Antecedents and Consequences of Satisfaction and Guilt Following Ingroup Aggression

Abstract

Three studies investigated the role of intergroup satisfaction in intergroup conflict. After reading about real acts of aggression committed by an ingroup, participants reported how those actions made them feel and how much they would support similar aggression in the future. In all three studies, experiencing intergroup satisfaction increased support for similar aggression, whereas experiencing intergroup guilt decreased support for similar aggression. Study 2 showed that ingroup identification increased justification appraisals, which increased satisfaction and decreased guilt, and thus increased support for future aggression. Study 3 provided an experimental test of the model: when justification appraisals were manipulated, emotion and support for further aggression changed accordingly. These findings demonstrate conditions under which intergroup satisfaction can facilitate and sustain intergroup conflict

“It was only harmless banter!” The development and preliminary validation of the moral disengagement in sexual harassment scale

“…Maitner, Mackie, and Smith (2007), for example, found that people experience increased satisfaction about aggressive in-group actions following the use of exonerating cognitions to excuse and justify this behavior. Numerous studies report that individual moral disengagement strategies such as attribution of blame (e.g., Doosje & Branscombe, 2003;Roccas et al, 2006) and dehumanization (e.g., Castano & Giner-Sorolla, 2006;Leidner et al, 2010) are frequently used to inhibit or attenuate negative groupbased emotions.…”

Arousal, Processing, and Risk Taking: Consequences of Intergroup Anger

“…So, for example, individuals who are asked to think about themselves as women, say, or as Americans, show far more similarity in the specific emotions they report experiencing than they do when explicitly asked to think about themselves as unique individuals. In both cases, whether group-based emotions are chronic and general or acute and event specific, group members more highly identified with the group show such effects more strongly than those less identified with the group (e.g., Maitner, Mackie, & Smith, 2007;Smith et al, 2007).…”

“…The experience of collective guilt motivates a desire to compensate the harmed outgroup or avoid similar behavior in the future (Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 1998). Finally, satisfaction with an action taken toward another group motivates a desire to engage in similar behavior in the future (Maitner et al, 2007). Thus, a range of intergroup emotions has been shown to motivate the desire for specific intergroup behaviors.…”

“…First, intergroup anger is repeatedly and reliably predictive of intergroup behavioral intentions directed both at the outgroup and ingroup. Outgroup-directed anger predicts the desire to confront the outgroup in various ways (Mackie et al, 2000;Maitner et al, 2007;Smith et al, 2007). Ingroupdirected anger predicts the desire to have the ingroup right a perceived wrong (Maitner et al, 2007;van Zomeren, Spears, Fischer, & Leach, 2004).…”

Affective Reactions Among Students Belonging to Ethnic Groups Engaged in Prior Conflict

“…Furthermore, unsatisfactory retaliation following the experience of intergroup anger may result in increased desire to retaliate (Maitner, Mackie, & Smith, 2006). However, future desire for intergroup aggression will be reduced if in-group members of a perpetrator group feel a strong sense of guilt compared with those with low guilt (Maitner, Mackie, & Smith, 2007).…”