intuitively foster bias in court. We review research and provide original data asserting that bias in legal judgment persists despite the inclusion of visual evidence partly because decision-makers’ perceptions of visual evidence may be swayed by subjective factors. Specifically, social group membership engenders bias in verdicts and punishment decisions because it directs the way that people visually attend to evidence. To account more fully for variability in legal decisions, we argue that social group membership must be investigated concurrently with its impact on the encoding and processing of visual information. This chapter synthesizes contemporary research on visual attention and contextualizes it within the evaluation of legal evidence. We draw upon our own work and that of others’ who have used eye-tracking and other techniques to measure or manipulate overt visual attention to evidence. We argue that the consideration of visual attention can assist in predicting when and how social group membership biases legal decisionmaking, and we speculate about the underlying psychological mechanisms responsible. Finally, we propose ways in which visual attention can be utilized to mitigate biases in legal decision-making.
... Experimental research, however, shows that support for torture can be swayed by situational factors. Members of the public are more supportive of torture when the suspect is an out-group member (Miron, Branscombe, & Biernat, 2010;Norris et al., 2010;O'Brien & Ellsworth, 2012;Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). These findings are consistent with social identity theory and appear to hold across social groups (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). ...
Article
Full-text available
Since 9/11, entertainment media has focused on depictions of terrorism and counterterrorism. How do dramatic depictions of counterterrorism practices—specifically torture—affect public opinion and policy? Using a mixed within-subjects and between-subjects experimental design, we examine how framing affects support for torture. Participants (n = 150) were randomly assigned to a condition for dramatic depictions showing torture as (a) effective, (b) ineffective, or (c) not present (control). Participants who saw torture as effective increased their stated support for it. Participants who saw torture—regardless of whether or not it was effective—were more likely to sign a petition on torture. We discuss the policy implications of our findings on how framing affects opinion and action regarding torture.
... Even though such analyses suggest that intra-group dynamics and the desire to establish a distinct group identity are highly relevant to understanding the implications of morality for the regulation of individual behaviour, this context has not been systematically taken into account in research on morality. Extant work on moral psychology has mainly addressed individual-level moral decision making (e.g., Kohlberg, 1969;Piaget, 1965;Schwartz, 1970; see also Turiel, 1983Turiel, , 2006), or has identified the implications of group-level moral transgressions (e.g., Čehajić-Clancy, Effron, Halperin, Liberman, & Ross, 2011;Miron, Branscombe, & Biernat, 2010;Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). In this review we examine how intra-group moral judgements impact upon people's social identities and behavioural coordination in groups (see also Ellemers & van den Bos, 2012). ...
Article
In social psychology, morality is considered as a fundamental dimension of judgment and evaluation, both at the individual and at the group level. Nevertheless, research on morality has been often conducted considering it as an individual construct, that is, as the simple suppression of selfish, or as the suppression of aggressiveness. The present paper reviews evidence on the relevance of morality by taking a group-based approach, which considers the fundamental role of referential groups for the comprehension of the dynamics of morality itself. Such an approach is based on social identity theory as a framework.
... Indeed, when group members are reminded of their group's wrongdoings, they use various defensive mechanisms to reduce the threat. These defenses are a response to the negative feelings and associations that frequently accompany in-group moral failures, such as fear of rejection and concern for condemnation by others (Gausel & Leach, 2011), a desire to cover up moral failure (Gausel, Leach, Vignoles, & Brown, 2012), actively forgetting aspects of negative events that implicate the group (Rotella & Richeson, 2013), distancing from the incident and placing blame on outside factors (Doosje & Branscombe, 2003;Imhoff et al., in press;Taylor & Jaggi, 1974), and moral justification of the wrongdoings (Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 1998;Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). ...
Article
Full-text available
Five studies examined defensive intergroup helping—when responsibility for an out-group victim’s injury decreases helping, whereas lack of responsibility increases helping when death is salient. In Study 1 (N = 350), implicit death primes increased petition signings to allow a Palestinian child to receive medical treatment in Israel, when the child was a victim of Palestinian fire. When the child was a victim of Israeli fire, however, death primes decreased petition signings. Study 2 (N = 200) partially replicated these effects on commitment to donate blood to an injured Palestinian child. Study 3 (N = 162) found that moral affirmation primes moderate defensive helping effects. Study 4 (N = 372) replicated defensive helping, but failed to replicate the moral affirmation effect found in Study 3. Study 5 (N = 243) partially replicated defensive helping and found that different framings of existential threat moderate the effect. Overall, results indicate that self-protective concerns underlie prosocial responses to out-group members in need.
Article
This study explores whether and how respondents’ racial/ethnic identity affects racial/ethnic hate crime perception, considering the races/ethnicities of the offender and the victim. The data of this study comes from a factorial survey experiment with random vignette assignments among U.S. adults from MTurk ( n = 2,021). A set of logistic regression models with robust standard errors was estimated to test the two-way and three-way moderation effects of the races/ethnicities of the offender, victim, and respondent. Results reveal how racial/ethnic groups recognize hate crimes, considering not only the identities of the offenders and victims but also the respondents’ own backgrounds. Subgroup analyses further revealed different patterns of racial/ethnic hate crime recognition among minority respondents and non-Hispanic white respondents. Integrating a power-relation perspective and social identity theory, this study concludes that there are racial/ethnic variances in the recognition of racial/ethnic hate crimes, which not only concern the race/ethnicity of the offender and victim but are also related to respondents’ identity. Social identity theory partially explains the observations through group image management and ingroup favoritism. Additionally, the perception of racial/ethnic hate crimes is primarily driven by the Majority–Minority pattern, regardless of the group membership. This study calls for further efforts not only in researching the role of race/ethnicity in relation to racial/ethnic hate crime recognition but also in advancing the practice of hate crime reporting and data collection by an enhanced understanding of group identity among individuals as well as law enforcement.
Article
Full-text available
Political orientation reflects beliefs, opinions, and values that are, at least in part, rooted in stable interindividual differences. Whereas evidence has accumulated with regard to the relevance of basic personality dimensions, especially concerning the sociocultural dimension of political ideology, less attention has been paid to the more specific dispositional tendency to assign a higher weight to one’s own utility above others’ (i.e., socially aversive personality), which is likely to play a pivotal role concerning the economic dimension of political ideology in particular. In three studies with over 66,000 participants from 38 countries, we show that individuals with elevated levels in aversive personality tend to endorse more right-wing political orientations in terms of a single left–right dimension, hold relevant ideological beliefs tied to both sociocultural and economic conservatism, and report corresponding electoral voting behavior. We further provide support for the idea that this overlap between a dispositional tendency toward aversive behavior and a right-wing political orientation can be attributed to shared belief systems.
Chapter
Social-psychological approaches to the study of morality typically rely on the individual as the key unit of analysis, with less attention to morality as it is enacted in groups or larger social structures. Sociology, on the other hand, has long been concerned with collective morality. This chapter synthesizes recent cross-disciplinary work on one key question about the operation of morality in small groups: how do groups’ morally-relevant decisions and behaviors differ from those of individuals acting alone? I focus on one morally-charged social behavior—prosocial behavior—and ask what situations and intergroup dynamics facilitate, or inhibit, prosocial behaviors made at the group versus individual level. While some prior work suggests that groups “behave badly,” other research demonstrates that groups “do good,” compared to their individual counterparts. I identify key moderators and contexts that might explain these conflicting results. This chapter concludes with a call for social psychologists to further expand beyond the domain of the individual decision-maker. After all, morally-relevant decision-making commonly operates in groups, and is critical in fostering social order.
Chapter
Security is a vital subject of study in the twenty-first century and a central theme in many social science disciplines. This volume provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which the concept of security is theorized and studied across different disciplines. The book has two objectives: first, to explore the growing diversity of theories, paradigms, and methods developed to study security; and, second, to initiate a multidisciplinary dialogue about the ontological, epistemological, paradigmatic, and normative aspects of security studies in social sciences. Readers across nine fields are invited to reflect on their conceptualizations of security and to consider how an interdisciplinary dialogue can stimulate and enrich the understanding of security in our contemporary world. Analytically sharp yet easy to read, this is a cutting-edge volume exploring what security is and what it means in today's world.
Chapter
Security is a vital subject of study in the twenty-first century and a central theme in many social science disciplines. This volume provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which the concept of security is theorized and studied across different disciplines. The book has two objectives: first, to explore the growing diversity of theories, paradigms, and methods developed to study security; and, second, to initiate a multidisciplinary dialogue about the ontological, epistemological, paradigmatic, and normative aspects of security studies in social sciences. Readers across nine fields are invited to reflect on their conceptualizations of security and to consider how an interdisciplinary dialogue can stimulate and enrich the understanding of security in our contemporary world. Analytically sharp yet easy to read, this is a cutting-edge volume exploring what security is and what it means in today's world.
Chapter
Security is a vital subject of study in the twenty-first century and a central theme in many social science disciplines. This volume provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which the concept of security is theorized and studied across different disciplines. The book has two objectives: first, to explore the growing diversity of theories, paradigms, and methods developed to study security; and, second, to initiate a multidisciplinary dialogue about the ontological, epistemological, paradigmatic, and normative aspects of security studies in social sciences. Readers across nine fields are invited to reflect on their conceptualizations of security and to consider how an interdisciplinary dialogue can stimulate and enrich the understanding of security in our contemporary world. Analytically sharp yet easy to read, this is a cutting-edge volume exploring what security is and what it means in today's world.
Chapter
Security is a vital subject of study in the twenty-first century and a central theme in many social science disciplines. This volume provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which the concept of security is theorized and studied across different disciplines. The book has two objectives: first, to explore the growing diversity of theories, paradigms, and methods developed to study security; and, second, to initiate a multidisciplinary dialogue about the ontological, epistemological, paradigmatic, and normative aspects of security studies in social sciences. Readers across nine fields are invited to reflect on their conceptualizations of security and to consider how an interdisciplinary dialogue can stimulate and enrich the understanding of security in our contemporary world. Analytically sharp yet easy to read, this is a cutting-edge volume exploring what security is and what it means in today's world.
Chapter
Security is a vital subject of study in the twenty-first century and a central theme in many social science disciplines. This volume provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which the concept of security is theorized and studied across different disciplines. The book has two objectives: first, to explore the growing diversity of theories, paradigms, and methods developed to study security; and, second, to initiate a multidisciplinary dialogue about the ontological, epistemological, paradigmatic, and normative aspects of security studies in social sciences. Readers across nine fields are invited to reflect on their conceptualizations of security and to consider how an interdisciplinary dialogue can stimulate and enrich the understanding of security in our contemporary world. Analytically sharp yet easy to read, this is a cutting-edge volume exploring what security is and what it means in today's world.
Chapter
Security is a vital subject of study in the twenty-first century and a central theme in many social science disciplines. This volume provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which the concept of security is theorized and studied across different disciplines. The book has two objectives: first, to explore the growing diversity of theories, paradigms, and methods developed to study security; and, second, to initiate a multidisciplinary dialogue about the ontological, epistemological, paradigmatic, and normative aspects of security studies in social sciences. Readers across nine fields are invited to reflect on their conceptualizations of security and to consider how an interdisciplinary dialogue can stimulate and enrich the understanding of security in our contemporary world. Analytically sharp yet easy to read, this is a cutting-edge volume exploring what security is and what it means in today's world.
Chapter
Security is a vital subject of study in the twenty-first century and a central theme in many social science disciplines. This volume provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which the concept of security is theorized and studied across different disciplines. The book has two objectives: first, to explore the growing diversity of theories, paradigms, and methods developed to study security; and, second, to initiate a multidisciplinary dialogue about the ontological, epistemological, paradigmatic, and normative aspects of security studies in social sciences. Readers across nine fields are invited to reflect on their conceptualizations of security and to consider how an interdisciplinary dialogue can stimulate and enrich the understanding of security in our contemporary world. Analytically sharp yet easy to read, this is a cutting-edge volume exploring what security is and what it means in today's world.
Article
This article offers evidence of the embedded nature of bribery in Mexico. Drawing on three theoretical frameworks that deviate from standard individualistic rational‐choice approaches, the paper examines a shared assertion: systemic corruption is a regime so deeply engrained in social relationships and norms that prevents people from attributing a moral connotation to their behavior. Based on individual‐level data from two waves of a national survey on government performance, I find that users of government procedures in Mexico are indifferent to bribery, as the occurrence of petty corruption acts does not influence their appraisal of various administrative transactions. By demonstrating that everyday acts of bribery are, in general, immune to social disapproval in a setting of high corruption like Mexico, this article contributes to understanding better the complexity of such phenomenon and why anti‐corruption policies are not likely to succeed if they do not design ways to cope with the social normalization of corruption.
Article
Roughly half of the U.S. public thinks that torture can be acceptable in counterterrorism. According to recent research, dramatic depictions of torture increase public support for the practice. Yet we do not know how frequently—and in what context—torture is depicted across popular media. What messages about the acceptability and effectiveness of torture do Americans receive when they watch popular films? To address this question, we coded each incident of torture in the twenty top-grossing films each year from 2008 to 2017 to analyze how torture is portrayed in terms of its frequency, efficacy, and social acceptability. Results show that the majority of popular films—including films aimed toward children—have at least one torture scene. Across films, the messages sent about torture are fairly consistent. As expected, movies tend to depict torture as effective. Further, how movies portray torture is also a function of who is perpetrating it. Specifically, protagonists are more likely to torture for instrumental reasons or in response to threats and are more likely to do so effectively. In contrast, antagonists are more likely to use torture as punishment and to torture women. The frequency and nature of torture’s depiction in popular films may help explain why many in the public support torture in counterterrorism.
Article
Human rights advocates continue to use shaming as a central tool despite recognizing its declining effectiveness. Shame is indeed a potent motivator, but its effects are often counterproductive for this purpose. Especially when wielded by cultural outsiders in ways that appear to condemn local social practices, shaming is likely to produce anger, resistance, backlash, and deviance from outgroup norms, or denial and evasion. Shaming can easily be interpreted as a show of contempt, which risks triggering fears for the autonomy and security of the group. In these circumstances, established religious and elite networks can employ traditional normative counter-narratives to recruit a popular base for resistance. If this counter-mobilization becomes entrenched in mass social movements, popular ideology, and enduring institutions, the unintended consequences of shaming may leave human rights advocates farther from their goal.
Article
Full-text available
When a mass casualty event occurs, why do some people label it terrorism while others do not? People are more likely to consider an attack to be terrorism when the perpetrator is Muslim, yet it is unclear what other factors influence perceptions of mass violence. Using data collected from a national sample of U.S. adults shortly after the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, we examine how media consumption and social identity influence views of the attack. Media consumption and individual-level factors—Islamophobia, political ideology, and other participant demographics—influence how people view the attack and how confident people are in their assessments.
Article
Full-text available
Although torture is largely ineffective for gaining information from terrorism suspects, nearly half of Americans support its use. Building upon previous work examining predictors of responses to such tactics and willingness to label them as “torture,” this research tested whether the “torture” label itself can influence attitudes. Across five experiments using two different populations, both politically liberal and conservative participants showed more negative attitudes toward “torture” than “enhanced interrogation,” even given identical descriptions of the tactics. This greater negativity in response to “torture” extended to actual behavior (signing a petition) and was driven by cognitive appraisals of severity as well as feelings of personal distress and other-directed empathic concern. Further, there was a small but significant effect for such effects to be stronger among conservatives than liberals. These findings have implications for the underpinnings of attitudes towards torture, potential ways to shift such attitudes, and the psychological consequences of labels.
Chapter
Security is a vital subject of study in the twenty-first century and a central theme in many social science disciplines. This volume provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which the concept of security is theorized and studied across different disciplines. The book has two objectives: first, to explore the growing diversity of theories, paradigms, and methods developed to study security; and, second, to initiate a multidisciplinary dialogue about the ontological, epistemological, paradigmatic, and normative aspects of security studies in social sciences. Readers across nine fields are invited to reflect on their conceptualizations of security and to consider how an interdisciplinary dialogue can stimulate and enrich the understanding of security in our contemporary world. Analytically sharp yet easy to read, this is a cutting-edge volume exploring what security is and what it means in today's world.
Article
Full-text available
Three studies tested the idea that when social identity is salient, group-based appraisals elicit specific emotions and action tendencies toward out-groups. Participants’ group memberships were made salient and the collective support apparently enjoyed by the in-group was measured or manipulated. The authors then measured anger and fear (Studies 1 and 2) and anger and contempt (Study 3), as well as the desire to move against or away from the out-group. Intergroup anger was distinct from intergroup fear, and the inclination to act against the out-group was distinct from the tendency to move away from it. Participants who perceived the in-group as strong were more likely to experience anger toward the out-group and to desire to take action against it. The effects of perceived in-group strength on offensive action tendencies were mediated by anger.
Article
Full-text available
Research on moral judgment has been dominated by rationalist models, in which moral judgment is thought to be caused by moral reasoning. The author gives 4 reasons for considering the hypothesis that moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached. The social intuitionist model is presented as an alternative to rationalist models. The model is a social model in that it deemphasizes the private reasoning done by individuals and emphasizes instead the importance of social and cultural influences. The model is an intuitionist model in that it states that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions). The model is more consistent than rationalist models with recent findings in social, cultural, evolutionary, and biological psychology, as well as in anthropology and primatology.
Chapter
Full-text available
This chapter outlines a model describing when and how one particular intergroup emotion - collective guilt - will be experienced depending on the standard employed for judging the social injustice perpetrated by the in-group against an out-group. In line with the common in-group identity model and self-categorization theory, it is argued that perpetrators or advantaged group members can categorize victims along a continuum of increasing inclusiveness - with the most inclusive category being humans. Under certain conditions, out-group members (they) can be seen as members of a more inclusive group (us) that also includes the in-group (we); shifting to such inclusive categorization of out-group members can have beneficial effects for the in-group's relationship with that out-group. It is argued that the extent to which victims of harm doing are included in a salient social category will affect the harshness of the standards used to evaluate the ingroup's harmful actions toward them. That is, when out-group members are included in a common in-group, harsher judgments should be made about in-group members who perpetrated harm against the former out-group members who are now seen as part of a larger, superordinate in-group. The severity of the standard used, will, in turn, affect the appraisal of injustice and the extent to which collective guilt is experienced.
Article
Full-text available
We examine how appraisals of the legitimacy of gender inequality affect men's experience of collective guilt. We tested two potential routes by which perceiving intergroup inequality as legitimate might undermine collective guilt: via reductions in empathy for the disadvantaged outgroup or via reductions in the distress experienced when confronted with the suffering of the outgroup. In the first study (N= 52), we measured legitimacy appraisals, and in the second experimental study (N= 73) we manipulated the legitimacy of gender inequality. In both studies, reductions in self-focused distress mediated the effect of legitimacy appraisals on collective guilt, while other-oriented empathy did not. These effects suggest that collective guilt is a self-focused emotion that emerges when members of a dominant group perceive their relationship with a disadvantaged outgroup to be illegitimate.
Article
Full-text available
This study explored the effect of different performance conditions upon the occurrence of the black sheep effect. It is expected that a poorly performing ingroup member would be evaluated less positively than an equally poorly performing outgroup member, whereas a well performing ingroup member would be evaluated more positively than an equally well performing outgroup member (i.e., the black sheep hypothesis) This pattern is expected only when no information is given concerning the nature of the performance circumstances. When subjects are informed that the performance circumstances were unfavourable, attributional processes can become activated resulting in a pattern of evaluations that differs from the one suggested by the black sheep hypothesis. Our results revealed indeed that information on the nature of the performance condition, influences the occurrence of the black sheep effect.
Article
Full-text available
In this chapter, we explore the processes that are instigated when people are reminded of their ingroup's past or present harmful actions toward another group. We focus on how appraisals that reduce the severity and injustice of the ingroup's actions can undermine the experience of collective guilt. Specifically, we consider how social identity concerns encourage appraisals that justify and protect the ingroup when group members are confronted with the harm done to another group. We examine two distinct emotional response mediators of the effects of perceiving the harm-doing as illegitimate for the degree to which collective guilt is experienced. Specifically, empathy for the harmed group and distress at exposure to their suffering are both assessed to determine which is the primary mediator of how much collective guilt is experienced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Full-text available
Three studies explored intergroup attributional bias. In Exp 1, Muslims (majority) and Hindus (minority) in Bangladesh rated their explanations of in-group and out-group members' positive and negative acts on 4 causal dimensions: locus, stability, controllability by others, and globality. Both groups showed in-group-favoring attributions, but only Muslims were out-group derogating. Causal dimensions predicted affects primarily in in-group-outcome conditions. Exp 2 showed that this bias for Muslims varied across crossed-categorization conditions. Causal dimensions predicted affect and self-esteem in certain conditions. Exp 3 showed that this bias for Hindus was accentuated when social categorizations were made salient. These studies increase understanding of the determinants and consequences of the bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Full-text available
Two field studies examined the attributions made for the historically negative behaviour of a group as a whole, depending on whether the actions were committed by the ingroup or an outgroup. In the first study, Jewish people assigned more internal responsibility to Germans for their treatment of Jewish people during the Second World War than Germans assigned to their own group. In the second study, people attributed the negative historical actions of another nation more internally (and less externally) than similar negative historical actions committed by their own nation. This pattern of intergroup attributional bias was more pronounced among people who highly identified with their national ingroup. Outgroup homogeneity and perceptions of differences between the groups were also significantly predicted by ingroup identification. Links between social identity theory and the intergroup attribution bias are considered. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Article
Full-text available
Torture is prohibited by statutes worldwide, yet the legal definition of torture is almost invariably based on an inherently subjective judgment involving pain severity. In four experiments, we demonstrate that judgments of whether specific interrogation tactics constitute torture are subject to an empathy gap: People who are experiencing even a mild version of the specific pain produced by an interrogation tactic are more likely to classify that tactic as torture or as unethical than are those who are not experiencing pain. This discrepancy could result from an overestimation of the pain of torture by people in pain, an underestimation of the pain of torture by those not in pain, or both. The fourth experiment shows that the discrepancy results from an underestimation of pain by people who are not experiencing it. Given that legal standards guiding torture are typically established by people who are not in pain, this research suggests that practices that do constitute torture are likely to not be classified as such.
Article
Full-text available
Three studies test whether group members strategically shift the standard of judgment they use to decide whether a particular ingroup action was unjust. In Study 1, individuals who were highly identified with their ingroup set higher confirmatory injustice standards than low identifiers-they needed more evidence to conclude that their group acted unjustly. This led to reductions in judgments of harm and diminished collective guilt. In Study 2, group identification was experimentally manipulated and the results of Study 1 were replicated. In Study 3, stronger support is provided for the motivational nature of this process. Specifically, the motivation to shift the standard upward was decreased by providing group members with an opportunity to self-affirm at the group level. Participants who self-affirmed set lower confirmatory standards of injustice, rated the harm as more severe, and experienced greater collective guilt than, those not self-affirming. Implications of this quantitative standard shifting are discussed.
Article
Full-text available
Under the guise of an experiment on the perception of emotional cues, 72 undergraduate female Ss observed a peer (victim) participating in a paired-associate learning task. The victim, as a result of making the usual errors, appeared to receive severe and painful electric shocks (negative reinforcement). In describing the suffering victim after these observations, Ss rejected and devalued her when they believed that they would continue to see her suffer in a 2nd session, and when they were powerless to alter the victim's fate. Rejection and devaluation were strongest when the victim was viewed as suffering for the sake of Ss ("martyr" condition). These results offer support for the hypothesis that rejection and devaluation of a suffering victim are primarily based on the O's need to believe in a just world.
Article
Full-text available
Widespread violence in a society must have its origins in cultural characteristics, current societal conditions, or both. In this article, the cultural, societal, and psychological origins of two very different forms of violence are examined. A conception of the origins of genocide and mass killing is briefly presented, with the Holocaust and the violence in the former Yugoslavia as supporting evidence. Difficult life conditions give rise to scapegoating, destructive ideologies, and the evolution of increasing violence against a designated enemy. Cultural characteristics that make this process more or less probable are described. This is followed by a presentation of the socialization experiences of children that generate youth violence. To explain the increase in youth violence, the presence of difficult life conditions in the United States is noted (due primarily to substantial social change). The effects of difficult life conditions, cultural characteristics, and social conditions such as poverty and discrimination against minority groups on family life and parenting are described. Similarities and differences in the origins of the two forms of violence are examined. The role of unfulfilled or frustrated basic human needs in generating violence is stressed, and conditions and actions required to reduce violence are proposed.
Article
Full-text available
Results of 3 experiments suggest that feeling empathy for a member of a stigmatized group can improve attitudes toward the group as a whole. In Experiments 1 and 2, inducing empathy for a young woman with AIDS (Experiment 1) or a homeless man (Experiment 2) led to more positive attitudes toward people with AIDS or toward the homeless, respectively. Experiment 3 tested possible limits of the empathy-attitude effect by inducing empathy toward a member of a highly stigmatized group, convicted murderers, and measuring attitudes toward this group immediately and then 1-2 weeks later. Results provided only weak evidence of improved attitudes toward murderers immediately but strong evidence of improved attitudes 1-2 weeks later.
Article
Full-text available
Three studies tested the idea that when social identity is salient, group-based appraisals elicit specific emotions and action tendencies toward out-groups. Participants' group memberships were made salient and the collective support apparently enjoyed by the in-group was measured or manipulated. The authors then measured anger and fear (Studies 1 and 2) and anger and contempt (Study 3), as well as the desire to move against or away from the out-group. Intergroup anger was distinct from intergroup fear, and the inclination to act against the out-group was distinct from the tendency to move away from it. Participants who perceived the in-group as strong were more likely to experience anger toward the out-group and to desire to take action against it. The effects of perceived in-group strength on offensive action tendencies were mediated by anger.
Article
Full-text available
The authors predicted that derogation of group deviants depends on the extent to which in-group norms or values are validated or undermined in a social context. In Experiment 1 participants were less tolerant and derogated in-group deviants more when other in-group members opposed the norm. In Experiment 2 participants derogated in-group deviants more than out-group deviants and than noncategorized individuals, but only when normative in-group members lacked uniformity. In Experiment 3 participants derogated in-group deviants more when there was uncertainty about in-group superiority. These results are consistent with previous research on the black sheep effect (J. M. Marques, V. Y. Yzerbyt, & J. -P. Leyens, 1988) and with the model of subjective group dynamics (D. Abrams, J. M. Marques, N. J. Bown, & M. Henson, 2000; J. M. Marques, D. Abrams, D. Paez, & C. Martinez-Taboada, 1998).
Article
Full-text available
In this chapter, we examine the self and identity by considering the different conditions under which these are affected by the groups to which people belong. From a social identity perspective we argue that group commitment, on the one hand, and features of the social context, on the other hand, are crucial determinants of central identity concerns. We develop a taxonomy of situations to reflect the different concerns and motives that come into play as a result of threats to personal and group identity and degree of commitment to the group. We specify for each cell in this taxonomy how these issues of self and social identity impinge upon a broad variety of responses at the perceptual, affective, and behavioral level.
Article
Full-text available
Three studies support the vicarious dissonance hypothesis that individuals change their attitudes when witnessing members of important groups engage in inconsistent behavior. Study 1, in which participants observed an actor in an induced-compliance paradigm, documented that students who identified with their college supported an issue more after hearing an ingroup member make a counterattitudinal speech in favor of that issue. In Study 2, vicarious dissonance occurred even when participants did not hear a speech, and attitude change was highest when the speaker was known to disagree with the issue. Study 3 showed that speaker choice and aversive consequences moderated vicarious dissonance, and demonstrated that vicarious discomfort--the discomfort observers imagine feeling if in an actor's place--was attenuated after participants expressed their revised attitudes.
Article
Full-text available
The concept of dehumanization lacks a systematic theoretical basis, and research that addresses it has yet to be integrated. Manifestations and theories of dehumanization are reviewed, and a new model is developed. Two forms of dehumanization are proposed, involving the denial to others of 2 distinct senses of humanness: characteristics that are uniquely human and those that constitute human nature. Denying uniquely human attributes to others represents them as animal-like, and denying human nature to others represents them as objects or automata. Cognitive underpinnings of the "animalistic" and "mechanistic" forms of dehumanization are proposed. An expanded sense of dehumanization emerges, in which the phenomenon is not unitary, is not restricted to the intergroup context, and does not occur only under conditions of conflict or extreme negative evaluation. Instead, dehumanization becomes an everyday social phenomenon, rooted in ordinary social-cognitive processes.
Article
Full-text available
In two studies (Ns=163, 164), the authors tested the prediction that perceptions of group variability can steer and guide the way that loyalty is expressed in times of identity threat. In both studies, participants were classified as lower or higher identifiers on the basis of their scores on a group identification measure, and manipulations involved group variability perceptions (homogeneous ingroup vs. heterogeneous ingroup) and threat to the ingroup. Higher identifiers presented with a homogeneous ingroup perceived more ingroup homogeneity under threat than when there was no threat. In contrast, higher identifiers who perceived the ingroup initially as heterogeneous perceived more ingroup heterogeneity under threat than in no threat conditions. Lower identifiers perceived more ingroup heterogeneity under threat (vs. no threat) irrespective of manipulated group variability perceptions. Discussion focuses on different ways that group loyalty can be expressed in times of identity threat.
Article
Full-text available
Two experiments were run in The Netherlands and Belgium 1 week after the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. The aim was to investigate whether social categorization affected emotional reactions, behavioral tendencies, and actual behaviors. Results showed that focusing participants' attention on an identity that included American victims into a common ingroup led them to report more fear and stronger fear-related behavioral tendencies and to engage more often in fear-related behaviors than when victims were categorized as outgroup members. Results are discussed with respect to appraisal theories of emotion and E. R. Smith's model of group-based emotions.
Chapter
Emotion can result from interpreting group actions as reflecting on the self due to an association between the two. This volume considers the nature of collective guilt, the antecedent conditions necessary for it to be experienced, how it can be measured, as well as how collective guilt differs from other group based emotions. Research from Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, and the USA addresses critical questions concerning the who, when, and why of the experience of collective guilt. The political implications of collective guilt and forgiveness for the past are considered, and how those might depend on the national context. How collective guilt can be harnessed and used to create a more peaceful future for groups with a history of violence between then is emphasized.
Chapter
Organizational Identity presents the classic works on organizational identity alongside more current thinking on the issues. Ranging from theoretical contributions to empirical studies, the readings in this volume address the key issues of organizational identity, and show how these issues have developed through contributions from such diverse fields of study as sociology, psychology, management studies and cultural studies. The readings examine questions such as how organizations understand who they are, why organizations develop a sense of identity and belonging where the boundaries of identity lie and the implications of postmodern and critical theories' challenges to the concept of identity as deeply-rooted and authentic. Includes work by: Stuart Albert, Mats Alvesson, Blake E. Ashforth, Marilynn B. Brewer, George Cheney, Lars Thoger Christensen, C.H. Cooley, Kevin G. Corley, Barbara Czarniawska, Janet M. Dukerich, Jane E. Dutton, Kimberly D. Elsbach, Wendi Gardner, Linda E. Ginzela, Dennis A. Gioia, E. Goffman, Karen Golden-Biddle, Mary Jo Hatch, Roderick M. Kramer, Fred Rael, G.H. Mead, Michael G. Pratt, Anat Rafaeli, Hayagreeva Rao, Majken Schultz, Howard S. Schwartz, Robert I. Sutton, Henri Taijfel, John Turner, David A. Wherren, and Hugh Willmott. Intended to provide easy access to this material for students of organizational identity, it will also be of interest more broadly to students of business, sociology and psychology.
Article
1. The Belief in a Just World.- 2. The First Experiment: The Effect of Fortuitous Reward.- 3. The Second Experiment: Observers' Reactions to the "Innocent Victim".- 4. The Third Experiment: The Martyred and Innocent Victims.- 5. Three Experiments That Assess the Effects of Sex and Educational Background of Observers, Experimenter and Observer Influence on One Another, and the Reactions of "Informed" and Nonimplicated Observers.- 6. Reactions to the Belief in a Just World Theory and Findings: The "Nay-Sayers".- 7. Condemning the Victimized.- 8. The Assignment of Blame.- 9. The Response to Victimization: Extreme Tests of the Belief in a Just World.- 10. Who Believes in a Just World: Dimension or Style.- 11. Deserving versus Justice.- References.
Article
Research reveals that inducing empathy for a member of a stigmatized group can improve attitudes toward the group as a whole. But do these more positive attitudes translate into action on behalf of the group? Results of an experiment suggested an affirmative answer to this question. Undergraduates first listened to an interview with a convicted heroin addict and dealer; they were then given a chance to recommend allocation of Student Senate funds to an agency to help drug addicts. (The agency would not help the addict whose interview they heard.) Participants induced to feel empathy for the addict allocated more funds to the agency. Replicating past results, these participants also reported more positive attitudes toward people addicted to hard drugs. In addition, an experimental condition in which participants were induced to feel empathy for a fictional addict marginally increased action on behalf of, and more positive attitudes toward, drug addicts.
Article
The outrage over revelations of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison has faded from public discourse, but a number of questions remain unanswered. This paper criticizes official rationalizations offered for the abuse. We make the case that these abuses are systemic, resulting from dehumanization of the enemy and the long reliance on and refinement of torture by the United States national security agencies. We also consider the spread of torture in the current war “on terror,” and we call on sociologists to become involved in the study of torture and prisoner abuse.
Article
Thinking about the benefits gained from a privileged group membership can threaten social identity and evoke justification of the existing status difference between the ingroup and a disadvantaged group. For White Americans, racial privilege may be justified by concurring with modern racist attitudes. In Experiment 1, White Americans randomly assigned to think about White privilege expressed greater modern racism compared to those assigned to think about White disadvantage or a race-irrelevant topic. In Experiment 2, we found that increased racism in response to thoughts of White privilege was limited to those who highly identified with their racial category. In contrast, when White racial identification was sufficiently low, thoughts of White privilege reliably reduced modern racism. We discuss the implications of these findings for the meaning of modern racism and prejudice reduction. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Chapter
Reconciliation: What It Is and What It Is NotThe Importance of Reconciling with the PastAntecedents to ReconciliationImportance of Perpetrator GuiltImportance of ApologyThe Importance of ForgivenessThe Costs of ForgivingConclusions References
Article
Moral exclusion occurs when individuals or groups are perceived as outside the boundary in which moral values, rules, and considerations of fairness apply. Those who are morally excluded are perceived as nonentities, expendable, or undeserving. Consequently, harming or exploiting them appears to be appropriate, acceptable, or just. This broad definition encompasses both severe and mild forms of moral exclusion, from genocide to discrimination. The paper discusses the antecedents and symptoms of moral exclusion, and the interaction between the psychological and social factors that foster its development. Empirical research on moral exclusion is needed to pinpoint its causes, to predict its progression, and to effect change in social issues that involve the removal of victims from our moral communities. The last section of the paper introduces the articles that follow.
Article
Moral conduct is motivated and regulated mainly by the ongoing exercise of self-reactive influence. But self-regulatory mechanisms do not operate unless they are activated, and there are different psychological mechanisms by which moral control can be selectively activated or disengaged from inhumane conduct. Self-sanctions can be disengaged by reconstruing detrimental conduct through moral justification, euphemistic labeling, and advantageous contrast with other inhumanities; by obscuring personal agency in detrimental activities through diffusion and displacement of responsibility; by disregarding or misrepresenting the harmful consequences of inhumane conduct; and by blaming and dehumanizing the victims. These mechanisms of moral disengagement operate not only in the perpetration of inhumanities under extraordinary circumstances, but in everyday situations where people routinely perform activities that bring personal benefits at injurious costs to others. Given the many psychological devices for disengagement of moral control, societies cannot rely solely on individuals, however honorable their standards, to provide safeguards against inhumanities. To function humanely, societies must establish effective social safeguards against moral disengagement practices that foster exploitive and destructive conduct.
Article
Previous research into intergroup attribution has addressed mainly the behavior of groups to which members are ascribed (e.g. gender, race). The attribution processes of groups of which membership is achieved (e.g. friendship groups) is less well understood, and the current study sought to address this. Fifty-five undergraduate participants were asked to explain the positive and negative behavior of a member of the in-group and a member of the out-group. As predicted, the participants attributed an in-group member's positive behavior more, and their negative behavior less, to internal, global, and specific causes than they did the corresponding behavior of an out-group member. There was also evidence that the participants employed a strategy of out-group derogation in their attributions: they made a higher intemality rating for an out-group member's negative behavior than they did for that person's positive behavior. It is proposed that the current study's use of achieved groups maximized participants' levels of group identification, and that this in turn motivated behavioral strategies aimed at protecting that identity.
Article
Three experiments (N=370) investigated the effects of social categorization on the experience of empathy. In Experiment 1, university students reported their empathy for, and intentions to help, a student who described a distressful experience. As predicted, participants reported stronger empathy and helping intentions when the student belonged to an ingroup compared to an outgroup university. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that stronger empathy for outgroup members was experienced following the activation of an ingroup norm that prescribed the experience of this emotion. Activating this norm also led to the expression of more positive attitudes towards the outgroup (Experiment 3), and empathy fully mediated this effect. These findings indicate that like other emotions, empathy is influenced by social categorization processes.
Article
Hypotheses involving mediation are common in the behavioral sciences. Mediation exists when a predictor affects a dependent variable indirectly through at least one intervening variable, or mediator. Methods to assess mediation involving multiple simultaneous mediators have received little attention in the methodological literature despite a clear need. We provide an overview of simple and multiple mediation and explore three approaches that can be used to investigate indirect processes, as well as methods for contrasting two or more mediators within a single model. We present an illustrative example, assessing and contrasting potential mediators of the relationship between the helpfulness of socialization agents and job satisfaction. We also provide SAS and SPSS macros, as well as Mplus and LISREL syntax, to facilitate the use of these methods in applications.
Article
Research on moral judgment has been dominated by rationalist models, in which moral judgment is thought to be caused by moral reasoning. The author gives 4 reasons for considering the hypothesis that moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached. The social intuitionist model is presented as an alternative to rationalist models. The model is a social model in that it deemphasizes the private reasoning done by individuals and emphasizes instead the importance of social and cultural influences. The model is an intuitionist model in that it states that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions). The model is more consistent that rationalist models with recent findings in social, cultural, evolutionary, and biological psychology, as well as in anthropology and primatology.
Article
Researchers often conduct mediation analysis in order to indirectly assess the effect of a proposed cause on some outcome through a proposed mediator. The utility of mediation analysis stems from its ability to go beyond the merely descriptive to a more functional understanding of the relationships among variables. A necessary component of mediation is a statistically and practically significant indirect effect. Although mediation hypotheses are frequently explored in psychological research, formal significance tests of indirect effects are rarely conducted. After a brief overview of mediation, we argue the importance of directly testing the significance of indirect effects and provide SPSS and SAS macros that facilitate estimation of the indirect effect with a normal theory approach and a bootstrap approach to obtaining confidence intervals, as well as the traditional approach advocated by Baron and Kenny (1986). We hope that this discussion and the macros will enhance the frequency of formal mediation tests in the psychology literature. Electronic copies of these macros may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society's Web archive at www.psychonomic.org/archive/.
Explanations for positive and negative behavior: The intergroup attribution bias in achieved groups Intergroup emotions and self-categorization: The impact of perspective-taking on reactions to victims of harmful behavior
  • M Tarrant
  • A C North
  • V Y Yzerbyt
  • M Dumont
  • E Gordijn
  • D Wigboldus
Tarrant, M., & North, A. C. (2004). Explanations for positive and negative behavior: The intergroup attribution bias in achieved groups. Current Psychology, 23, 161–172, doi:10.1007/BF02903076. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Retrieved April 13 2010 from. http:// www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ Yzerbyt, V. Y., Dumont, M., Gordijn, E., & Wigboldus, D. (2002). Intergroup emotions and self-categorization: The impact of perspective-taking on reactions to victims of harmful behavior. In D. Mackie, & E. Smith (Eds.), From prejudice to intergroup emotions (pp. 67–88). Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.
Obama releases Bush torture memos. The Guardian
  • E Macaskill
MacAskill, E. (2009). Obama releases Bush torture memos. The Guardian. Retrieved 04.04.11 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/16/torture-memos-bush-administration.
Moral exclusion and injustice: An introduction doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560 SPSS and SAS procedures for estimating indirect effects in simple mediation models
  • S Opotow
Opotow, S. (1990). Moral exclusion and injustice: An introduction. Journal of Social Issues, 46, 1–20, doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1990.tb00268. Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2004). SPSS and SAS procedures for estimating indirect effects in simple mediation models. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 36, 717–731.
Blair apologises over Iraq abuse. Retrieved 14.07.09 from
  • T Blair
Blair, T. (2004). Blair apologises over Iraq abuse. Retrieved 14.07.09 from. http://news. bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3698269.stm
Confronting the past to create a better future: The antecedents and benefits of intergroup forgiveness
  • Branscombe
Branscombe, N. R., & Cronin, T. (2010). Confronting the past to create a better future: The antecedents and benefits of intergroup forgiveness. In A. Azzi, X. Chryssochoou, B. Klandermans, & B. Simon (Eds.), Identity and participation in culturally diverse societies (pp. 338–358). New York: Wiley-Blackwell, doi:10.1002/9781444328158.ch17.
Antecedents and consequences of collective guilt From prejudice to intergroup emotions: Differentiated reactions to social groups
  • N R Branscombe
  • B Doosje
  • C Mcgarty
Branscombe, N. R., Doosje, B., & McGarty, C. (2002). Antecedents and consequences of collective guilt. In D. M. Makie, & E. R. Smith (Eds.), From prejudice to intergroup emotions: Differentiated reactions to social groups (pp. 49–66). Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press, doi:10.1177/1368430206064637.
Antecedents and consequences of collective guilt
  • Branscombe