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

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.

Keywords:

• In-group transgression
• In-group-directed hostility
• Collective shame
• Collective guilt

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.