Abstract
Three studies examined how members of a national group react to in-group wrongdoings. We expected that perceived in-group moral superiority would lead to unwillingness to repair the aggression. We also expected that internal-focused emotions such as group-based guilt and group-based shame would predict specific, misdeed-related reparative intentions but not general approach motivation toward the victim groups. In Study 1, facing the in-group’s recent aggression, participants who believed that the Hungarians have been more moral throughout their history than members of other nations, used more exonerating cognitions, experienced less in-group critical emotions and showed less willingness to provide reparations for the members of the victim group. Study 2 and Study 3 confirmed most findings of Study 1. Perceived in-group moral superiority directly or indirectly reduced willingness to provide either general or specific reparations, while internally focused in-group critical emotions predicted specific misdeed-related reparative intentions but not general approach motivation. The role of emotional attachment to the in-group is considered.
Highlights
“It is striking how quickly the assumption that the angel is analogous with Hungary has gained ground,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wrote
That the exonerating cognitions and the in-group critical, in-group focused emotions mediate the effects of perceived in-group moral superiority on reparative intentions, we conducted a parallel multiple mediation analysis using Model 4 of the PROCESS macro offered by Hayes (2013)
The mediation analysis examined the indirect effects of perceived in-group moral superiority on specific, misdeedrelated reparative intentions through exonerating cognitions and in-group critical, in-group focused emotions, controlling for emotional attachment to the in-group
Summary
“It is striking how quickly the assumption that the angel is analogous with Hungary has gained ground,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wrote. It is easy to see the intended message of the monument: above there is the perpetrator eagle and below there is the Hungarian angel, the victim. One important objective of the research was to reveal that perceived in-group moral superiority reduces reparative intentions related to specific misdeeds and the general motivation to restore the relations with the concerned out-group. The relationship between perceived moral superiority and reparative intentions was examined by presenting participants with four accounts of intergroup events involving in-group aggression. These accounts were used to assess the use of exonerating cognitions, the experience of group-based emotions and the importance of emotional attachment to the in-group
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