The Difficulty of Making Reparations Affects the Intensity of Collective Guilt

Abstract

We examined how the difficulty of making reparations for the harm done to another group affects the intensity of collective guilt. Men were confronted with information documenting male privilege and were told that they would have a chance to help women and reduce patriarchy by collecting signatures on a petition. We manipulated the difficulty of making reparations by asking participants to collect 5, 50, or 100 signatures. As predicted by Brehm's (1999) theory of emotional intensity, collective guilt was a non-monotonic function of the difficulty of making reparations. Men in the moderate difficulty (50 signatures) condition expressed greater collective guilt than participants in the low (5) or high (100) difficulty conditions. Results are discussed in terms of the implications for the theory of emotional intensity, collective guilt, and collective emotions more generally.