Support For Reparations Research Articles

Beyond the Bank: Justice, Injustice, and Black Reparations

In this article, I provide an overview of the arguments for reparations for Black Americans, a topic that has gained significant steam in recent years, and offer a criticism of how reparations are commonly understood as financial compensation. I begin by providing the basic argument in support for reparations: Systemic racial injustices committed against Black Americans violated their rights; these violations should be considered an ongoing, enduring injustice; and such violations require restitution in the form of reparations. I argue that there are unforeseen problematic results of economic-repair-centered reparations programs, most concerning that the resources offered ignore the social or economic status of large portions of the Black communities they acknowledge harming. Offering two legislative attempts at reparations as examples, I argue that reparatory policies for Black Americans should utilize the framework of rectificatory justice in order to best attempt to set an unjust situation right.

The effects of potential benefit on support for reparations for intergroup harm.

The effects of potential benefit on support for reparations for intergroup harm.

Group-Based Emotions and Support for Reparations: A Meta-analysis

In the aftermath of intergroup harm, victim groups often claim rights for restitution. Research has assessed how members of perpetrator groups respond to such claims, revealing that group-based guilt, shame, and anger can predict support for reparations. Though they have distinct foci, these group-based emotions are based on appraisals of ingroup harmdoing and victim group disadvantage as illegitimate. This meta-analysis investigates the relationship between these three group-based emotions and support for reparations, defined as symbolic or material policies that address historical injustices or the legacies thereof. An overall estimate based on 101 effect sizes from 58 samples, N = 10,305, showed a strong effect, r = .44, and revealed no significant difference between the three types of emotions. Moderator analyses revealed that the relationship between group-based guilt and reparations was weaker when the reparations required effort and stronger when the victims were Indigenous people; for shame, the relationship was weaker when the reparations required effort and stronger when the reparations contained symbolic elements; and for anger, the relationship was stronger when the victims were Indigenous people. Future research can further disentangle the conceptual overlap between these group-based emotions by explicitly testing heretofore under-examined yet important facets of intergroup contexts such as the timeframe of harm and the nature and meaning of the proposed reparations.

Reparations and Egalitarianism

Some claim that a commitment to egalitarianism is in tension with support for reparations for historical injustice. This tension appears to arise insofar as egalitarianism is a forward-looking approach to justice: an approach that tells us what kind of world we should aim to build, where that world is not defined in terms of the decisions or actions of previous generations. Some have claimed that egalitarianism thereby renders reparations redundant (what I will refer to as the redundancy thesis). One popular option for egalitarians who aim to reject this thesis is to insist that historical injustices demand reparations when they have caused present-day inequality (the causal approach). A promising alternative, skilfully defended by Alasia Nuti in Injustice and the Reproduction of History, is to argue that historical injustices stand in need of repair when they are reproduced into the present-day, such that some past and present injustices are in fact the same injustice. In this paper, I assess these egalitarian responses to the redundancy thesis. I find that Nuti’s account is equipped to reject this thesis, but that the same lines of reply can be adopted by proponents of the causal approach. I suggest that both approaches therefore be viewed as potential ways to conceptualise the relationship between historical injustice and our present normative circumstances; and that in choosing between them, we should understand ourselves to be engaged in an ameliorative project – a project that is guided by, and designed to help us to achieve, our legitimate purposes.

Supplemental Material for The Effects of Potential Benefit on Support for Reparations for Intergroup Harm

Supplemental Material for The Effects of Potential Benefit on Support for Reparations for Intergroup Harm

The case for and causes of intraminority solidarity in support for reparations: Evidence from community and student samples in Canada

In three studies, we examined how racial/ethnic majority (i.e., White) and non-Indigenous minority participants in Canada responded to reparations for Indigenous peoples in Canada. Our goal was to understand whether and why there may be intraminority solidarity in this context. In Study 1, with a large, national survey (N = 1,947), we examined the extent to which participants agreed the government should be responsible for addressing human rights violations committed by previous governments as well as whether the government has done enough to address the wrongs committed against Indigenous peoples in Canada. With a sample of undergraduate students in Study 2 (N = 144) and another community sample in Study 3 (N = 233), we examined possible mediators of the relationship between ethnic status and support for reparations. Taken together, the results of three studies suggest that, compared to White majority Canadians, non-Indigenous minority Canadians were more supportive of providing reparations to Indigenous peoples through a complex chain of collective victimhood, inclusive victim consciousness, continued victim suffering, and solidarity.

Social representations of colonialism in Africa and in Europe: Structure and relevance for contemporary intergroup relations

European colonial powers invaded and then dominated a large part of the African continent from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. The influence of colonialism did not cease after independence as it still impregnates the cultures and identities of both formerly colonising and formerly colonised peoples. The question of how inhabitants of formerly colonised and formerly colonising countries represent the colonial past is a key issue in understanding this lasting influence. Social representations of European colonial action were investigated among young people (N=1134) in three European countries and six African countries. Social representations of the colonial past were structured around two main dimensions across African and European samples: Exploitation and Development. Social representations of colonialism denoted by Exploitation were more strongly endorsed by the European compared to the African subsample, whereas those denoted by Development were more strongly endorsed by the African compared to the European subsample. However, while African participants considered colonialism less negatively than Europeans, they also had higher expectations concerning Europeans’ collective guilt feeling and willingness to offer reparations. By contrast, European participants’ social representations of colonialism were more negative but they were less likely to believe that present-day European peoples and governments are accountable for the misdeeds of colonialism in the past. Finally, national identification mediated the association between the Exploitation dimension of colonialism and both group-based emotions and support for reparation in the African, but not the European, subsample.

Restoring the Victim: Emotional Reactions, Justice Beliefs, and Support for Reparation and Punishment

Psychological responses to criminal wrongdoing have primarily focused on the offender, particularly on how (and why) offender punishment satisfies people’s need for justice. However, the restoration of the victim presents another way in which the “psychological itch” that injustice creates can be addressed. In the present article, I discuss two lay theories of how crime victims can be restored: a belief that the harm caused to crime victims should be directly repaired (a restorative justice approach) versus a belief that victim harm should be addressed via the punishment of the offender (a retributive justice approach). These two lay theories are discussed with regard to their emotional and ideological determinants, as well as situational and chronic factors that can affect whether people adopt a reparative or punitive “justice mindset” in dealing with victim concerns (and crime in general).

“Should a country's leaders apologize for its past misdeeds?” An analysis of the effects of both public apologies from a Belgian official and perception of Congolese victims' continued suffering on Belgians' representations of colonial action, support for reparation, and attitudes towards the Congolese

This study sought to identify the conditions facilitating the recognition of a social group's past misdeeds among its members. Such recognition entails a threat to group members' social identity, potentially triggering defensive strategies, such as denying these misdeeds, not experiencing collective guilt and shame, opposing reparative actions, and derogating the victim group's members. As collective rituals, public apologies performed by an official representative should allow group members to acknowledge the harm done while maintaining a positive social identity, therefore alleviating the need for such defensive strategies. We carried out an experimental study based on a 2 (Apologies vs. No apologies) × 2 (Continued suffering vs. No continued suffering) + 1 (Control) design, with Belgian participants (N = 164). In all conditions, participants were reminded of the atrocities committed during the first years of the Belgian colonization of Congo. This description was followed by a short statement about the suffering that Congolese people still endured (Continued suffering condition) or none (No continued suffering), then by a transcript of public apologies pronounced by Belgium's Foreign Affairs Minister in the Apologies condition, or none (No apologies). Results revealed that Belgian participants' attitudes and behavioural intentions towards the Congolese were the most positive when both apologies and the victims' continued suffering were reunited. A mediation analysis further demonstrated that differences in levels of racism and in support for reparation were mediated by representations of the ingroup's past.

Official or political apologies and improvement of intergroup relations: A neo-Durkheimian approach to official apologies as rituals

This article argues that institutional apologies are rituals that can be conceived from a neo-Durkheimian viewpoint as external social tools of collective emotion, which allow people to assume collective guilt and shame, increase agreement with reparatory behaviors, and reinforce social cohesion. The review of studies presented in this monograph shows that an apology reactivates and intensifies collective emotions, mainly of shame and guilt, above and beyond merely reminding people of past misdeeds, and increases support for reparation. Shame and sorrow fuel and support reparative tendencies. Finally, salience of past collective violence together with an apology improves social climate to some extent, enhances intergroup reconciliation by decreasing prejudice and improving intergroup contact, and helps to reconstruct in-group collective memory in a more critical way. Changes in collective emotions and representations of the past mediate the positive effects of apologies on reparation and social cohesion.

The impact of magnitude of harm and perceived difficulty of making reparations on group‐based guilt and reparation towards victims of historical harm

AbstractThe present research investigates how reading stories about past mistreatment of children who had been in institutional care affects support for reparations, perceived difficulty of reparations and group‐based guilt were investigated in two experiments. In Study 1 we showed that, when the stories increased in perceived harm, so did the perceived difficulty of making reparations whereas group‐based guilt decreased. Furthermore, both perceived difficulty of making reparations and group‐based guilt predicted support for reparation. It was suggested that these findings were due to a natural confound between the severity of harm and the difficulty of reparations. Study 2 included a direct manipulation of perceived difficulty that was intended to weaken or strengthen the ability to make reparations. This study demonstrated stronger group‐based guilt when reparations were potentially possible and not when they are impossible. Moreover, support for reparations varied as a function of perceived difficulty of reparations and group‐based guilt mediated that relationship. The research has two key implications. First, advocates of reparations as a mechanism for reconciliation and community healing need to consider the degree to which reparations are perceived to be possible and consider ways of addressing those perceptions. Second, the research provides an experimental demonstration to the power of stories about experience to bolster support for social change. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

How Perspective-Taking Helps and Hinders Group-Based Guilt as a Function of Group Identification

In two studies we hypothesized that outgroup perspective-taking promotes group-based guilt among weakly identified perpetrator group members, but hinders it among higher identifiers. In Study 1, native Dutch participants ( N = 153) confronted their group's past mistreatment of outgroups, while perspective-taking was manipulated. This manipulation significantly increased guilt among lower identifiers, but decreased guilt among higher identifiers. In addition, guilt predicted positively participants' support for reparation. In Study 2 ( N = 217), we replicated this interaction and elaborated on its underlying processes. As predicted, perspective-taking positively predicted feelings of compassion for outgroup members, as well as the perceived responsibility of the ingroup for the harm inflicted. Path analyses indicated the dual role of compassion: it predicted guilt positively among lower identifiers, but negatively among higher identifiers. The double-edged potential of perspective-taking for improving relations between groups that have a history on conflict is discussed.

Principled ideology or racism: Why do modern racists oppose race-based social justice programs?

People who score high on modern racism scales consistently oppose reparations for race-based social injustices. Scholars debate whether this opposition reflects racism [e.g., Sears, D. O., & Henry, P. J. (2005). Over thirty years later: A contemporary look at symbolic racism. In M.P Zanna, (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 37 (pp. 95–150). San Diego, CA: Elsevier Academic Press] or a principled conservative ideology [e.g., Sniderman, P. M., & Tetlock, P. E. (1986). Symbolic racism: Problems of motive attribution in political analysis. Journal of Social Issues, 42, 129–150]. We tested these competing hypotheses by examining support for government reparations for adult survivors of childhood abuse. We manipulated whether the survivors were of European or Aboriginal heritage. Consistent with a racism hypothesis, high modern racists indicated less support for reparations when the survivors were of Aboriginal heritage than when the survivors were of European heritage. Interestingly, low modern racists supported reparations more for Aboriginal Canadian than European Canadian survivors. We discuss three explanations of the responses of low modern racists.

A Tarnished Silver Lining: Victim Suffering and Support for Reparations

Groups around the world are seeking reparations for historical harms. In three studies, the authors examined if people are more inclined to support a historical victim group if the group continues to suffer today because of an earlier harm. In Study 1, participants perceived greater victim suffering when the harm was recent and the degree of perceived suffering positively related to victim group support. In Studies 2 and 3, the authors manipulated continued victim suffering and the feasibility of material reparations. Both variables affected victim group support, but experienced sympathy and injustice judgments mediated their effects. Suffering victims elicited more compassion when reparations seemed feasible but were treated the same as nonsuffering victims when reparations seemed unfeasible. Suffering victims were also treated equally irrespective of feasibility of reparations, whereas nonsuffering victims were treated significantly less favorably when reparations seemed feasible, versus unfeasible.

THE COST OF BEING BLACK: White Americans' Perceptions and the Question of Reparations

White Americans have long resisted the idea of reparations to the descendants of slaves. We examine the psychological basis of such resistance, primarily testing the possibility that resistance may be a function of Whites' perception of the ongoing cost of being Black. White participants (n = 958) across twelve independent samples (varying in age, student status, and geographic location) were asked variations of the question: How much should you be paid to continue to live the remainder of your life as a Black person? Participants generally required low median amounts, less than $10,000, to make the race change, whereas they requested high amounts, $1,000,000, to give up television. To the extent that larger amounts were requested, support for reparations also increased. Attempts to educate participants about Black cost/White privilege had negligible effects on assessments of the cost of being Black and support for reparations. Together, these results suggest that White resistance to reparations for Black Americans stems from fundamental biases in estimating the true cost of being Black. The implications of our findings for color-blind and multiculturalist conceptual approaches are discussed.This work was facilitated by a postdoctoral fellowship to the first author from the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University. In addition, we are greatly indebted to Hal Arkes for comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.