People feel emotions for group members and deny their group’s harmful acts

Evidence

Consistent with social identity theory, research has also demonstrated that individuals can experience emotions on behalf of their in-group (Mackie & Smith, 2002). Dumont, Yzerbyt, Wigboldus, and Gordjin (2003), for instance, showed that when people perceive victims of harmful behavior as belonging to their group, they feel more anger, and this anger increases their intentions to ameliorate the situation. In a context in which the in-group is not the victim, but the perpetrator, the very action attributed to the in-group may be denied (Cohen, 2001). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2092

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Compassion directed through collectives secretly threatens those it claims to help; Nazi-era German society reacted to atrocity with numbed, anaesthetized emotion. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 260; Group silence about workplace harm coexists with genuine private sympathy — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 958 (+5 more)