Group norms that mandate honesty may blunt the guilt-suppressing effect of high self-investment.
Evidence
Group membership does not only affect emotional responses. Groups also inform behavior through social norms. As such, norms that favor acceptance of past in-group crimes or norms that demand honesty and an unbiased worldview from in-group members might counterbalance an individual’s need to defend the group from identity threats (McGarty & Bliuc, 2004). If that were the case, there should no longer be a decrease in collective guilt for highly invested group members (especially since high self-investment should facilitate norm compliance; Masson & Fritsche, 2014). — Torsten Masson and Markus Barth, The identification-guilt paradox…, 73
Categorization
- QUESTION: Could norm-contingent suppression of guilt offer a path toward reversing glorification trajectories, since the mechanism is not inherent to identification but something norms set within bounds?
- SEED: The claim that high self-investment actually facilitates norm compliance, whatever the norm’s content, has an article-worthy tension: strong identifiers obey group norms of accountability just as readily as group norms of denial.
- XREF: connects to: Group self-investment relates to collective guilt in an inverted-U curve. — Torsten Masson and Markus Barth, The identification-guilt paradox…, 52; Group self-investment predicts guilt up to a tipping point where further investment suppresses it — Torsten Masson and Markus Barth, The identification-guilt paradox…, 60; High identification with a group suppresses collective guilt, not only enables it. — Torsten Masson and Markus Barth, The identification-guilt paradox…, 63 (+1 more)
Related
- Group self-investment predicts guilt up to a tipping point where further investment suppresses it (similarity 0.88)
- Group-based guilt peaks at medium self-investment and drops at high levels (similarity 0.85)
- High identification with a group suppresses collective guilt, not only enables it. (similarity 0.84)
- In-group identification relates to collective guilt in a non-linear fashion. (similarity 0.83)
- Group self-investment relates to collective guilt in an inverted-U curve. (similarity 0.83)
- Torsten Masson and Markus Barth — The identification-guilt paradox revisited – Evidence for a curvilinear relationship between group-level self-investment and group-based guilt (similarity 0.83)
- Both weak and strong group identifiers resist compensation but for opposite reasons (similarity 0.82)
- Strongly identified group members resist collective guilt more than weakly identified ones. (similarity 0.81)
- Identification relates to collective guilt along a nonlinear inverted-U curve. (similarity 0.81)
- Guilt requires self-categorizing as a group member (similarity 0.80)
- Highly identified group members minimize collective guilt by morally reinterpreting ingroup wrongs (similarity 0.80)
- Highly identified members suppress guilt by shielding the group from threats. (similarity 0.80)
- Self-reported guilt is underestimated because guilt implicates one’s own ingroup. (similarity 0.80)
- Strongest ingroup identifiers are least likely to feel collective guilt (similarity 0.80)
- Affective group attachment, not mere membership perception, drives non-linear responses to collective guilt (similarity 0.80)