People retaliate harder against cohesive groups after one member harms them

Evidence

Entitative groups not only foster greater collective responsibility but they also foster more retributive acts of aggression (Gaertner, Iuzzini, & O’Mara, 2008). Gaertner et al. (2008) created groups consisting of one participant and three confederates, and they manipulated the entitativity of the confederates. During the experiment the participant was rudely rejected by one of the confederates and was removed from the group. Later, the participant had an opportunity for retributive aggression by administering a loud noise to the three remaining group members. Consistent with predictions, the participant was much more willing to aggress against the three-person group, by using the noise 44 • David L. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 272

Categorization

• XREF: This parallels the retaliatory aggression findings likely covered later in the book, and connects to moral responsibility models where vicarious blame scales with group cohesion. — connects to: Collective blame drives vicarious retribution spirals that escalate intergroup conflict. — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 351