Rejecting whole-group accountability is a way people avoid collective guilt

Evidence

In order for a person to experience feelings of collective guilt they must be willing to accept responsibility for the ingroup actions, even if they themselves had no part in the event. To the extent that people deny any form of collective responsibility and claim that only the individuals who perpetrated the harm directly can be assigned responsibility, then the experience of collective guilt is likely to be minimal. Branscombe et al. (2004) refer to the belief that groups can be held accountable for the actions of its members as ‘whole group accountability’, and fi nd that agreement with this belief is positively correlated with the extent to which people report feeling collective guilt. Thus, one way for people to avoid the negative feeling of collective guilt is to take an ideological position that rejects the idea that whole groups can be assigned blame for the actions of some of their members. — Michael T. Schmitt, Daniel A. Miller, Nyla R. Branscombe, and Jack W. Brehm, The Difficulty of Making Reparations…, 17

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘whole group accountability’ as described by Branscombe et al. (2004).
• ADDENDUM: Directly reinforces the institutional-apology-asymmetry claim from the existing synthesis, since responsibility minimization is a plausible mechanism for reduced collective guilt.
• XREF: connects to: Group members legitimize their ingroup’s harmful actions to avoid guilt — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 53; People proactively avoid information that could trigger collective guilt. — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 454; People treat personal apology acts like signing a Sorry Book as collective action — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 857 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Highly identified group members resist feeling collective guilt by reinterpreting events #exemplifies (0.85) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2278
• Highly identified group members minimize collective guilt by morally reinterpreting ingroup wrongs #exemplifies (0.82) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2278
• Perceiving a group’s wrongdoing as situationally justifiable blocks collective guilt #exemplifies (0.78) — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt, 297
• Collective victimization typically suppresses acceptance of collective guilt #expands (0.75) — Sandra Penic, Guy Elcheroth, and Dario Spini, When Is Collective Exposure to War…, 8
• Anticipated accountability suppresses willingness to harm out-groups #complicates (0.72) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1403