Shared group membership alone can trigger emotional reactions to others’ harm

Evidence

Yzerbyt and his colleagues (Yzerbyt, Dumont, Gordijn, & Wigboldus, 2002) showed that when a particular self-categorization is salient, people experience emotional reactions to events that affect other ingroup members – even if the events have no direct effect on the perceiver personally. Participants read about an event that harmed another person with whom they shared one group membership (a fellow psychology student) but differed on another (a student at a rival university). Only when a subtle manipulation made their common group membership with the victim salient did participants experience anger and unhappiness, reactions based on the collective self (group membership) shared with the victim. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2266

Categorization

• XREF: Corroborates the vault’s contact-theory/self-categorization claims about when group membership produces shared emotional response. — connects to: Shared danger makes people feel close to strangers and motivates mutual help. — John Drury, The role of social identity processes…, 74; Mere ingroup membership biases members to deny their group’s causal role in harm — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 298
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 2266