People excuse immorality from in-group members arbitrarily defined

Evidence

When the other half of the subjects were asked to watch a videotape of the liars and cheaters, they condemned them—unless they were wearing the same color wristband. If we are willing to excuse immoral behavior based on something as trivial as a wristband, imagine how our reasoning might be affected if we were really emotionally committed. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 102

Categorization

• SEED: The wristband experiment is a crisp lever for prose about tribalism and could anchor an essay on how identity trumps ethics.
• XREF: connects to: Motivated reasoning is the motive while confirmation bias is the mechanism — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 100; Essentializing a group’s being strips them of moral membership — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice: Society,…, 535; Highly identified group members minimize collective guilt by morally reinterpreting ingroup wrongs — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2278 (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Highly identified group members minimize collective guilt by morally reinterpreting ingroup wrongs #expands (0.85) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2278
• Moral disengagement mechanisms enable justification of in-group harm. #expands (0.85) — Sonia Roccas and Yechiel Klar and Ido Liviatan, The Paradox of Group-Based Guilt, 47
• Perceived in-group moral violations trigger defensive cognitive distortions. #expands (0.85) — Sonia Roccas and Yechiel Klar and Ido Liviatan, The Paradox of Group-Based Guilt, 46
• Essentializing a group’s being strips them of moral membership #expands (0.80) — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 535
• Glorification predicts defensive denial of the in-group’s moral violations. #expands (0.80) — Sonia Roccas and Yechiel Klar and Ido Liviatan, The Paradox of Group-Based Guilt, 42
• People feel emotions for group members and deny their group’s harmful acts #expands (0.80) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2092
• People describe ingroup virtues and outgroup vices as traits, not acts #expands (0.75)
• Comparing one’s group’s offenses to worse deeds of others is a moral defense #expands (0.75) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2085
• People disengage moral self-sanctions through euphemism, justification, and dehumanization #expands (0.70) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2096
• People punish innocent group members for one member’s offense #complicates (0.70)
• Group moral disengagement exceeds the sum of individual members’ mind-sets #expands (0.70)