Perceived justification of ingroup harm blocks collective guilt regardless of harm severity

Evidence

Because collective guilt is an aversive emotion, people are likely to be motivated to avoid it if possible, and appraise the situation in ways that protect their own group’s identity (Baumeister & Hastings, 1997). A variety of strategies have been suggested as means by which people avoid collective guilt when they are confronted with the harm done by their ingroup (see Branscombe & Miron, 2004). Many of the specific options that have been theorized concern justification of the harm done. To the extent that the ingroup’s actions are perceived as justified, then little collective guilt should result, no matter how extreme the harm done. For example, during World War II, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the civilian population of Japan that killed hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki alone. Americans, we suspect, have so heavily justified these actions in terms of their necessity for successfully bringing the war to a close that reminders of the harm done to the Japanese by the ingroup would be unlikely to induce any collective guilt. Such justification processes appear to be a way of preventing the distress that would otherwise occur if the ingroup’s harmful actions were perceived as unjustified and, therefore, immoral. As a result, justification processes, particularly those that invoke noble ingroup purposes, are an effective deterrent to collective guilt even when the harmful outcome is salient and severe. — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt, 156

Categorization

• DEFINE: Helps establish that guilt requires perceiving the ingroup’s harm as unjustified, a precondition relevant to how attachment (allowing criticism) versus glorification (denying wrongdoing) diverges.
• XREF: connects to: Collective guilt is felt when the self’s group illegitimately harmed another group — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 0; Group members legitimize their ingroup’s harmful actions to avoid guilt — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 53; Perceived group responsibility for inequity produces collective guilt — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 441 (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• Perceiving a group’s wrongdoing as situationally justifiable blocks collective guilt #corroborates (0.93) — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt, 297
• 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
• Highly identified group members minimize collective guilt by morally reinterpreting ingroup wrongs #expands (0.78) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2278
• Experiencing symmetric intergroup violence predicts greater acceptance of one’s group’s collective guilt. #complicates (0.75) — Sandra Penic, Guy Elcheroth, and Dario Spini, When Is Collective Exposure to War…, 37
• Collective victimization typically suppresses acceptance of collective guilt #corroborates (0.74) — Sandra Penic, Guy Elcheroth, and Dario Spini, When Is Collective Exposure to War…, 8
• Type of ingroup association moderates whether collective guilt or shame is evoked #qualifies (0.72) — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt, 325