Collective guilt: Emotional reactions when one's group has done wrong or been wronged

Wohl, Michael J. A.; Branscombe, Nyla R.; Klar, Yechiel

doi:10.1080/10463280600574815

Cited by 274 publications

(298 citation statements)

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“…Identification with a social group is perceived in research as a prerequisite of collective moral emotions (Wohl et al, 2006). More intense emotional reactions to more abstract versus more concrete language might be explained by the fact that highly abstract descriptions of negative behavior could more strongly affect the group perception as compared to concrete ones.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the one hand (and as we hypothesize in our work) -an individual must be identified with a group to experience any group-based emotions (e.g. Wohl et al, 2006). On the other, people highly identified with their in-group may be more likely to downplay the negative ingroup behavior (e.g.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Negative moral emotions, such as shame, guilt, anger, or regret can be experienced not only on the individual level, but also by association with group members who committed immoral acts (Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 1998). The prerequisite to feel such emotion is an internal attribution of collective responsibility among group members, and is part of self-categorization as a member of a perpetrator group (Lickel, et al, 2007;Wohl et al, 2006). This might be the reason why collective moral emotions are so rare and in most Unauthenticated Download Date | 5/10/18 8:48 AM cases (particularly when the negative incidents are presented in a relatively concrete way) are hard to elicit (Klar & Branscombe, 2016;Leach, Zeinnedine, & Cehajic-Clancy, 2013).…”

Section: The Present Research: Linguistic Abstractness and Negative Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The usage of a more concrete language (e.g., a descriptive action verb "the government ordered that the Armenians should be relocated") would lead to a less dispositional attribution than the use of a more abstract language (e.g., an interpretative action verb: "the government harmed the Armenians", or an adjective: "the government was cruel to the Armenians"). Collective moral emotions of guilt and shame stem from self-categorization as a member of the perpetrator group, as well as dispositional attribution of a controllable behavior of fellow ingroup members that results in negative outcomes for an outgroup (Lickel, Schmader, & Spanovic, 2007;Wohl, Branscombe, & Klar, 2006). Based on this, we expect that higher linguistic abstractness of a description of an event should elicit more collective moral emotions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Language of Responsibility. The Influence of Linguistic Abstraction on Collective Moral Emotions

Bilewicz

Stefaniak

Witkowska

et al. 2017

Psychology of Language and Communication

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Two experiments investigated the effects of linguistic abstractness on the experience of collective moral emotions. In Experiment 1 participants were presented with two scenarios about ingroup misbehavior, phrased using descriptive action verbs, interpretative action verbs, adjectives or nouns. The results show that participants experienced slightly more negative moral emotions with higher levels of linguistic abstractness. In Experiment 2 we also tested for the influence of national identification on the relationship between linguistic abstractness and emotional reactions. Additionally, we expanded the number of scenarios. Experiment 2 replicated the earlier pattern, but found larger differences between conditions. The strength of national identification did not moderate the observed effects. The results of this research are discussed within the context of the linguistic category model and psychology of collective moral emotions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Present Research: Linguistic Abstractness and Negative Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Language of Responsibility. The Influence of Linguistic Abstraction on Collective Moral Emotions

Bilewicz

Stefaniak

Witkowska

et al. 2017

Psychology of Language and Communication

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“…Son dönemlerde başta Amerika ve Kanada olmak üzere birçok ülkede araştırmacıların bu sorular üzerine yaptıkları araştırmalar devam etmektedir. Bu makalenin ana amacı Sosyal Psikoloji'de 2000'li yılların başlarında yeni bir çalışma alanı olarak ortaya çıkan kolektif suçluluk duyma ve bu duygudan kaçınmak için verilen tepkiler hakkındaki (örn., Branscombe, 2004;Doosje ve ark., 1998;Wohl, Branscombe ve Klar, 2006) çalışmaların tanıtılması ve derlenerek sunulmasıdır. Böylece okuyucunun yukarıda belirtilen sorular hakkında ne tür çalışmalar olduğu konusunda bilgilendirilmesi ve araştırmacıların ajandalarına yeni araştırma konuları eklemesine yardımcı olunması planlanmaktadır.…”

Section: öZunclassified

Collective Guilt: Antecedets, Outcomes, and Ways of Avoding

Sakallı-Uğurlu¹,

Soylu²

2016

Nesne

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The aim of this article is to present the studies that illustrate collective guilt-a common phenomenon observed in the context of intergroup relations as a consequence of harming another group and stems from sharing group membership with the harm-doers. First of all, collective guilt is defined. In this description some psychological processes used as alternatives for collective guilt are mentioned and differences of collective guilt from personel guilt and collective shame are presented. Then, whether collective guilt can be experienced on the world stage is discussed and four social psychological factors that are asserted by researchers to generate collective guilt are elaborated. These factors are self categorization as a member of a group that has harmed another group, accepting one's group to be responsible for the harm done to another group, perceiving the damaging behaviours done by ingroup as illegitimate and the cost of making reperations in terms of ingroup. Findings related to collective guilt experienced depending on mentioned four main factors and consequences of feeling collective guilt are shared. Finally, a general conclusion and future directions are presented.

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