1,488
Views
22
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
REGULAR ARTICLES

Me against we: In-group transgression, collective shame, and in-group-directed hostility

, &
Pages 634-649 | Received 05 Nov 2010, Accepted 27 May 2011, Published online: 10 Aug 2011
 

Abstract

People can experience great distress when a group to which they belong (in-group) is perceived to have committed an immoral act. We hypothesised that people would direct hostility toward a transgressing in-group whose actions threaten their self-image and evoke collective shame. Consistent with this theorising, three studies found that reminders of in-group transgression provoked several expressions of in-group-directed hostility, including in-group-directed hostile emotion (Studies 1 and 2), in-group-directed derogation (Study 2), and in-group-directed punishment (Study 3). Across studies, collective shame—but not the related group-based emotion collective guilt—mediated the relationship between in-group transgression and in-group-directed hostility. Implications for group-based emotion, social identity, and group behaviour are discussed.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Corey Brown, Cara Eberhardt, John Rohrbach, and Daniel Stancato for their assistance with data collection. Paul K. Piff was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Andres G. Martinez was supported by an IGERT fellowship from the National Science Foundation.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.