The source of disapproval reverses who feels most collective guilt

Evidence

When outgroups disapprove of the ingroup’s past behavior, high identification is associated with low levels of guilt. However, when the ingroup disapproves of its own past behavior, this may cause collective guilt in people who identify strongly with their group. When people are less identified with their group, disapproval of the ingroup’s past behavior by one’s own group may be less threatening and result in less collective guilt. — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt, 721

Results indicated a three-way interaction effect between both types of perspective-taking and identification with being Dutch on collective guilt. As expected, when participants were asked to take both perspectives simultaneously, a negative relation emerged between identification with being Dutch and collective guilt, indicating that lower identifiers felt more guilty than higher identifiers. This negative relation was contrasted by an unexpected positive relation between identification with being Dutch and collective guilt when participants were asked to take the perpetrator group’s perspective only. — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt, 1096

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: This is a sharp, non-obvious interaction: high identifiers experience MORE guilt when their own group confirms past wrongdoing, because they cannot escape responsibility — a counterintuitive reversal of the typical high-identify/low-guilt finding.
• SEED: Angle: how experimental framing — not content — reverses which group identity feels guilty; an essay about how the question itself biases the answer.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 721; Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 1096
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Perpetrator and victim groups favor accepting versus assigning guilt — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 152; The most loyal group members are least likely to feel collective guilt; Group identification can both enable and block feelings of group-based guilt — Sonia Roccas and Yechiel Klar and Ido Liviatan, The Paradox of Group-Based Guilt: Modes…, 16 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Adopting the perpetrator’s perspective reverses which identifiers feel most guilty #corroborates (0.85) — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt, 1065
• The most loyal group members are least likely to feel collective guilt #qualifies (0.80)
• Group identification can both enable and block feelings of group-based guilt #expands (0.80) — Sonia Roccas and Yechiel Klar and Ido Liviatan, The Paradox of Group-Based Guilt, 16
• Strongest ingroup identifiers are least likely to feel collective guilt #qualifies (0.80) — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt, 1170
• Guilt grows monotonically harder to feel as identification strengthens #qualifies (0.72) — Torsten Masson and Markus Barth, The identification-guilt paradox…, 71