Groups and morality.

Contesting the Meaning of Intergroup Disadvantage: Towards a Psychology of Resistance

“…In contrast to the prevailing view that agency and achievement are most important to people, there is a great deal of evidence that moral characteristics are what people value most in themselves and in their in-groups (e.g., for reviews, see Brambilla & Leach, 2014;Leach et al, 2015). In fact, Leach, Ellemers, and Barreto (2007) showed that moral traits like honesty and trustworthiness were more strongly tied to individuals' identification with and positive evaluation of a wide variety of in-groups.…”

“…It is typically presumed a priori, and thus never assessed, that women view men's agency as unambiguously positive and as indicative of why men are advantaged in power, status, and material wealth (for a review, see Leach, Bilali, & Pagliaro, 2015;Williams & Best, 1990). For example, in the study of sex stereotypes, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that women agree with men that men are much more "agentic" than women, whereas women are believed to be more "communal" than men.…”

Resolving the paradox of shame: Differentiating among specific appraisal-feeling combinations explains pro-social and self-defensive motivation

“…Of course, in some instances of moral failure, one's social-image is especially at risk because there is an audience of people who can morally condemn one (H.B. Lewis, 1971;Rodriguez Mosquera, Manstead, & Fischer, 2002; for reviews, see Gausel, 2013;Leach, Bilali & Pagliaro, 2014). This is why Gausel and Leach (2011) argued that a moral failure can also be appraised as raising concern about potential condemnation by others who may become aware of one's moral failure (e.g., Rodriguez Mosquera, Fischer, Manstead, & Zaalberg, 2008).…”

“…We manipulated the risk to social-image by altering the extent to which the breach of confidence was likely to become known by others. We chose this particular interpersonal breach because honesty and trustworthiness are key aspects of morality (e.g., Leach, Ellemers & Barreto, 2007; for a review, see Leach et al, 2014), and revealing secrets appeared to be a vivid and realistic example of a moral failure for the participants. Based on our conceptual model (see Figure 1), we expected moral failure to lead to an appraisal of a specific self-defect.…”

The role of lay beliefs about group transgressions in acceptance of responsibility for ingroup harm‐doing

“…Social psychological theory and research suggest that group members are motivated to deny responsibility for ingroup transgressions because committing harm threatens the ingroup's moral integrity (Leach, Bilali, & Pagliaro, 2014). What strategies can increase group members' propensity to admit their groups' responsibility for committing transgressions?…”