The Abstracts of the 14th Brisbane Symposium on Social Identity

Abstract

Intergroup apologies are an increasing phenomenon in contemporary society. They have been demanded, and provided, as reparation for all manner of offences from genocide to prejudicial government policies. However, whether such offerings actually affect victim appraisals of offending groups is unknown. This research examined the effectiveness of intergroup apologies for victim group members. Australian participants read a number of vignettes in which Australian interests were harmed by an outgroup. The presence or absence of an official apology was then manipulated. Results showed that apologies were effective in increasing perceptions of outgroup remorsefulness and satisfaction with the outgroup’s response. Despite this, apologies were not effective in evoking forgiveness for the offending group. This qualification on apology effectiveness existed regardless of the extent of the apology, the time given to process the apology, or whether ingroup support existed for forgiveness. This lies in contrast to our findings that forgiveness of an individual outgroup member could be produced through an individual apology. Further results showing that intergroup apologies are perceived to be inspired by ulterior motivations go part way to explaining the limited potency of apologies in the intergroup context. However, additional explanations for the lack of forgiveness of intergroup apologisers are considered.