The Antecedent and Functions of Group-Based

Moral Emotions

By

Daniel Noon

Thesis submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy

February 2019

School of Psychology

Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

University of Surrey

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Declaration of originality

This thesis and the work to which it refers are the results of my own efforts. Any ideas, data,

images or text resulting from the work of others (whether published or unpublished) are fully

identified as such within the work and attributed to their originator in the text, bibliography or

in footnotes. This thesis has not been submitted in whole or in part for any other academic

degree or professional qualification. I agree that the University has the right to submit my

work to the plagiarism detection service TurnitinUK for originality checks. Whether or not

drafts have been so-assessed, the University reserves the right to require an electronic version

of the final document (as submitted) for assessment as above.

Signed:

Date: 16.07.19

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Abstract

Theories in moral psychology have considered the role of emotions and group processes in

conserving moral norms by regulating the behaviours of individual group members

(Ellemers, 2017; Keltner & Haidt, 1999). Across six studies, the current thesis examined the

multiple ways that group-based emotions function to change moral norms, such as by

motivating distinct collective behaviours towards transgressing outgroups, reducing

commitment to a transgressing ingroup, and signalling universal values. Using survey

methods, the first two studies examined the role of group-based emotion in collective

behaviour and provided support the claim that feelings of anger and disgust differ from guilt

and shame since these emotions were found to become more intense and more positively

related to ingroup identification in intergroup contexts compared to the intragroup settings.

The findings also support the claim that intergroup anger and disgust are distinct since it was

found that anger was predicted by an appraisal of the group action and was related to increase

normative collective action while disgust was predicted by an appraisal of the group character

as flawed and was related to non-normative action. In the third study, participants were

presented with a national transgression with the aim to understand the role of group-based

emotion in self-regulation. Unlike anger and disgust, it was found that moderately identified

group members felt more guilt and shame than high or low ingroup identifiers. However,

anger and disgust were related to greater disidentification from the ingroup. This suggests

that anger and disgust during intragroup settings, motivate psychologically distancing oneself

from the transgressing group. Lastly, the study considered the role of expressing group-based

disgust in signalling universal moral values. It was consistently shown that group-based

feelings of disgust signalled more universal moral values than individual level emotions.

Overall, the studies demonstrate the multiple functions which emotions serve in response to

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moral transgressions which may have implications for policy makers and stakeholders who

want to encourage political action.

Acknowledgements

Over the past four years, I have extensively examined various negative moral emotions.

While this study has been a worthwhile learning experience, it has perhaps left a gap in my

knowledge about how to most effectively express my gratitude towards the numerous

institutions and individuals that have provided a tremendous amount of academic and pastoral

support throughout the thesis. Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude for the advice and

feedback provided by the supervisory team; Dr Pascale Sophie Russel, Professor Roger

Giner-Sorolla, Dr Michèle Birtel, Dr Harriett Tenenbaum and Professor Peter Hegarty.

Throughout the years, they have listened, scrutinised, and praised my work, which has only

made it stronger. Secondly, I would like to acknowledge the institutions which supported the

thesis, including the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the South East

Doctoral Training Centre (SEDTC) in providing the funding for this project. I would like to

thank the University of Surrey and the University of Kent for providing the infrastructure

which makes studying comfortable, enjoyable, and collaborative. I also need to express

gratitude for the support of the Social Emotions and Equality in Relations (SEER) research

group, which was founded during the early stages of my PhD and has only continued to grow.

A particular member, Dr Sebastian Bartos, has, whether solicited or not, provided invaluable

critique of my findings and methods. There has been support from various professional

psychological societies. In particular, British Psychological Society, American Psychological

Society, and European Association of Social Psychology have provided valuable resources,

guidelines and opportunities which have supported my professional development. Finally, I

would like to thank my partner, Thomas Moore, for his emotional support and his talent for

tolerating my ramblings about morality and emotions in groups.

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Contents

LIST OF TABLES VI

LIST OF FIGURES VII

CHAPTER 1: MORAL JUDGEMENTS AND GROUPS 1

CHAPTER 2: GROUP-BASED EMOTION 30

CHAPTER 3: OVERVIEW 66

CHAPTER 4: GROUP EMOTIONS IN INTER AND INTRAGROUP CONTEXTS 74

CHAPTER 5: INGROUP TRANSGRESSIONS AND GROUP EMOTION 112

CHAPTER 6: GROUP-BASED EMOTIONS AS A SIGNAL FOR UNIVERSAL VALUES 132

CHAPTER 7: DISCUSSION 164

REFERENCES 180

APPENDIX A 198

APPENDIX B 199

APPENDIX C 204

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List of Tables

Table 4.1. Distribution Statistics for Measured Variables for Study 1...................................84

Table 4.2. Distribution Statistics for Measured Variables for Study 2....................................97

Table 4.3. Pearson Correlation between Group Identification and Emotion for Study 2........98

Table 5.1. Descriptive Statistics for all Measured Variables for Study 3..............................121

Table 5.2 Bivariate Pearson Correlations between all Measured Variables for Study 3.......122

Table 6.1. Person correlation and descriptive statistics for measured variables in study 4.. .140

Table 6.2. Factor loading for inferred social motivation in study 4.......................................141

Table 6.3 Means (and SDs) for Inferred loyalty values by condition in study 4...................147

Table 6.4. Mean (and SDs) for Inferred universal values by condition in study 4................149

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List of Figures

Figure 6.1. Inferred social motivations by emotion expressed..............................................143

Figure 6.2. Inferred social motivation by emotion expressed and target...............................145

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Chapter 1: Moral Judgements and Groups

Over time, many societies across the globe have transformed from one in which

slavery was permitted to those in which it was outlawed. Indeed, over the last 50 years in

Britain, homosexuality has gone from being a criminalised act to a legally recognised

relationship. Views about the morality of slavery and homosexuality have changed

considerably and societies have altered their practices accordingly. This begs the question of

how and why societies change their practices. It has been argued that societies are regulated

and checked both by their constituents but also by other groups (Barrett & Zani, 2015). The

aim of the current thesis is to explore how individuals respond when they believe a group,

such as a nation, has violated a moral standard. As will become clear, individuals judge the

morality of social groups, and as a response to immoral group practices, individuals’

emotional reactions play an important role in their responses. By examining the antecedent

and functions of individuals’ emotions, this thesis may facilitate understanding of why and

how groups alter and sustain their practices.

Recently, there has been a revival in moral psychology, with research focused on

moral judgement, identity, and emotion (see Ellemers, 2017, for review). Morality is

considered to serve important social functions that make social life possible. However, one

question in moral psychology is whether groups regulate individual moral behaviour or

whether individuals regulate and change group conduct. The dominant approach is, what I

call, top-down. This approach argues that shared group morality creates social order by

supressing individual selfishness and increasing compliance with group norms (Ellemers,

2017; Haidt, 2008; Prinz, 2007). In contrast, the bottom-up approach considers that

individuals seek to change the norms and practices of a group (Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Janoff-

Bulman & Carnes, 2013). The current thesis focuses on the bottom-up approach because this

remains under developed. Specifically, this chapter seeks to critically integrate the research

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on individuals’ social judgements of groups with the research on emotional response to

wrongdoing. Overall, it is argued that morality is considered to be extremely important in an

individual’s evaluation of social groups and these moral judgements relate to a specific set of

emotions that are helpful in overcoming social problems, such as the problem of group

immorality.

This chapter opens by defining the key concepts used throughout the thesis. Terms

such as “group” and “morality” can mean different things to different people. This is then

followed by a review of the literature regarding the role of morality in the social judgements

of groups. Here it is argued that individual moral judgements of groups serve to regulate

group behaviour. Thirdly, I describe how emotions are involved in social judgements as well

as describe social functionalist accounts of emotion that detail the role of emotion in

overcoming different social problems. Finally, I describe the moral emotions framework,

which argues that a distinct class of emotions are used to respond to moral concerns. It is

believed that distinct moral emotions help overcome different social problems. As will

become clear throughout the chapter, the literature shows that individuals judge the moral

behaviour and character of social groups. These judgements include a set of moral emotions

that enable individuals to overcome the problems by group misconduct.

Operational Definitions

Before I begin to discuss the role of morality in the social judgements of groups, it is

perhaps necessary to indicate exactly what is meant by the terms that will be used throughout

the thesis. Here I will briefly provide operational definitions for the terms “group” and

“morality” because there are multiple definitions of these terms. However, social

psychological research has used these terms in a more precise manner.

Firstly, there are two broad definitions of a group. The first may be called the social

cohesion definition because it uses objective criteria, such as the number of people, or

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whether individuals can enter and leave the group, and whether there is some form of

material interdependency between individuals (Brown, 2010). However, one problem with

this approach is that other people need not be present or interdependent to be able to

influence an individual. Instead, a cognitive definition of the group has been offered. It is

argued that group membership has a cognitive basis, in which individuals internalise their

social category memberships as part of the self-concept (Tajfel, 1974). In this approach, the

group refers to the individual’s mental representation of the groups to which they are

members (ingroups) and groups which they are not members (outgroups). The cognitive

representation of the self as a member of a group refers to an individual’s social identity

while the representation of the self as an individual refers to their personal identity. An

individual’s social identity can impact upon their behaviours. Group behaviour, therefore,

refers to any action an individual takes, when they define themselves as members of a

psychological group (Van Zomeren, 2016; Wright, Taylor, & Moghaddam, 1990).

Furthermore, a cognitive definition of the group allows for the study of group-general

processes. The research using this definition has relied upon many different social groups.

Some studies have relied on experimentally created groups, otherwise known as minimal

groups (Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 1998a), while others have focused on a

student identity (Shepherd, Spears, & Manstead, 2013), political party membership (Smith,

Seger, & Mackie, 2007), and national (Sharvit, Brambilla, Babush, & Colucci, 2015) and

ethnic groups (Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005). The social identity approach to understanding

group behaviour aims to identify group general psychological mechanisms that apply to all

social groups. Therefore, a broad range of groups have been considered by social

psychological experiments.

Now that a cognitive definition of the group has been defined, since the current focus

is examining group morality, it is necessary to describe what is meant by morality.

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Psychology as a discipline has been criticised for a pervasive cynicism, which assumes

individuals are motivated exclusively by enhancing their own interests (Schwartz, 1993).

However, the study of morality seeks to change this. Morality in psychology typically refers

to setting aside concerns about maximising self-interest, focusing instead on those regarding

the welfare of something other than the immediate self; such as third-party individuals and

society as a whole (Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Haidt, 2003). Therefore, morality is a relative term

which refers to the prioritising a broader, more inclusive set of concerns over the concerns of

the immediate self-interest.

This definition has led some to argue that morality may motivate behaviours that

might not seem nice. A concern for the welfare of the ingroup might motivate forms of

intergroup conflict, including intergroup discrimination (Mackie & Smith, 2003). However,

group members can also reflect upon the welfare of non-ingroup members, such as

outgroups, animals and even the environment (Crimston, Bain, Hornsey, & Bastian, 2016;

Passini & Morselli, 2016; Reed & Aquino, 2003). This shows that individuals can have a set

of concerns that are not simply just about maximising group interest but can also be concerns

about the welfare of non-ingroup members. To put differently, individuals may have group-

transcendent moral values. Therefore, morality is used as a relative term which refers to the

prioritising a set of concerns regarding welfare of a broader set of entities. This can include

the individual prioritising their groups interests over their immediate self-interest but may

also include setting aside narrow group interests for more inclusive concerns that include

outgroups.

Morality in the Social Judgements of Groups

Morality is considered an important dimension in forming social judgements about

other individuals (Ellemers, 2017; Goodwin, Piazza, & Rozin, 2014). One study that

illustrates this is Brambilla, Rusconi, Sacchi, and Cherubini (2011), who examined the

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relevance of a set of traits when people are given a specific goal to form an impression of

another person. In one condition, participants were asked how relevant a given trait would be

in their decision to reveal an important secret to another person (the moral goal). In another

condition, participants were asked to decide if they would invite the target to a party (a

sociable goal). In the third condition, the participants’ goal was to decide if they should

employ the target (a competency goal). In final condition, the goal was to achieve a global

evaluation of the other person. Additionally, the study manipulated whether the target person

was described as an ingroup member, an outgroup member or participants were not made

aware of the target’s group membership. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed that trait

perceptions fell along three dimensions of perceived morality, competency and sociability.

This model was a significantly better fit than a two-factor solution, in which morality and

sociability traits were combined. Participants’ information search process showed similar

patterns regardless of the group membership of the target. Interestingly, the relevance of each

trait dimension was stronger with congruent goals. For instance, morality traits were rated

more relevant for morality goals, while competency traits were more relevant for the

competency goals. More importantly, for the global evaluation, morality traits were rated

more relevant compared to competency and sociability traits. These findings suggest that

when forming an impression of other individuals, ingroup or outgroup members, their trait

morality is more important than trait sociability and competency in forming a global

evaluation of them.

However, individuals not only evaluate individual group members but also evaluate

other groups as a whole. Fiske, Cuddy, Glick and Xu (2002) proposed the influential

Stereotype Content Model which maintains that groups are evaluated upon two dimensions of

warmth and competence. In particular, the warmth dimensions included judgements relating

to a groups morality (e.g., trustworthy, well-intentioned) but also included non-moral aspects

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(e.g., friendly). Prior to this theory of stereotype content, some researchers focused on the

morality dimension of the judgement of groups. For instance, Phalet and Poppe (1997)

argued that individuals hold stereotypes about the morality and competency of social groups.

They argued that different groups can be classified into the categories of virtuous-winners,

virtuous-losers, sinful-winners, and sinful-losers. For instance, Jews may be classified as

sinful-winners since they are perceived to be high in competency but low in morality. In one

study, national majority young people were recruited from six eastern European countries.

Participants were asked to rate the desirability of a set of traits for ingroup members and

outgroup members (other nations). Half the traits were assumed to measure morality (e.g.,

honest, rude) while the other half appeared to measure competency traits (e.g., efficient,

intelligent). The results revealed a two-dimensional structure (i.e., a distinction between

competency and moral traits). They found that competency was more important than morality

for ingroup members. However, for outgroup members morality was considered more

important than competence. The authors argue that these actor-observer differences in the

desirability of traits can be explained by different goals. They argue that it is more important

that an outgroup is moral compared to competent because any immoral behaviour from the

outgroup may impact negatively upon the ingroup. They argued that the evaluation of an

outgroup’s morality is believed to serve important social function. The moral evaluation

serves an indicator of outgroup intentions and relate to social-motivational goals of conflict

and cooperation.

Adding to this, morality has been shown to be important in forming global

impressions of outgroups. Brambilla, Sacchi, Rusconi, Cherubini, and Yzerbyt (2012)

conducted a series of studies to examine the role of perceived morality of groups in

impression formation. In one of the studies, the researchers described the competency,

sociability and morality of a fictitious ethnic group. The study manipulated whether the

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information described the group as ether high or low on these character traits. After reading

this information, participants rated the extent to which they believed the group to pose a

threat. The results found that participants perceived greater threat when morality was low

compared to high. There were no main effects of sociability or competence on perceived

threat. Additionally, participants reported a more favourable global impression when morality

was high compared to low. There were also no effects for sociability or competency on global

impression. They also found that the effect of moral traits on group evaluation was partially

mediated by perceived threat. In other words, when the outgroup was considered to be

immoral participants reported greater threat which resulted in less favourable global

evaluations of the outgroup. These findings suggest that individuals are particularly

motivated to evaluate the morality of outgroups because immoral outgroups pose a threat to

the ingroup.

Meanwhile, some disagree that individuals are more concerned about the morality of

the outgroup compared to the ingroup. Leach, Ellemers, and Barreto (2007) conducted

several studies to identify the characteristics ingroup members believe are most important

when evaluating the ingroup. In the first study, student participants were asked to explicitly

indicate how important it was for their ingroup to possess traits indicating morality (e.g.,

honesty, sincere), competency (e.g., intelligent, skilled), and sociability (e.g., likeable,

friendly). A confirmatory factor analysis revealed this three-factor solution fitted the data

well and was better than alternative models; 1) a two-factor model in which morality and

sociability were combined and 2) a two-factor model in which sociability and competency

were combined. The study found that participants considered moral traits to be more

important in their evaluation of the ingroup compared to competency and sociability traits. In

another study, university student received false feedback regarding their university’s success

compared with students at another university (i.e., an outgroup). This time participants were

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to ascribe traits to both the ingroup and outgroup. Separate exploratory factor analysis was

conducted for ingroup and outgroup ascriptions. Like before, they found a three-factor

solutions of morality, competency, and sociability traits was the better fitting model.

However, the authors argue that sociability and morality become less distinct for successful

outgroups. The authors therefore suggest that these findings demonstrate that not only is

morality a separate consideration when evaluating groups, that ingroup morality appears to be

more important than group competence and sociability.

Overall, these findings reveal that morality of ingroup and outgroups are extremely

important when ascribing traits to ingroups and outgroups, as well as forming a global

impression of the outgroup. The studies described so far have only asked individuals to

evaluate the moral character attributes of social groups. Other studies have focused on moral

evaluation in response to specific group action. Take for example van der Toorn, Ellemers,

and Doosje (2015), who conducted two studies that examined individuals’ responses to their

group’s moral transgressions. In one study, students were presented with a news article

describing high rates of fraud and plagiarism among fellow students. Participants believed the

news article to be credible. Highly identified ingroup members reported stronger feelings of

threat in response to reading the ingroup wrongdoing compared to weakly identified group

members. This suggests that individual’s judgement of the group not only considered the

overall morality of the group but also can evaluates whether specific group behaviours are

moral.

While individuals judge the morality of the ingroup’s behaviour, when confronted

with an ingroup moral transgression, group members may become defensive and attempt to

justify, or disengage, with the wrongdoing (Bandura, 1999). Indeed, Leidner, Castano, Zaiser,

and Giner-Sorolla (2010) conducted three studies examining the impacts of ingroup

glorification of moral disengagement. In the first study, student participants read a newspaper

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article depicting military personal torturing civilians in Iraq. The study manipulated whether

ingroup (US soldiers) or outgroup (Iraqi soldiers) were the perpetrators. Highly identified

ingroup members, particularly the kind that glorify the ingroup, were less likely to demand

justice for ingroup perpetrators. They found that this effect was mediated by two forms of

moral disengagement. Firstly, the effect occurs because ingroup members minimise the

negative emotions felt by the families of dead prisoners. Secondly, the effect occurs because

group members are likely to dehumanise the victim. This suggests that group membership

may result in defensive processes when confronted with ingroup moral transgression.

However, Giner-Sorolla (2013) argued that this justification and minimisation processes do

not occur because individuals are disengaged with morality. Instead, it represents an effort to

try to frame the groups’ actions as moral which represents an active maintenance of the

concern of morality. In simpler terms, if individuals were not concerned about morality, then

there would be no need to attempt to legitimise or defend their groups moral image.

So far, it has been argued that individuals’ social judgements are primarily concerned

about the moral character and behaviour of ingroup and outgroups. These social judgements

are believed to serve important social functions, such as regulating group behaviour. When

the outgroup violates a moral transgression, individuals become motivated to engage in

intergroup conflict (Phalet & Poppe, 1997). However, group immorality may have an

additional social cost. Not only will outgroup members seek to engage in conflict but also

ingroup members start decreasing their psychological commitment to the group. This was

demonstrated by a study conducted by Glasford, Pratto, and Dovidio (2008), who examined

whether individuals’ response to a transgression were dependent upon the identity of the

perpetrator. In their study, they manipulated whether an ingroup or an outgroup violated a

particular value (i.e., providing health care to its citizens). They found that participants in the

ingroup violation condition reported more psychological discomfort than participants in the

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ingroup no violation condition. However, there was no difference in psychological

discomfort when the outgroup violated the value. They also found when the ingroup violated

particular values, ingroup members disidentified from the group and this could be explained

by an increase in psychological distress. Adding to this, another study found that ingroup

moral transgressions resulted in participants perceiving the ingroup as more heterogeneous

(Leach et al., 2007). This shows that ingroup immorality can alter the overall composition of

the group.

Furthermore, individual not only disidentify with a transgressing ingroup, but may

become less inclined to work to enhance the group. This has been illustrated by Täuber and

van Zomeren (2013) who conducted a set of studies examining the role of morality threats in

impeding group-enhancement. In one of their studies, participants were randomly assigned to

a condition that described the Dutch approach to immigration as immoral (i.e., a threat

manipulation). As expected, they found that higher levels of identification resulted in stronger

intentions to improve. Furthermore, moral threats particularly undermined intentions to

improve since strongly identified members were less likely to strive for improvement

compared to when there were no moral threats. This shows that moral judgements may alter

highly committed group members’ willingness to cooperate within a group.

Overall, these findings suggest that individuals judge the morality of the ingroup’s

and outgroup’s moral behaviour as well as assess the moral character of those groups. These

moral judgements serve social functions in regulating ingroup and outgroup moral conduct. A

group that is deemed to have violated a moral standard may face conflict from an outgroup,

whilst members of the ingroup become less psychologically committed to the group and less

inclined to work to improve the group’s status. Therefore, these social judgements ensure that

there is a social cost to group immorality. While there may be some defensive processes

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which may mitigate the problems, it remains clear that the moral judgement of social groups

functions to keep group behaviour in check.

Emotion in Social Judgement

In the previous section, it was shown that social judgements are concerned about the

morality of ingroups’ and outgroups’ actions and character. In this section, it is argued that

social judgements include functional emotional responses that can be helpful in responding to

group wrongdoing. Firstly, I describe the debate between emotion and cognition, such as

whether emotions include social judgements or not. Secondly, I describe the debate

surrounding the utility or functionality of emotions in daily life.

Emotion and Cognition

One may consider the role of emotion in social judgement. For instance, one

possibility is that emotions drive social judgements. Alternatively, it is possible that social

judgements drive emotions. The debate surrounding the relationship between cognition and

emotion has produced two seemingly opposed theories (Prinz, 2007). Firstly, there are non-

cognitive theories of emotion which primarily posit emotion to be the result of an underlying

physical process which then influences social judgement. Secondly, there are the cognitive

theories of emotion, which argue that emotions include cognition. Each of these theories has

its advantages and disadvantages. However, a more rigourous discussion about the debate

between the two goes beyond the scope of the thesis (see Scherer, Schorr, & Johnstone, 2001,

for review). Nevertheless, here I will briefly describe and evaluate the arguments of both

theories and explain why the current thesis has focused on the more deliberate cognitive

processes underlying emotions. As will be demonstrated, while emotions can include a gut

level feeling or intuition, individual’s deliberative judgements are not inherently devoid of

emotion.

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The non-cognitivists have sought to argue that emotions are distinct from cognition

and often arise before any deliberate cognitive processes (Prinz, 2007; Zajonc, 1980). One of

the oldest theories of emotion is the James-Lange theory, which argues that emotion

represents physiological states. Different emotions, according to this approach, include a

distinct phenomenology, such as a clenched fist of rage or goose bumps of fear. Despite

being non-cognitive, emotions are believed to influence decision making and behaviour.

More recently, the somatic marker hypotheses argues that the feelings facilitate logical

reasoning, with their quick, unconscious, and efficient decision making (Damasio, Everitt, &

Bishop, 1996). Therefore, these theories of emotion suggest that emotions have distinct

phenomenology and are automatically activated (i.e., unconscious, efficient, and fast).

Several problems with the non-cognitive theory of emotion have been raised. Firstly,

it fails to identify the process that initially begins the emotional response. Roseman and

Smith (2001) argue that physiological theories of emotion ultimately lead back to a stimulus-

response theory of emotion. Therefore, like stimulus-response theories, the non-cognitive

approach is unable to explain individual differences in emotional responses, such as why the

same stimulus would result in a different emotional response for different people. Secondly,

there is the philosophical point that non-cognitive theories are unable to explain why the

rationality of emotions can be assessed at all. As described by Prinz (2007), emotions can be

considered justified or unjustified. However, for other sensations, it is counter intuitive to

describe a tickle or itch as reasonable. If emotions do not include any form of rational

judgement, like an itch, then it is unclear why an emotions rationality can be assessed at all.

In contrast, the cognitive approach can help resolve these two problems. Cognitive

theories of emotion argue that emotions are constituted by, if not caused by, a judgement

(Nussbaum, 2001; Parkinson, 1997). Some cognitive theories maintain that emotions play an

important role in higher forms of experiences, such as deliberate thinking (Cacioppo &

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Gardner, 1999). The idea that emotions can be controlled by judgement has been traced back

to ideas within Stoic philosophy. However, the idea resurfaced in the psychology of emotion

in 1950s when American psychologist, Magda Arnold, hypothesised that emotions are

initiated by a cognitive appraisal of the situation (Schorr, 2001). This idea was elaborated and

expanded by Lazarus (1982) who believed appraisals are assessments of how the

environment may impact upon personal wellbeing. He then sought to identify the distinct

appraisals that distinguish different emotions (e.g., fear, anger). Lazarus also argued that an

appraisal system had evolved because it was adaptive. He argued that when deciding exactly

how to respond to a stimulus, an individual must first appraise the situation. For instance,

someone charging towards you may ignite fear or joy depending upon whether you

understand them to be a friend or foe. Next, this emotional response motivates distinct types

of behaviours. To continue the example, you may decide to avoid a person if you feel fear but

approach them if you feel joy. In all, Lazarus believed that specific appraisal of how the self

is concerned will then elicit a discrete emotion that motivates functionally distinct forms of

behaviour.

Some have taken the appraisal theory even further than saying that not only do

cognitive appraisal underlie emotional responses but also that appraisals focus on a few

dimensions (e.g., pleasantness, anticipated effort, self-other responsibility) and unique

combinations of these appraisals help differentiate emotional responses (Smith and Ellsworth,

1985). Adding to this, it has argued the emotions are not only differentiated by an appraisal of

the environment but also by an individual’s readiness to undertake a particular action. For

instance, Frijda, Kuipers and ter Schure (1989) conducted a study in which participants were

asked to recall events which they experienced a particular emotion. They found that appraisal

scores predicted particular action readiness scores, which added support to the view that

emotions are constituted by appraisals as well as states of action readiness.

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There are clear positives of appraisal theory. Firstly, it avoids the stimulus-response

problem outlined above because emotions do not respond to stimuli themselves but instead,

they occur in response to an appraisal of events. Therefore, it is able to explain differences in

emotion experience produced by a stimulus. It is argued that distinct emotions are believed to

be caused by different types of appraisal. If a stimulus elicits an emotion in one person but

not another, then this individual difference can be explained by differences their appraisal.

Additionally, if a stimulus elicits an emotion on one occasion but not another, then this

temporal difference can be explained by changes in how the stimulus is appraised. Therefore,

unlike the non-cognitive theories, appraisal theories can account for individual and temporal

differences in emotion.

There are of course challenges to appraisal theories of emotion. Most prominently,

there is the issue of disentangling the causal relationship between an appraisal and emotion.

Lazarus argued that appraisals are a necessary and sufficient condition for emotions to be

elicited (Parkinson, 1997). Indeed, while most appraisal theories of emotion propose that

appraisals cause emotions, Ellsworth (2013) argues that emotions are constituted by

appraisals. In other words, he argues that appraisals are an ingredient of an emotion.

Therefore, it would make as much sense to ask whether eggs cause a cake. However, the

distinction between causality and constitutional conceptualisations are not necessarily

incompatible. As he notes “Water, for example, can be the cause of a seed becoming a plant,

but water is also an essential component of the plant.” (pg. 126)

Alternatively, others have proposed the opposite causal relationship, in which

emotions are believed to impact upon and cause judgements. For instance, the appraisal

tendency framework argues that specific emotions include the tendency to appraise new

situations in a way that is consistent with the eliciting appraisal (Lerner, Han, & Keltner,

2007; Lerner & Keltner, 2000). To put differently, appraisals and emotions have a bi-

15

directional and mutually reinforcing relationship. Additionally, emotions have been described

as a process, in which they can motivate reappraisal which results in a change in emotion

(Ellsworth, 2013). Therefore, appraisals have been considered a cause, constituent, and

consequence of emotion.

Additionally, appraisal theory, with its apparent focus on deliberative judgements, has

been criticised for being unable to explain unreasonable or maladaptive emotional responses

(Parkinson, 1997). It is important to note that cognitive processes can also activate

automatically, in that they are fast, uncontrollable and operate outside awareness. Some have

responded to this criticism by suggesting that appraisals can also arise automatically

(Ellsworth, 2013). By this, it has been argued that appraisals can sometimes be

uncontrollable, unconscious, efficient and fast. However, as Giner-Sorolla (2013) argues, a

problem of extending the definition of appraisal to include fast and reflexive cognitive

processes, is that we dilute the meaning of the term appraisal (Giner-Sorolla, 2013). He

suggests that this can be overcome by distinguishing between automatic association, which

relates to this faster cognitive process, and deliberative appraisal, which includes the slower

judgements.

In all, appraisal theories argue that deliberative and reasoned judgements are not

devoid of emotions. While, the so called “non-cognitive” theories of emotion are believed to

actually to refer to emotions that relate to faster, automatic, and implicit cognitive processes

rather than lacking cognitive content whatsoever (Giner-Sorolla, 2013). The actual difference

between these theories of emotion therefore represented different forms of cognition and the

debate is essentially which of these cognitive processes is worthy of the title ‘emotion’. There

are of several course challenges to appraisal theory, namely the causality problem.

Nonetheless, because the thesis is concerned about the regulatory role of judgements of social

16

groups, the current thesis focuses upon how explicit and conscious appraisals may relate to

different emotions.

Social Functionalist Theories of Emotion

It has already been discussed that individuals judge the morality of ingroups and

outgroups and these judgements impact upon intergroup and intragroup relations. Now that it

has been shown that social judgements include emotions, this then begs the question as to

whether emotions are helpful or a hindrance when individuals judge a group to be moral. This

debate regarding the functions of emotions was considered by early philosophers who

described emotions as a hindrance while later philosophers argued that emotions are helpful

(See Giner-Sorolla, 2013, for review). Recently, functionalist accounts of emotions have

emerged that argue that emotions are beneficial because they typically confer some

advantageous consequences (Hutcherson & Gross, 2011; Keltner & Haidt, 1999). In

particular, social functionalists argue that emotions are useful tools that can be used to

overcome social problems. Alternatively, the dysfunctionalist approach argues emotions are

counterproductive to solving problems (Parrott, 2001). In this section, I briefly describe

various social functional and dysfunctional theories of emotion.

As Witherington and Crichton (2007) describes, there are multiple components of a

functionalist approach of emotion. Typically, individuals have a concern and appraise the

situation to assess how it may impact upon these concerns. In response to this appraisal,

individuals adjust their behaviour in response to the environment to address their concerns.

According to functional theories of emotion, discrete emotions are best organised by the

distinct functions they serve. Different emotions are believed to respond to specific concerns

about the appraised environment and therefore motivate a distinct class of actions that seek to

resolve the specific concern. One advantage of this approach is that functions consider the

patterns across situations in which a particular emotion arises. For example, anger may arise

17

in situations where an individual perceives their goals to have been blocked, such as having a

car stolen or being stuck in a traffic jam. Therefore, functions of emotions are inferred from

patterns across concrete contexts.

While emotions enable individuals to adjust to their surroundings, emotions can be

helpful for groups as well. This was highlighted by Keltner and Haidt (1999) when they

developed a social functional theory of emotions. In their theory it is proposed emotions

serve multiple functions, each solving different problems at different levels of social

organisation. At the individual level, emotions allow individuals to appraise and respond to

changes in the environment. At the interpersonal level, expressions of emotion function to

cause incentives and deterrents in others as well as elicit complementary emotional responses

in others. At the group level, emotions help define group boundaries, help negotiate social

roles and status, and help group members negotiate group problems. At the cultural level,

emotions help instil cultural identities, socialise norms and values, and conserve ideology and

power hierarchies. Therefore, Keltner and Haidt (1999) argue that cultural functions of

emotions function to regulate individual behaviour, top-down, which conserves the social

order. This theory about the social functions of emotions are concordant with the top-down

approach to study morality which examines how group-based processes conserve the current

moral standards. This ignores the possibility of emotions that function to regulate the group

practices from the bottom-up and therefore the role which emotions serve in changing the

moral norms of a society.

Rather than considering the utility of emotions at different levels, it is worth considering

the various functions that emotions serve. For instance, Giner-Sorolla (2013) identified four

main functions of emotions; an appraisal function, an associative function, a self-regulation

function and a communicative function. The appraisal function of emotions is that they

appraise and respond to the environment to address a particular concern. The associative

18

function of emotions is that they help formulate attitudes by associating pleasurable and

painful emotions with a particular object. He argues that this function of emotion relates to

the intuitive or quick cognitive processes which relate to emotions. The self-regulatory

function of emotion is that they provide feedback about one’s own behaviour. For instance,

an individual may infer that they may receive anger from others if they were to engage in a

behaviour and may decide to refrain to avoid that negative emotion. A final function is that

emotions function to communicate information to others. Emotions are not simply felt but are

also expressed through language and facial expressions. The ability to communicate

information regarding our concerns is another important function of emotion.

Of course, there are times in which emotions may be dysfunctional to the individual and

society. For instance, Parrott (2001) argues that emotions can be dysfunctional due to several

reasons. Firstly, an incorrect or faulty appraisal may result in a dysfunctional emotion.

Secondly, individuals may place too much, or not enough importance on a given event.

Thirdly, individuals may have an incorrect priority of goals. For example, if a person is

simultaneously besotted with a romantic interest, this may take priority over revising for an

upcoming exam. Finally, is that the emotion promotes action tendencies which are not

suitable for the situation at hand. Interestingly, Giner-Sorolla (2013) argues that emotions can

appear dysfunctional when the multiple functions of emotion conflict with one another. An

appraisal may clash with long held emotional associations. Self-regulation (concerns about

self-image and the future) may conflict with appraisal and associative functions, hindering

the ability to assert a stable and active self-image. When appraisal and communication

conflict, an audience may cause anger from nothing to gain social capital. An audience’s

condemnation may attempt elicit emotions in others who feel no wrong. A motivation to

maintain a positive self-concept conflicts where apology is needed to be communicated.

These functional conflicts can explain when an emotion becomes dysfunctional.

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In conclusion, there is a debate about whether emotions are functional or not. While

emotions can be occasionally dysfunction, they also can be helpful in solving various

personal and social problems. The problem currently under examination is group-based

wrongdoing. So far, it has been discussed that social judgements are concerned about the

immorality of ingroups and outgroups. Additionally, it has been argued that social

judgements (i.e., appraisals) include and emotional response. These emotional responses can

be helpful in overcoming various social problems. In the next section, the moral emotions

framework is discussed, which examines the functions of a particular class of emotions that

respond to wrongdoing.

Emotions in Moral Judgement

In the previous section, appraisal theory was described that argues that emotions

include a social judgement, or appraisal, which function to help resolve social problems. The

aim of the current section is to examine the role of emotion in moral judgement. The debate

regarding the relationship between morality and emotion is a long one. Ancient philosophers

reflected upon the relationship between morality of the emotions. Plato contended that some

emotions, such as honour, were virtuous, whereas Aristotle argued that emotions such as

anger were only moral in moderation (Plato, 2012). Later philosophers then elaborated these

two ideas into two different schools of thought. Moral rationalists, such as Immanuel Kant,

argued that moral principles could be derived from reasoning alone. Contrary to this view,

emotionists, such as David Hume and Adam Smith, argued that only a particular class of

moral sentiments, such as sympathy, provide the capacity for people to have concern for

others. Recently, contemporary philosophers and psychologists have provided a compelling

case detailing the empirical basis for emotionism (Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Haidt, 2001; Prinz,

2007). The current section reviews the moral emotions framework (Haidt, 2003), which seeks

20

to identify the social functions of a particular class of emotions that respond to problems

faced by immorality.

What makes an emotion moral?

The moral emotions framework was initially developed by Haidt (2003) and has since

been further developed (Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007). The

moral emotions framework argues that there is a specific subset of emotions that respond to

moral concerns. Therefore, moral emotions are concerned about the welfare of something

other than the immediate self, such as a third party or society as a whole. For example, if a

bystander was to observe someone assault another person in public, they may be angered by

this, even though they themselves were not harmed. In this instance, the emotion would be

moral since it is concerned about someone other than the self.

It has been argued that moral emotions are distinct from non-moral emotions. This

was raised by Haidt (2003) who contents that moral emotions have two prototypical features

that help distinguish moral emotions from non-moral emotions: disinterested elicitors and

prosocial action tendencies. An emotion is believed to be moral if it is elicited in

circumstances in which there is no personal stake. Additionally, an emotion is believed to be

moral if the emotion puts a person in a cognitive-motivational state which produced a

tendency to engage in other-serving goal-related behaviours. These goals include seeking to

gain benefits for others or maintain social order. More recently, it has been argued that an

individual’s behaviour might be regulated by the anticipated emotions (Tangney et al., 2007).

For instance, an individual might anticipate feeling ashamed if they were to shoplift and

therefore decide not to engage in the behaviour. Therefore, moral emotions are believed to

serve different social functions, such as the motivation of behavioural tendencies as well as

self-regulation.

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The moral emotions have been distinguished into different emotion families. Haidt

(2003) classified them into other-condemning emotions (e.g., anger, disgust, and contempt),

the self-conscious emotions (e.g., guilt and shame), the other suffering emotions (e.g., pity),

and the self and other praising emotions (e.g., pride and moral elevation). The other-

condemning and self-conscious emotions respond to violations of moral principles. In

contrast, the other-suffering emotions, do not respond to wrongdoing but simply others’

misfortune. Lastly, the self and other-praising emotions are positive emotions which respond

to the moral behaviour. Since the current thesis is concerned primarily with response to

wrongdoing, the current focus will be on other-condemning and self-conscious emotions.

According to the moral emotion framework, other-condemning emotions respond

when other individuals violate a moral code. Since these emotions attempt to police moral

norms, Haidt (2003) dubbed anger, disgust, and contempt as guardians of the moral order but

he also noted that contempt is the least prototypically ‘moral’ out of these emotion. Contempt

is concerned about relative positions in a social hierarchy and therefore necessitates an

understanding of self as well as the other. Adding to this, Prinz (2007) argued that contempt

is not a discrete emotion but is a blend of both anger and disgust. Furthermore, Hutcherson

and Gross (2011) argued that contempt is concerned more about the threat of others

incompetence rather than their immorality. Therefore, it is believed that contempt is less

concerned about morality compared to anger and disgust. However, as will be discussed in

this chapter, like anger and disgust, contempt is directed towards other people and motivates

different types of behaviours. Therefore, it may be necessary to consider contempt when

examining the relationship between anger and disgust and different types of moral

behaviours.

Research has typically focused upon comparing feelings of anger with disgust. In

their review of disgust Giner-Sorolla, Kupfer, and Sabo (2017) argue that anger and disgust

22

are similar in the fact they are both basic emotions that occur from early infancy, they both

are other-directed emotions, they have a universally recognisable facial expression and they

are both high-arousal emotions. In their review, they report that for moral judgement, the

average correlation between anger and disgust to fall between a moderate and strong

relationship of .40-.70. One possible reason for such a strong overlap between these emotions

is because they are other-critical emotions which coactivate during others’ moral

transgressions.

These other-directed emotions are believed to be distinct from the self-conscious

emotions. Tracy, Robins, and Tangney (2007) have argued that guilt and shame are unlike the

other-condemning emotions since they have several distinct characteristics. For instance, they

require self-awareness, emerge later in childhood when the self-concept emerges, they

facilitate the attainment of cognitively complex goals, they do not have a universally

recognised facial expression. It is precisely because these emotions require the ability to

represent the self, that these self-conscious emotions are distinct from emotions such as anger

and disgust. A recent meta-analysis found that the Pearson correlation between guilt and

shame ranged between .18 to .87, with an average correlation of .58 (Leach & Cidam, 2015).

This suggests that there is reasonable overlap between these emotions because they are self-

critical emotions which occur when an individual does something wrong.

The social functions of the moral emotions

As may be recalled above, social functionalist accounts of emotion argue that

different emotions are helpful in overcoming distinct social problems. Appraisal theory of

emotion initially focused on how individuals appraise the environment to respond in a

manner which advances their own interests. However, it has been argued that the moral

emotions enable individuals to appraise and respond to wrongdoing (Giner-Sorolla, 2013;

Hutcherson & Gross, 2011). Therefore, research has attempted to identify the distinct

23

appraisals and behavioural tendencies that occur with the moral emotions. Here, I describe

the distinction between the other-directed emotions: anger and disgust. This is followed by a

consideration of the research that distinguished the self-conscious emotions: guilt and shame.

There is a great deal of research into moral emotions which has examined individuals’

emotional responses to other people’s moral transgressions, rather than when groups have

done something wrong. Nonetheless, there are some parallels between the emotions felt in

response to individual and group transgressions. Therefore, the current focuses will initially

review the emotional responses, such as anger, disgust, guilt, and shame in response to

individual perpetrators. A more detailed review of how emotions respond to group-level

transgressions will be examined in the next chapter.

Other-Condemning Emotions. To start with the other-directed emotions, which

have been shown to be associated with distinct types appraisals. As described earlier,

individuals’ judgements include a global evaluation of the character of the individual

transgressor as well as an evaluation of a particular behaviour. Russell and Giner-Sorolla

(2011) found that both emotions (anger and disgust) and appraisals (abnormality, harm, and

intent) were significantly positively correlated with moral judgement. Anger, controlling for

disgust, was predicted by appraisals of harm and intent. Disgust, controlling for anger, was

predicted by appraisal of abnormality. This study demonstrates that anger and disgust are

elicited by different moral appraisals. While anger responds to concerns relating to action

intent and harm, disgust responds to concerns regarding the abnormality. From the previous

study, alone it remains unclear whether individuals felt disgust because they thought the

action was unusual or because they understood the wrongdoing to be indicative of a bad

moral character.

As described above, individuals not only judge other people’s moral behaviour but

also make inferences regarding the moral character of others (Goodwin et al., 2014). It is

24

believed that moral character assessments are functional because they enable people to

predict others’ behaviours across a range of situations (Helzer & Critcher, 2018). More

recently, it has been argued that disgust is a response to evaluations of moral character rather

than concerns regarding impurity. It has been found people believe disgust to be indicative of

having a bad moral character compared to anger (Hutcherson & Gross, 2011). One relevant

study is Giner-Sorolla and Chapman (2017). In one of their studies, a scenario was presented

to participants which compared agents with harmful desires (i.e., thus indicative of bad moral

character) with those with harmful consequences. The results found that participants

attributed a bad moral character to the agent that desired harm compared to the agent whose

actions resulted in harm. Furthermore, disgust facial expressions (using both forced choice

and scaled measures) were higher in the desire compared to the consequence condition, after

controlling for anger. For disgust items, this was higher when the agent desired negative

consequences, but none were present, which was stronger when the emotions focused on the

person rather than the action. They found that the effect of condition on disgust was

significantly mediated by moral-character judgement. This suggests that disgust is a response

to evidence of a bad moral character of others, and not just impurity of the action.

It has been argued that anger motivates approach behaviours to correct others’ bad

actions, while disgust motivates the avoidance of those with bad moral character. For

instance, Haidt (2003) argued that anger motivates individuals to seek revenge while disgust

motivates individuals to avoid and expel the perpetrator. However, the evidence to support

this claim is less clear. Hutcherson and Gross (2011) conducted a study which examined the

behavioural tendencies of feelings of anger and disgust. Indeed, they found that anger

predicted stronger approach behaviours, such as intentions to intervene and punish the

wrongdoer. In contrast, feelings of moral disgust were also associated with punishment

intentions and this association was stronger for disgust compared to anger. Furthermore, they

25

found that feelings of disgust were unrelated to avoidant behaviours. Interestingly, while the

behaviour motivations for anger diminished once the perpetrator apologised, the same did not

occur for disgust. These findings suggest that anger and disgust are approach behaviours,

which is contrary to Haidt (2003). However, since disgust is difficult to undo (Russell &

Giner-Sorolla, 2011), this supports the idea that disgust responds to others’ immoral

character, it might produce more enduring conflicts between people.

Adding to this, other studies have examined the behavioural motivations that

distinguish feelings of anger from contempt. Fisher and Roseman (2007) argued that anger

motivates behaviours which attempt to improve the relationship while contempt motivates

behaviours which are aimed at ending the relationship with others. In order to demonstrate

this, they conducted a study in which participants were assigned to one of two recall

conditions. In one condition, participants were asked to remember a time they felt contempt

but not anger. In another condition, participants were asked to remember a time they felt

angry but not contempt. Participants appraised the extent to which others were to blame as

well as to appraise the other person’s character. They found differences in appraisals between

the two recalled events. When participants recalled a contempt episode, they reported they

had less control, that the other had greater blame, and evaluated the character of the other

person as worse compared to when an anger episode was recalled. They found differences

between these episodes in the behaviours which occurred after and the participants reported

goals. When a contempt episode was recalled, participants reported grater derogation (e.g.,

“ignoring the other”) and motivated by the goal of social exclusion (e.g., “I wanted to have

nothing to do with this person”). However, when participants recalled an anger episode, they

described greater verbal attack (e.g., “I criticised the other person”) and motivation to coerce

the other person (e.g., “I wanted them to apologise”). Adding to this Schriber, Chung,

Sorensen and Robins (2017) have shown that people feel more contempt towards people they

26

are distant to (e.g., coworkers) and more angry at those who they have a close relationship

(e.g., family). This suggests that contempt is different from anger in that contempt involves a

more negative character appraisals and drives derogative behaviours which are motivated by

the desire to socially exclude the other person.

Therefore, this suggests that the other-directed moral emotions can be distinguished

between an appraisal of the action as bad or a focus on the moral character of the wrongdoer.

While anger responds to a bad action, disgust is concerned about the moral character.

Contempt also appears to be focused on the character of others but is concerned more about

compitency violations rather than morality (Hutcherson and Gross, 2011). Furthermore, anger

has been shown to motivate retribution and diminishes once the wrongdoer apologises

(Hutcherson & Gross, 2011) and aims to constructively maintain positive relationships in the

long term (Fisher & Roseman, 2007). Meanwhile, while disgust has been characterised as an

avoidant emotion (Haidt, 2003), it has been suggested that disgust might motivate active

forms of behaviour, like anger (Hutcherson & Gross, 2011). This brings us onto the research

which has attempted to distinguish the appraisals and behaviours tendencies that are

associated with the self-conscious emotions.

The self-conscious emotions. Tangney (2002) argued that emotions such as guilt,

shame, and embarrassment are self-evaluative emotions, but guilt and shame in particular are

more involved in regulating moral behaviour. These emotions have been differentiated by

their focus on the bad action or the bad character. For instance, Tracy (2006) argues that guilt

is a response to appraisals of the action, while shame responds to a global evaluation of the

person. It was reasoned that if individuals appraise something to have resulted from an

internal, stable, and uncontrollable cause (i.e., ability), then individuals would feel ashamed.

In contrast, if the negative event is believed to have resulted from an internal, unstable, and

controllable cause (i.e., low effort) then individuals will feel stronger feelings of guilt. To

27

state differently, guilt responds to the idea that “I have done something bad” while shame

responds more to “I am a bad person”. In order to test this, she presented participants with a

series of vignettes which explained failure in an exam. The study manipulated the locus (i.e.,

internal versus external), stability (i.e., stable versus unstable) and controllability (i.e.,

controllable versus uncontrollable) of the attributions provided in the vignette. As expected,

the results showed that internal attributions resulted in more self-conscious emotions (guilt,

shame) compared to non-self-conscious emotions (anger, fear, sadness). The results showed

that greater internal and stable attributions led to shame compared to guilt, internal and

unstable attributions led to more guilt than shame. Additionally, internal and uncontrollable

events led to greater shame compared to guilt, while internal and controllable events led to

greater feelings of guilt compared to shame. The effect of controllability was larger than the

stability. This suggests that people who blame themselves for a negative event feel ashamed

or guilty, while the former focuses upon the person, the latter focus on the action.

Furthermore, it has been argued that guilt and shame motivate distinct behaviours. For

instance, several authors have proposed that guilt motivates a constructive approach to make

amends with those harmed, while shame motivates behavioural avoidance (Giner-Sorolla,

2013; Haidt, 2003; Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007). Schmader and Lickel (2006)

conducted a study examining the relationship between shame and avoidance as well as guilt

and reparative intentions. In their study, undergraduate students completed a memory recall

task, in which they were instructed to write about a time they felt guilty or ashamed for

something they had done. Reparative behaviours included items such as “I felt like I should

do something after the event to make it better” while distancing included items such as “At

the time, I remember wishing that I could hide or remove my association to what happened.”

Guilt, but not shame, predicted stronger reparation behaviours. In contrast, shame, but not

guilt, predicted stronger distancing (although the coefficients were non-significantly different

28

from one another). These findings support the claim that guilt and shame motivate distinct

forms of behaviours. While guilt motivates individuals to restore the wrongdoing, shame

motivates individuals to withdraw. This would suggest that guilt is a more constructive and

helpful moral emotion compared to shame.

However, some have questioned the avoidant motivation of shame, instead it is

argued that shame, when there is an opportunity to repair, also motivates approach

behaviours. This has been illustrated by Leach and Cidam (2015), who conducted a meta-

analysis to examine the behavioural consequences of shame. They only included studies

examining a constructive approach (prosocial motivation, cooperation, and self-

improvement). A total of 90 independent samples from 71 separate studies were retained,

including both experimental and correlational studies. However, only five studies were

experimental while the rest were correlational. Overall, they found that the more reparable

the failure, the stronger the relationship between shame and a constructive approach

orientation. However, guilt was linked to a constructive approach even when the failure was

less reparable. These findings indicate that guilt and shame may both motivate approach

behaviours, however shame is more sensitive to the opportunity to repair than guilt.

Chapter Summary

Overall, there is strong evidence to suggest that individuals’ social judgements include

emotions, which are concerned about the moral behaviours and characters of other

individuals and groups (Brambilla et al., 2012; Leach et al., 2007; Phalet & Poppe, 1997; van

der Toorn et al., 2015). This includes a concern about the morality of ingroup and outgroups.

Furthermore, these emotional judgements are believed to serve multiple group-level social

functions. However, top-down theories in moral psychology have focused on the role of

social judgement and emotions conserve the current social order (Ellemers, 2017; Haidt,

2003; Keltner & Haidt, 1999) rather than the bottom-up approach which focus upon how

29

moral judgements of groups promote social change (Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Janoff-Bulman &

Carnes, 2013). Different emotions are elicited to different types of judgement (Lazarus,

1982). These include the other-condemning emotions, anger and disgust, which respond to

others wrongdoing (Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999). In contrast, the self-conscious

emotions, guilt and shame, respond when the self is considered the perpetrator (Tracy et al.,

2007). While anger and guilt include a judgement about the morality of a particular action,

shame and disgust are primarily focused on the moral character of a perpetrator (Giner-

sorolla & Chapman, 2017; Russell & Giner-sorolla, 2011). These emotions are important

motivators of different forms of behaviour that regulate moral conduct.

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Chapter 2: Group-Based Emotion

In the previous chapter I reviewed the research that examined the relationship

between morality and groups. It was argued that the individuals consider the morality of their

group to be extremely important and feel a sense of collective responsibility (Brambilla,

Rusconi, Sacchi, & Cherubini, 2011; Janoff-Bulman & Carnes, 2013; Leach, Ellemers, &

Barreto, 2007). When individuals believe their group has violated some moral standard, they

become distressed and experience dissonance (Glasford et al., 2008; van der Toorn et al.,

2015). Additionally, building upon the appraisal theory of emotions, the moral emotions

framework was reviewed, which argues that in response to a moral transgression, individuals

feel a family of emotions which are concerned about the welfare of third parties or society as

a whole (Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Haidt, 2003; Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007). These

emotions are believed to serve the function of regulating individual and group morality

(Hutcherson & Gross, 2011; Keltner & Haidt, 1999; Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007).

This chapter introduces another perspective of emotion which has also drawn heavily upon

appraisal theory: models of group-based emotions. As I will demonstrate in the current

chapter, the theory of group-based emotions can be helpful in explaining how and why

individuals respond to the group moral transgressions, which serve the function of regulating

the morality of groups within a society.

This chapter begins by clarifying what is meant, and what is not meant, by the term

“group-based emotion” and how this perspective relates to moral emotions. As will be

explained throughout the chapter, group-based emotion is a single theory which has been

applied into understanding emotions in three different domains. Firstly, research has

examined outgroup-hostile group-based emotions in intergroup contexts. Research in this

area has examined how distinct group-based emotions, such as anger and disgust, are useful

in explaining different types of intergroup relations. Secondly, the evidence basis for group-

31

conscious emotions will be reviewed. In contrast, this approach has argued that group-based

emotions, such as guilt and shame, can provide a differentiated response when the ingroup

has transgressed. Finally, recently it has been suggested that individuals may feel angry or

disgusted by their own group’s moral transgressions. This ingroup-directed emotion

framework is described and evaluated. Overall, these three different perspectives are helpful

in understanding how emotions, in response to group-level moral transgressions, may help

regulate group moral behaviour.

What is Meant by “Group-Based Emotion”?

In the previous chapter, the appraisal theory of emotions was described, in which

individuals evaluate how the environment may impact upon the self so that they can respond

accordingly (Lazarus, 1982). Initially these theories had claimed that an individual’s

appraisal assesses how the environment impacts upon the themselves as an individual.

However, according to social identity theory, individuals define and represent themselves as

an individual but also as a member of a social group (Tajfel, 1974). In other words,

individuals have a personal and a social identity. Theories of group-based emotion have

integrated both the appraisal theory of emotion with social identity approach to argue that

emotions are elicited by events that impact upon their group rather than only elicited by

events that only affect themselves personally (Branscombe & Doosje, 2004; Goldenberg,

Saguy, & Halperin, 2014; Mackie & Smith, 2003a). An individual’s social identity is

believed to explain why people are emotionally sensitive to group-relevant events. Instead of

appraising how an event may impact upon the personal self, people appraise how an event

may impact upon other ingroup members or the group as a whole. Therefore, emotions that

occur when an individual’s social identity is salient, are referred to as group-based emotions.

When an individual’s personal identity is made salient, emotions are referred to as personal

emotions.

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What is the difference between group-based emotion and other social emotions, such

as moral emotions? Smith, Seger, and Mackie (2007) proposed four criteria for characterising

group-based emotions and thus distinguishing them from other forms of social emotions.

Firstly, they proposed that group-based emotions are distinct from their individual level-

emotions. The emotions felt when thinking of oneself as an individual will be different from

the emotions felt when thinking of oneself as a group member. Secondly, group-based

emotions are believed to depend upon their level of identification with the group, which

represents their inclusion of the self within the group. Thirdly, group-level emotions are

believed to be socially shared within a group. Lastly, group-level emotions are believed to

contribute to motivating and regulating intragroup and intergroup attitudes and behaviours.

These four criteria are believed to characterise group-based emotions, rather than the

empathic, or moral, emotions. However, Smith et al. (2007) argued that there will be times in

which one of these criteria may not apply. Instead of treating the criteria as defining attributes

which are necessary for an emotion to be described as group-based, they ought to be

considered as evidence which supports whether or not an emotion is considered group-based.

In order to demonstrate these four criteria for group-based emotions, Smith et al.

(2007) conducted two studies. In the first study, participants were asked to report the

emotions they felt (including questions which referring to feelings of anger, disgust,

happiness and many others) whilst thinking of themselves as unique individuals, university

students, or political party supporter (Republican or Democrat). Firstly, they found significant

differences in the emotion profiles of the group and individual emotions. To put differently,

individuals felt different emotions depending upon if they were asked to report how they felt

as a unique individual, as a Republican, or as a Democrat. Secondly, as predicted, there was a

significant positive correlation between identification and positively-valanced group-based

emotion. Negatively-valanced group-based emotions were not consistently related to ingroup

33

identification. Thirdly, it was found that individual’s group emotions converge towards the

average emotion of that particular social groups. To put differently, they found support for

the claim that individual’s group-based emotions converge to the emotion profile of the group

(i.e., emotional conformity). More specifically, the average emotion of the group, predicted

an individual’s group-based emotion after controlling for their personal emotions. Finally,

group-emotions regulate intragroup and intergroup attitude. They found that generalised

positive group emotions increased support from the ingroup and as well as increased

willingness to confront the outgroup. However, in the first study, negative emotions did not

predict intergroup behaviours, such as deciding to confront, support or avoid an outgroup.

The authors argued that this may have resulted from not establishing which group the anger

was directed towards. The second study successfully replicated these effects, however this

time they measured feelings of anger towards the outgroup as well as feelings of anger

towards the ingroup. They consistently found that increased outgroup-directed anger, which

also included items relating to disgust, to be important in motivating greater confrontation.

Anger towards the ingroup was combined with guilt and was less consistently a predictor of

confrontation and instead predicted less support of the ingroup. The authors suggest that these

findings support the claim that group-based emotions can be distinguished between other

social emotions based upon the four proposed criteria.

These findings corroborate other studies which have shown that individuals report

feeling negative emotions in response to their group’s behaviours, even when the individual

has not been personally involved (Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 1998b). This

successfully demonstrates that individual-level emotions are indeed distinct from group-level

emotions. Nonetheless, there are some limitations to these criteria for group-based emotions.

Smith et al. (2007) found that positive emotions were dependent upon group identification

more so than negative emotions. The authors propose that this can be explained since

34

ingroup-directed negative emotions are aversive. They argue that highly identified ingroup

members could attempt to down-regulate the ingroup-critical emotions by justifying any

wrongdoing or possibly disidentifying from the group. Indeed, in their second study, they

found outgroup-directed anger to be more correlated with identification compared to ingroup-

directed anger. As will be discussed later, this suggests that the relationship between ingroup

identification and negative group-based emotion is more complex than proposed in their

criteria. Therefore, models of describing the relationship between ingroup-identification will

need to establish which group the negative emotion is directed towards.

Additionally, some have challenged the claim that group-based emotions are shared

by group members. For instance, across five studies, Goldenberg et al. (2014) found that

when individuals perceive their groups’ emotional response to be inappropriate, such as

failing to feel guilty for an ingroup transgression (studies 1 and 3) or angry towards an

outgroup (study 2), then participants feel stronger feelings compared to when the group’s

emotional response was deemed appropriate. They find that this emotional nonconformity

occurs for two reasons. Firstly, when the individuals feel the group’s response is inadequate,

they feel negative emotions towards the ingroup, called emotional transfer, which then

explains emotional non-conformity (study 4). Secondly, individuals felt obliged to engage in

the type of action that is associated with the emotion, which they termed the emotional

burden (study 5). These findings challenge the claim made by Smith et al. (2007) that group-

based emotions are shared within a group, instead, there are indeed circumstances in which

individuals may engage in emotional non-conformity.

One concern I raise is that these criteria proposed by Smith et al. (2007) ignore that

group-based emotions can be more or less moral. In my view, whether an emotion is

considered to be moral is relative to the scope of its concern. At one extreme, non-moral

emotions are more narrowly concerned about the welfare of the immediate personal self,

35

while at the other extreme emotions could respond to concerns about the welfare of all of all

living things (Haidt, 2003). An emotion is considered to be more moral than another emotion

if it is concerned about the welfare of a more inclusive set of entities. As will becoming clear

throughout the chapter, group-based emotion can be exclusively concerned about the welfare

of the ingroup and perhaps this would seem relatively more moral than emotions which are

concerned about immediate self-interest. However, in a similar vein, an exclusive concern for

the ingroup might be considered too parochial, prejudicial, and narrow compared to emotions

concerned about the welfare of vulnerable outgroups. It will appear that, like individual-level

emotions, group-based emotions can differ in the scope of the concern, with some group-

based emotions revealing a broader set of concerns than others.

So far, group-based emotions have been defined as those emotions that occur when an

individual’s social identity is salient. Group-based emotions are distinct from personal

emotions, have a complex relationship with negative ingroup identification, and may or may

not be shared within the group (Goldenberg et al., 2014; Smith et al., 2007). In the

subsequent sections, I describe three ways in which group-based emotions have been studied.

The first is intergroup emotions theory, which examines how emotions such as anger and

disgust respond to concerns about the welfare of the narrow interests of the ingroup (Mackie

& Smith, 2003a). The second is ingroup-directed self-conscious emotions, which researchers

have examined how individuals feel guilt and shame when their group transgresses against

another group (Branscombe & Doosje, 2004; Tracy et al., 2007). Together, these two

perspectives would suggest that individuals feel group-based anger and disgust for outgroup

transgressions and group-based guilt and shame for ingroup transgressions. However, some

have suggested that individuals can feel a set of ingroup-directed hostile emotions, such as

ingroup-directed anger and disgust, in response to their own group’s misbehaviour (Iyer,

Schmader, & Lickel, 2007; Leach, Iyer, & Pedersen, 2006).

36

Throughout all of these approaches, there have been several insights into group-based

in responses to group moral transgressions. Each of these have examined how ingroup

identification is related to group-based emotion, how group-based emotions can be

differentiated by differing appraisals, and action tendencies. Lastly, some have considered

how these group-based emotions are expressed and how these emotional displays may impact

upon intergroup relations. In the subsequent sections, the evidence for each of these

approaches to group-based emotions are reviewed and evaluated.

Outgroup-Directed Hostile Emotions

Intergroup emotions theory was developed to explain conflict between different social

groups. The field of intergroup relations has primarily considered how conflict is motivated

by unfavourable attitudes toward an outgroup, known as prejudice (Brown, 2010). Mackie

and Smith (2003) criticised traditional models of prejudice, since they believed that these

models were unable to explain differential treatment of disliked outgroups, such as why one

group would be avoided while another would be harmed. They argued, drawing upon

appraisal theory, that distinct emotions can explain differential intergroup behaviours. For

example, while feeling angry about a group might be equally as negative as being fearful,

these emotions are qualitatively different emotions. These discrete emotions are expected to

motivate different types of group behaviour. Indeed, research has shown intergroup emotions

to be a stronger predictor of outgroup attitudes than traditional measures of prejudice

(Hodson et al., 2013), demonstrating the utility of differentiating negative emotional

responses in response to outgroups. This theory of emotion was therefore characterised as

emotional prejudice, with individuals displaying a concern for the welfare of their social

group.

Research into intergroup emotions has provided some helpful insights. Firstly,

research has considered how these intergroup emotions relate to the level of identification

37

with the group. As described in the previous chapter, negative group-based emotions have

been shown to have a complex relationship with ingroup identification (Smith et al., 2007).

Secondly, Mackie and Smith (2003) argue that intergroup emotions are differentiated by

group level appraisal. As described in the previous chapter, personal feelings of anger and

disgust include distinct appraisals about other individuals, therefore it is proposed that group-

level anger and disgust have different appraisals about other groups. Thirdly, they argue that

emotions regulate intergroup behaviour. More precisely, different emotions are believed to

motivate different intergroup behaviours. A focus upon group-based emotions will be helpful

in understanding why and when group members will peacefully protest wrongdoing, when

they will engage in violent disruption, or when they avoid and exclude other groups

altogether. Finally, a few studies have begun to examine the role of expressions of intergroup

emotions and how they may regulate intergroup conduct (de Vos, van Zomeren, Gordijn, &

Postmes, 2013; Katzir & Liberman, 2018). Therefore, this evidence will briefly be discussed.

The evidence examining these considerations are described in sequence below.

Ingroup Identification

As discussed above, individuals may categorise themselves to be members of a given

social group. However, group members also differ between the degree of psychological

commitment with the group, with some being more committed to the group than others. This

identification with the ingroup is believed to be important for the intensity of group-based

emotions. For instance, Smith et al. (2007) argued that group-based emotions are dependent

upon the level of ingroup identification. They argued that this is because highly identified

ingroup members, more so than weakly identified, have incorporated the group into the

definition of the self and, with this, includes the emotional significance of the group. Since

negative emotions directed towards outgroups do not threaten the ingroup, individuals do not

38

engage in methods to mitigate the negative emotion. Therefore, it has been proposed that

ingroup identification promotes more intense negative outgroup-directed emotions.

There is a reasonable amount of research which has examined the relationship

between ingroup identification and outgroup-directed emotion. For instance, Yzerbyt,

Dumont, Wigboldus, and Gordijn (2003) conducted a study examining the effect of self-

categorisation and identification on the strength of group-based emotions. Students were

asked about their opinion on what had appeared in the local newspaper. Half of the

participants were asked about how their ingroup identification with their particular university,

while the other half of the participants were asked about their superordinate student identity,

which is shared with people who study at other universities. Before the emotion-inducing

stimulus was presented, participants then complete a self-report measure of ingroup

identification. After this, participants read a newspaper article describing another university

harming the student at their university. Participants received an adjective emotion scale,

which asked them to rate the extent to which they felt a given emotion adjective. An

exploratory factor analysis revealed adjectives relating to anger, fear, sadness, and happiness

to load on different factors. When participants shared an identity with the harmed group (i.e.,

the common ingroup condition), high identifiers felt more anger and less happiness compared

to weakly identified group members. However, there was no effect of identification on anger

in the subgroup condition (i.e., when they were asked about their own group). This suggests

that both self-categorisation and ingroup identification influences the strength of anger, with

participants feeling greater anger when they belonged to the same group as those harmed and

especially if they were strongly identified with the group.

Several studies have shown a similar a relationship between intergroup anger and

ingroup identification, revealing that highly identified group members feel stronger outgroup-

directed anger than less identified group members (Jones, Manstead, & Livingstone, 2009;

39

Smith et al., 2007). Therefore, this trend appears to be robust. Of course, one limitation of

these studies was that they were primarily correlational by design which makes causality

difficult to infer. It is indeed plausible that negative outgroup-directed emotions increase

identification and commitment to the group. However, one strength of Yzerbyt et al. (2003) is

that they measured ingroup identification prior to the emotion-evoking stimulus. This lends

some support to Smith et al. (2007) claim that group-based emotions are determined, in part,

by ingroup identification.

Despite this, the claim that identification causes intergroup emotion is not

incompatible with the claim that emotion causes ingroup identification. Indeed, it is possible

that the relationship is bi-directional. This is what Kessler and Hollbach (2005) aimed to find

out. They asked East and West German participants to freely recall a situation where the

other group made them feel angry. The study used different measures of identification before

and after, but nonetheless they were highly correlated (r = .76) so they argued they were

parallel measures. The results showed that identification was significantly above the midpoint

of the scale, indicating sufficient identification with the group. Furthermore, there were no

significant differences in identification on any of the between-subjects’ manipulations, which

indicates random group allocation was successful. The results showed that recalling outgroup

anger significantly increased identification of the outgroup. Additionally, participants rated

the intensity of the anger they recalled. They found that the intensity of anger predicted a

greater increase in identification. The authors argue that this study supports the claim that

group-based emotions determine ingroup identification, with outgroup directed anger

increasing individual’s identification with the group.

While the evidence for intergroup anger is robust, there has been substantially less

research examining the relationship between ingroup identification and outgroup-directed

disgust. While the studies examining anger were focused on emotional responses to an event,

40

research on outgroup-disgust has focused on an individual’s tendency to experience disgust

towards outgroups, known as intergroup disgust sensitivity (IDS). This tendency has been

shown to predict negative outgroup attitudes above other measures of prejudice (Hodson et

al., 2013). One study has examined the relationship between IDS and identification in

religious group contexts. Choma, Haji, Hodson, and Hoffarth (2016) conducted a study

examining three samples of Christian undergraduates. In the study, participants were given

self-report measures of identification with their religious group as well as a measure of

intergroup disgust sensitivity. Overall, they found that stronger identification with a religious

group was positively correlated with stronger intergroup disgust sensitivity towards sexual

minority groups. While this supports the claim that ingroup-identification determines

outgroup-directed disgust, since it is also correlational by design, it is hard to discern any

causal direction.

Overall, there is substantial evidence which demonstrates a positive relationship

between ingroup identification and outgroup-directed negative emotions. To understand the

causality underlying this, researchers have measured identification prior to the emotion

eliciting stimulus as well as comparing identification before and after (Kessler & Hollbach,

2005; Yzerbyt et al., 2003). The evidence has uncovered a bi-directional relationship with

intergroup anger. As Smith et al. (2007) describes, identification increases the outgroup-

directed negative emotion. However, that describes only part of the relationship because

negative outgroup-directed emotion can reinforce individual’s commitment to the group.

Collective Appraisal

Intergroup emotions are different from personal emotions because they include an

appraisal about how events impact the group, rather than them as individuals (Kuppens,

Yzerbyt, Dandache, Fischer, & Van Der Schalk, 2013). While all group-based emotions share

a concern about the group, intergroup emotions theory also argues that discrete group-based

41

emotions will be differentiated by a distinct type of group-based appraisal (Mackie & Smith,

2003a; Smith et al., 2007) and how group-based emotions respond to threats to the group

(Shepherd, Fasoli, Pereira, Branscombe, 2018). Therefore, according to this perspective, one

ought to find that different group-based emotions, such as anger and disgust, are associated

with distinct judgements about an outgroup.

There is strong evidence which demonstrates that intergroup emotions are

differentiated by distinct underlying appraisals. Mackie, Devos, and Smith (2000) conducted

a set of studies which examined whether intergroup emotions can be differentiated by

underlying appraisals of the group. The first study was a correlational design, in which

participants were asked to appraise and report their feelings about a group with conflicting

values, on the issue about whether illegal drug consumption should be punished. Both an

exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted on eight emotion adjectives

which found two emotion factors; fear and anger. During the analysis, they controlled the

other emotion. They found that appraisal of collective support (i.e., the belief that the

majority support their position) and ingroup identification significantly predicted anger over

and above what could be explained by group variance and fear. This lends some support to

the claim that intergroup anger and fear have differentiated underlying appraisal. However,

this evidence was only correlational. In another study, focusing on the value conflicts in

relation to whether gay people should have the right to get married, Mackie et al (2000)

manipulated the appraisal of collective support by giving participants newspaper headlines

that revealed either strong or weak support for the participants’ position on the issue.

Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted, which again revealed a

difference between anger and fear. Again anger, but not fear, was significantly stronger when

the ingroup was presented as strong. These findings suggest that an appraisal of collective

support helps distinguish between intergroup anger and fear. In their final study, Mackie et al.

42

(2000) measured anger and what they called “contempt”, which included the items

contemptuous, disgusted and sick. However, they failed to find any differences in underlying

appraisals between intergroup anger and contempt suggesting that the emotions are unable to

be differentiated by an appraisal of support for the ingroup.

By manipulating the appraisal of collective support using vignettes, this provides

stronger support for the claim that distinct appraisals cause group-emotions. Using a different

method, Cottrell and Neuberg (2005) conducted a study to identify the underlying the distinct

threats to which each intergroup emotion respond. In their study, they presented participants

with a list of different social groups. They argued that different groups will evoke different

emotions depending upon the threat posed by the outgroup. Participants were asked to rate

the extent to which they believed the outgroup posed as a threat to the ingroup in various

domains. They found that different groups posed specific threats. For example, gay men were

perceived to be a threat to health and African Americans were perceived to be a threat to

physical safety. Additionally, participants were asked to rate how each group made them feel,

using several emotion-based adjectives. A confirmatory factor analysis confirmed group-level

disgust to be distinct from anger. Perhaps most strikingly was the finding that these emotions

were predicted by different appraisals. For instance, participants’ level of anger was

significantly related to an appraisal of outgroup actions, such as the belief that the outgroup

was obstructing group goals. Meanwhile, disgust was predicted by more stable features of the

outgroup, such as appraising the outgroup as a contaminant. These findings lend support to

the claim that intergroup anger and disgust can be differentiated by different group-level

appraisals, with anger more action-focused and disgust more character-focused.

Meanwhile, outgroup-directed anger and contempt both appear to respond to unjust

action, however anger has also been found to be predicted by a belief that the group can

achieve its goals in contrasted with intergroup contempt which has been predicted by lower

43

efficacy beliefs (Shuman, Cohen-Chen, Hirsch-Hoefler, & Halperin, 2016; Tausch et al.,

2011). Therefore, the evidence shows that the intergroup emotions can be constituted by an

appraisal of an outgroup moral violation. Disgust towards another group includes the belief

that that the group is inherently flawed or irredeemable (Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005). In other

words, the outgroups group members are just bad people. However, outgroup-directed anger

and contempt responds to an injustice that responds to a bad action, however anger also

includes the belief that the group action will be effective while contempt is more pessimistic,

with the belief that group action will be ineffective. This differential appraisal suggests that

group-based anger includes an evaluation of the groups actions, while disgust includes an

evaluation of the groups character or essence.

Collective Behaviour

Intergroup emotions theory proposes that group-based emotions are involved in the

regulation of intergroup behaviours. There is strong evidence to support this position. Van

Zomeren, Spears, Fischer, and Leach (2004) conducted a study examining the role of group-

based emotions in motivating collective action. They found that group-based anger predicted

intentions to engage in collective protest, such as peacefully protesting. Additionally, Mackie,

Devos, and Smith (2000) conducted a meta-analysis on three studies they conducted. They

found a moderate effect of intergroup anger on an increased willingness to engage in

collective protest. Additionally, interventions to improve social harmony between groups,

simultaneously decreases intergroup anger and intentions to engage in collective protest

(Tausch, Saguy, & Bryson, 2015). Becker, Tausch, and Wagner (2011) found that outgroup-

directed anger, but not ingroup pride, motivated continued collective protest. In all, this

evidence shows that anger motivates willingness to engage in demonstrations that are aimed

to act against a transgressing outgroup.

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Emotions are considered to be more helpful in understanding intergroup relations

since they are able to differentiate different forms of collective behaviour. To show this,

Cuddy, Fiske, and Glick (2007) developed the Behaviour from Intergroup Affect and

Stereotype (BIAS) map framework. They conducted several studies to show that different

intergroup emotions motivate distinct forms of intergroup behaviour. Their studies contained

a mix of a nationally representative random sample telephone surveys and controlled

experiments. Participants were asked to provide the stereotypical emotions and behaviours

that are directed towards members of different social groups. They distinguished between

active harm, which refers to effortful behaviours to harm another group, and passive harm,

which refers to behaviours which diminish other groups’ social standing. For example, verbal

harassment would constitute active harm and exclusion would constitute passive harm.

Overall, they found that different stereotypical emotional responses were associated with

differentiated behavioural tendencies. Pitied groups were associated with passive harm, while

anger and contempt were correlated positively with active harm towards the group. This

suggests that intergroup affect is useful in differentiating different forms of intergroup affect.

One issue with Cuddy et al. (2007) was that it failed to identify the distinct behaviours

associated with intergroup contempt from anger. The measure of active harm included items

such as fight and attack, which could be too broad a category to be able to differentiate

between these two emotions. It is possible that anger and contempt motivate different types

of outgroup approach behaviours. For instance, Tausch et al. (2011) sought to identify the

emotions that underlie peaceful and radical forms of collective action. Peaceful behaviours

included attending demonstrations and writing flyers while radical behaviours included

actions such as attacking police and throwing stones. They conducted a study which

examined German university students and their response to increased tuition fees. They found

that appraisals of injustice significantly predicted stronger feelings of contempt and anger.

45

They replicated the findings described above showing that anger predicted willingness to

engage in peaceful political behaviours. Meanwhile, intergroup contempt significantly

mediated the effect of appraisal on intentions to engage in violent non-normative actions,

such as attacking police officers. This suggests that while anger and contempt motivate active

forms of collective behaviours, anger motivates normative forms of collective action while

contempt motivates violent attacks.

The relationship between intergroup emotions and collective action is bidirectional, in

which emotions are also involved in maintaining collective action participation. Becker et al.

(2011) conducted a study regarding students’ responses to raises in tuition fees. The study

manipulated whether participants had engaged in collective action or not, with those in the

collective action condition asked to compile arguments against introducing tuition fees and

send this to the government. They found that collective action participation increased feelings

of intergroup anger and contempt. Additionally, they found that these emotions predicted

further intentions to participate in collective action. While anger predicted intentions to

engage in moderate forms of collective protest, contempt predicted radical forms of collective

action (throwing stones and attacking police officers). This suggests that intergroup emotions

are involved in motivating and maintaining specific types of intergroup conflict.

Meanwhile, intergroup disgust has received less attention in research on collective

action and some studies have included disgusted on measures of contempt (Fiske, Cuddy,

Glick, & Xu, 2002). Whilst contempt motivates active forms of violent protest, disgust has

primarily been characterised as an avoidant emotion. For instance, Cohen-Chen, Halperin,

Saguy, and van Zomeren (2014) conducted a study which examined peoples endorsement of

essentialist beliefs about a group, which refers to the belief that groups are unable to change.

They found that greater essentialists beliefs reduces willingness to engage in normative

collective protest (Cohen-Chen, Halperin, Saguy, & van Zomeren, 2014). Instead, disgust

46

may motivate behaviour avoidance (Haidt, 2003). For example, instead of actively seeking to

harass and attack ethnic minority groups, individuals may seek to avoid the group by denying

asylum seekers entry into their country. These types of behaviours have been shown to be

motivated by different intergroup emotions. Johnston and Glasford (2014) found that feelings

of outgroup-directed anger predicted active harm and feelings of outgroup-directed disgust

predicted more passive harm. This suggests that, unlike contempt and anger, disgust

motivates intergroup avoidance.

However, some have challenged this claim that feelings of intergroup disgust

necessarily result in avoidance, suggesting that fear of contamination may also motivate

behaviours which seek to exterminate the outgroup (Clark, 2015). This claim does appear to

be correspond to the historical treatments of stereotypically disgusting groups, which

received more active forms of attack from the majority group. For instance, individuals feel

disgusted by gay men and this sexual prejudice is because homosexuality is believed to be a

pathogen (Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005; Filip-Crawford & Neuberg, 2016). Prior to 1967 in

Britain, homosexual sex was criminalised between two men and some were even subjected to

supposed therapies such as chemical castration. Even to this day, gay men face incarceration

or even the death penalty in some parts of the globe. This suggests some plausibility to the

claim that intergroup disgust may also play a role in the commission of intergroup violence.

Communication

Emotions function to communicate motives, values, beliefs and intentions to other

individuals and groups (Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Keltner & Haidt, 1999). Expressing intergroup

emotions has shown to be important in communicating intentions to other groups prior to any

conflict. For example, de Vos, van Zomeren, Gordijn, and Postmes (2013) conducted a study

in which an outgroup either expressed anger or contempt in response to wrongdoing by

ingroup members. They found that when the outgroup expressed anger, this resulted in

47

weaker intentions to engage in destructive action, such as intentions to directly confront the

outgroup to release frustration. Additionally, they found that when the group expressed anger,

participants had greater empathy for the other group compared to expressions of contempt.

The results suggest that expression of intergroup emotions can actually influence intergroup

conflict. By expressing anger, without any contempt, conflict will be de-escalated, and

outgroup members engage in intergroup reconciliation. These findings harmonise with those

above which show anger to motivate normative, non-violent, protest. This suggests that

intergroup anger is constructive for intergroup relations.

Additionally, the expression of group-based emotion is important in communicating

beliefs about the outgroup to other ingroup members. For instance, Katzir and Liberman

(2018) examined inferences about the beliefs of a target who expressed anger or disgust about

an outgroup. Across multiple studies, participants inferred that the target held more

essentialist beliefs about the outgroup, viewed the outgroup to be immoral, and viewed the

outgroup to be more impure when disgust was expressed compared to anger. Participants

perceived expressions of anger to be more legitimate than disgust and participants perceived

the target more negatively when they expressed disgust compared to anger. This suggests that

expressions of outgroup-directed anger and disgust function to communicate motivations and

beliefs to others. Specifically, expressions of outgroup-directed disgust functions to

communicate the flawed moral character of the outgroup. Overall, these studies show that

expressed group-based emotions also communicate socially relevant information to others,

which may have important impact upon intergroup relations.

Section summary

Intergroup emotions theory provides helpful insights to our understanding of how

groups respond to outgroup moral transgressions. Individuals, especially those who are most

committed to the group, feel greater anger and disgust towards outgroups. This relationship

48

between ingroup identification and outgroup-directed emotion is bi-directional and mutually

reinforcing. Anger and disgust are believed to include a distinct appraisal, with anger focused

upon harmful acts committed by groups and disgust responding to the flawed character of

outgroups. These intergroup emotions are important in motivating relations between groups.

While anger motivates peaceful protesting behaviours, contempt, and the similar emotion of

disgust, motivates violent destruction (Clark, 2015). However, some have claimed that

intergroup disgust may also motivate intergroup avoidance (Johnston & Glasford, 2014).

Lastly, when an outgroup expresses anger, individuals begin to empathise with the group and

are less likely to engage in destructive action. When individuals express disgust about an

outgroup, they infer stronger essential beliefs, suggesting the outgroup has a flawed moral

character. This demonstrates that these outgroup-directed emotions have important

consequences regarding how different groups act towards each other in moral conflicts.

Ingroup-Directed Self-Conscious Emotion

Ingroup-directed self-conscious emotions have provided insight into understanding

how individuals respond to ingroup moral transgressions. While individuals feel negative

self-conscious emotions, such as guilt and shame, when they personally violate the moral

group norms (Haidt, 2003; van der Lee, Ellemers, & Scheepers, 2016), many have noted that

people can feel self-conscious for their group’s historical and contemporary wrongdoing

(Branscombe & Doosje, 2004; Lickel, Steele, & Schmader, 2011; Tracy et al., 2007).

Atrocities such as the Holocaust can be a source of guilt for contemporary Germans, even

though they have had no personal involvement in the Holocaust. Additionally, the Roman

Catholic church has expressed feelings of shame in relation to the child sex abuse that was

committed by senior figures within the organisation (Gibb, 2017). These ingroup directed

self-conscious emotions are believed to be important in shaping intergroup relations, since

49

they may be a motivating factor in whether group members apologise, restore or avoid the

harmed outgroup.

This capacity of feeling guilt for the group’s historical transgressions has been

demonstrated in experiments. For instance, Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, and Manstead

(1998) examined whether group-based emotions can be distinguished from personal

emotions. Their first study used a minimal group design, in which participants allocated

resources in a task to ingroup and outgroup members. Participants were then provided with

false feedback which revealed whether there was bias in allocation or not. As expected, they

found that feelings of collective guilt were higher when the group was biased compared to

when the group was fair. Importantly, this effect occurred even if the participant’s own

treatment of the group was fair. In their second study, they focused on a more ecologically

valid historical moral issue. Doosje, et al. (1998) found that when Dutch people’s colonial

past was framed as unfavourable, participants reported stronger feelings of guilt compared to

when the past was framed as favourable. Focusing upon more contemporary issues, Swim

and Miller (1999) found that when white people perceived their ethnic group to be more

privileged than other ethnic groups, they reported stronger feelings of guilt. Taken together,

these studies demonstrate that individuals can feel guilty about their group’s historical and

contemporary wrongdoing, even if there is no personal involvement in the moral

transgression.

Others have focused upon feelings of shame in response to ingroup moral

wrongdoing, with confirmatory factor analyses revealing that collective guilt and shame are

related but distinct emotions (Brown, González, Zagefka, Manzi, & Cehajic, 2008). In the

wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Johns, Schmader, and Lickel (2005) asked American

college students to recall an instance in which they observed another American showing

prejudice towards Arab people or people who appeared middle eastern. They also asked

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participants to recall how they felt in response to the event. Participants were presented with a

series of emotion adjectives to measure shame and guilt. Adjectives such as ashamed,

disgraced, and humiliated were used to index shame. Adjectives such as guilty, regret, and

remorseful were used to index guilt. These scales both had good internal reliability ratings,

with both = .75. Also note that guilt and shame were strongly correlated with one another (r =

.63). They found that when participants rated their recalled events as more negative, they

recalled feeling more shame and guilt about ingroup conduct. Therefore, these feelings of

guilt and shame for group-based wrongdoing have been referred to as the group-conscious

emotions.

While guilt and shame are highly correlated, they believed to represent distinct

emotional responses to ingroup transgressions. Several confirmatory factor analyses on

adjective based-scales have shown group-based guilt and shame to be distinct emotions

(Allpress, Brown, Giner-Sorolla, Deonna, & Teroni, 2014; Iyer et al., 2007; Leach et al.,

2006). Researchers have asked three key questions regarding these emotions. The first

question relates to the type of group member that feels group-conscious. Specifically,

psychologists have studied whether guilt and shame are emotions felt by highly invested

group members. Alternatively, it is possible that it is those disidentified from the group that

feel more intense self-conscious emotion. The second question relates to how these emotions

assist with an appraisal of the environment. For instance, do guilt and shame relate to distinct

appraisals of the ingroup moral behaviour and character. The last question refers to the types

of group behaviours that these emotions motivate. Research has considered whether these

emotions may result in different intergroup outcomes. These questions are explored below.

Ingroup Identification

As described earlier, Smith et al. (2007) argued that one characteristic of group-based

emotions is that they will be related to stronger ingroup identification. This was observed

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above when the relationship between identification and the intergroup emotions were

discussed. However, since the group-conscious emotions may threaten the self, Smith et al.

(2007) recognised that the relationship between these ingroup-directed self-conscious

emotions and identification is more complicated. Several studies examining the relationship

between the group-conscious emotions and identification have been conducted but overall

there are inconsistencies in the findings between the different studies. For instance, some

studies report that greater identification with the group elicits more intense feelings of group-

based guilt and shame, which would suggest that high identifiers are more invested in the

group (Johns et al., 2005). However, other studies have shown the opposite pattern in which

greater identification results in weaker guilt and shame, suggesting that ingroup members are

defensive and perhaps justify the immoral conduct (Doosje et al., 1998b). These

inconsistencies within the literature support the idea that there is a more sophisticated

relationship between the group-conscious emptions and ingroup identification.

One possibility is that there is a curvilinear relationship between ingroup

identification on the group-conscious emotions. This was examined by Klein, Licata, and

Pierucci (2011) who conducted a study examining Belgians’ feelings of guilt for their

country’s colonial past. They found that moderately identified group members reported

stronger feelings of guilt compared to high and low identifiers. They propose that this

curvilinear effect is the result of two parallel processes that relate to the individual’s social

identity. Firstly, stronger identification is related to group-based guilt since the eliciting

events become more relevant to their social identity. Secondly, since guilt can threaten their

positive social identity, highly identified group members display more defensive reactions,

which therefore inhibits this negative emotion. Such explanations are in line with other

studies that have shown highly identified group members hold beliefs which justify their

groups immoral conduct (Roccas, Klar, & Liviatan, 2006; Roccas, Klar, & Liviantan, 2004).

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These exonerating cognitions are believed to mitigate the negative feelings of guilt and

shame that highly identify group members may feel.

Therefore, group-based emotions are related to ingroup identification because they are

relevant to an individual’s social identity (Smith et al., 2007). However, since group-based

feelings of guilt and shame are also believed to be a threat to a positive social identity, this

results in a more complex relationship between these emotions and ingroup identification

compared to the simple linear relationship observed between the ingroup identification and

the intergroup emotions. There is evidence to suggest a curvilinear relationship between

group-consciousness since these emotions are simultaneously relevant to the individual’s

social identity as well as a threat to their positive social identity.

Collective Appraisal

It has been argued that distinct group-conscious emotions can be distinguished by

their appraisals. As described in the previous chapter, feeling guilty and ashamed for one’s

own behaviour has distinguished by a focus on either the bad action or character (Tracy,

2006). Lickel, Schmader, Curtis, Scarnier, and Ames (2005) conducted a study which aimed

to identify the underlying appraisals that distinguish between group-based guilt and shame.

Their study applied the recall method, in which participants were instructed to recall events in

which another person had done something wrong. Participants were asked to recall their

emotions about the recalled event. They were asked not only how they felt at the time of the

memory but also how they felt about it today. Guilt and shame were measured using an

adjective based scale. Guilt was measured with emotion adjectives such as guilty, regret and

remorse. Shame was measured with adjectives such as ashamed, disgraced, and humiliated.

The results found that guilt and shame were predicted by different appraisals. They found that

an appraisal of behavioural control (e.g., an appraisal of responsibility for the actions)

resulted in stronger feelings of guilt but not shame. Meanwhile, appraisal of image threat

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predicted feeling of vicarious shame but not guilt. While these findings are correlational, they

do demonstrate that these group-based emotions can be differentiated by the appraisal,

whether the appraisal is driven by the emotion or vice versa.

One problem with the findings reported with Lickel et al (2005) is that it is difficult to

discern whether participants were concerned about looking bad in the eyes of others (i.e.,

reputational concerns) or whether participants were concerned that their own moral character

was flawed. To understand this further, Gausel, Leach, Vignoles, and Brown (2012)

conducted two studies which examined group-based shame in the context of Norwegian

wrongdoing. Participants were presented with a news article which described the historical

mistreatment of the Tater minority, such as sterilisation and the restriction of civil liberties.

Participants were asked to report their feelings of shame. Additionally, they measured the

extent to which individuals appraised their group from suffering a moral defect as well as the

extent to which they were rejected by other groups. Using the combined study one and two

data, they found that shame was predicted by an appraisal of ingroup deficit and not a

concern that the ingroup was being condemned. Since the study was a correlational design, it

is difficult to identify the causal sequence. However, they compared two different models.

The first treated the appraisals as an antecedent, while the second model treated the appraisals

as a consequence of the emotion. The results found the appraisal antecedent model fitted the

data better than the appraisal consequent model, which lends some support for the causal

sequence. This suggests that shame includes an appraisal of a flawed ingroup character.

Overall, these studies have been conducted to identify the unique antecedents that

differentiate feelings of group-based guilt and shame. The studies have shown that feelings of

guilt are focused on concerns regarding group actions, such as whether the group is

responsible. However, group-based shame has shown to respond to an appraisal that the

group has some moral defect. Therefore, it appears that people feel guilty because their group

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does something bad, but they feel ashamed because they believe that their group has an

inherently bad character. This parallels the findings described above regarding the appraisals

underlying intergroup anger and disgust appraisals. Therefore, it appears anger and guilt are

focused on the action of a transgression, while disgust and shame respond to the character of

a transgression.

Collective Behaviour

Ingroup-directed self-conscious emotions are believed to motivate and regulate

intergroup conduct. For instance, Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, and Manstead (1998)

conducted two studies, using different methods, both of which examined the relationship

between group-based guilt and outgroup compensatory behaviours. In the first study, using a

minimal group, participants were provided with false feedback which stated that their group

was biased or unbiased in their allocation of resources. The results indicated that for those in

the ingroup-bias condition, there was a significantly greater willingness for ingroup

compensation compared to the no ingroup-bias condition. Once controlling for group-based

guilt, the effect of bias on compensation was rendered non-significant. Overall, this suggests

that stronger feelings of group-based guilt mediated the effect of group-based discrimination

on outgroup compensation. In their second study, guilt surrounding Dutch people’s colonial

history was also found to predict greater compensatory behaviours, replicating the previous

study findings, which suggest that feelings of group-based guilt motivate outgroup

restoration.

In contrast, studies examining the behavioural correlates of group-based shame have

indicated that there could be rather different implications for intergroup relations. For

instance, in their study, Johns, Schmader, and Lickel (2005) asked participants to recall an

ingroup moral transgression. Participants were asked to rate the extent they would engage in

various avoidant behaviours, such as avoiding the individual perpetrator, the ingroup and the

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situation. They found that for those highly identified with the ingroup, the negativity of the

transgression resulted in greater avoidance. This effect was mediated by stronger feelings of

group-based shame but not guilt. This study therefore characterises group-based shame as

distinct from group-based guilt. As described above, feelings of guilt were shown to motivate

individuals to approach the outgroup in an attempt to restore intergroup relations, while

shame in this study motivated individuals distancing themselves from the group.

So far, the evidence suggests that group-based guilt uniquely motivates restorative

behaviours and shame motivates avoidance. However, the previous studies did not include

measures of repair and distancing within the same study. Lickel, Schmader, Curtis, Scarnier,

and Ames (2005) conducted a study which measured both these behavioural motivations and

examined their association with guilt and shame. In their study, undergraduate participants

were instructed to recall events in which they felt ashamed or guilty regarding the actions of

others. Participants were asked to rate the extent they recalled engaging in specific

behaviours. An exploratory factor analysis found that distancing and repair motivations. As

expected feelings of guilt and shame were related to one another. The results demonstrated

that distance motivations were predicted by shame but not guilt. Meanwhile, repair

motivations were predicted by guilt and shame, however they found that the coefficient for

guilt to be significantly stronger compared to shame. Therefore, this evidence suggests that

feelings of guilt and shame motivate distinct behaviours in response to a moral transgression.

Guilt is more strongly related to behavioural motivations that restore the wrongdoing, while

shame is more strongly related to behaviours which attempt hide and possible cover up the

moral transgression.

The studies on group-based guilt and shame have characterised these emotions as

responding to wrongdoing already committed and this has characterised shame as a

particularly unhelpful emotion. However, since these emotions are negative, it has been

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argued that by anticipating feelings of shame individuals will refrain from wrongdoing. For

example, Shepherd, Spears, and Manstead (2013) conducted three studies examining the self-

regulatory role of anticipated group-conscious emotions. In their first study, participants were

asked to anticipate their feelings of guilt, shame, and apathy if their group (a student identity)

were found to discriminate against the outgroup in a resource allocation task. Participants

then distributed the resources to the ingroup or outgroup. A confirmatory factor analysis

confirmed the hypothesised two-factor structure for the group-conscious emotions, showing a

significantly better fit than a single factor solution. Resource allocation uncovered ingroup

favouritism. Furthermore, anticipated group shame negatively predicted ingroup-favouritism.

Neither group-based guilt nor social dominance orientation predicted more ingroup-

favouritism. This suggests that group-based shame, when anticipated, can also promote

egalitarian intergroup behaviour.

Lastly, others have challenged the claim that group-based shame promotes avoidance

by differentiating different types of collective shame. For instance, Allpress, Brown, Giner-

Sorolla, Deonna, and Teroni (2014) conducted several studies that sought to distinguish

between moral and image shame. While moral shame is concerned about character, image

shame is concerned about the ingroups reputation. They argue that image shame, which refers

to the belief that the groups image has been tarnished, relates to the avoidant behaviours

observed in the previous studies. However, individuals can also feel moral shame, which

refers to the belief that the ingroup’s moral standing has been undermined. They argue that

moral shame will be associated with constructive moral intentions. In one study, they focused

on British wrongdoing committed by soldiers in Iraq. British undergraduates’ students were

presented with a newspaper article describing ingroup wrongdoing. A confirmatory factor

analysis found moral shame, image shame and guilt to be separate factors. Additionally, the

three-factor model was a better fit compared to alternative two-factor structure comparing

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shame and guilt as well as an alternative one-factor structure in which all negative emotions

loaded onto the same emotion. Moral shame showed a significant positive predictor of

positive responses (such as apology), while image shame predicted negative responses (such

as avoidance). However, guilt was not related to either positive or negative responses. This

finding suggests that shame may also be constructive for intergroup relations.

Section Summary

In all, the group-conscious emotion literature suggests that individuals in response to

both historical and contemporary ingroup transgressions feel the group-conscious emotions;

guilt and shame. These emotions occur even if the individual themselves were not personally

involved in the wrongdoing. The evidence has also demonstrated that group-based guilt and

shame are indeed distinct group-based emotions. Research into group-conscious emotions

have revealed three findings which add insight into understanding how individuals respond to

group moral transgressions. Firstly, moderately identified group members are most likely to

feel group-conscious since high identifiers justify and explain away wrongdoing, while low

identifiers lack the group commitment to feel the emotion. Secondly, while guilt contains an

appraisal that ingroup has done something bad, shame contains the appraisal that the group is

inherently bad. Finally, guilt and shame motivate distinct collective behaviours. Guilt has

been shown to motivate behaviours which attempt to restore those harmed by ingroup

wrongdoing. This includes compensation and supporting reform in policies which maintain

disadvantage. Meanwhile group-based shame has been shown to motivate behaviours that

avoid victim groups. However, some have argued that shame can promote egalitarian

intergroup behaviours as well as intergroup approach.

Ingroup-Directed Hostile Emotions

This brings us onto the last approach of group-based emotion, known as the ingroup-

directed hostile emotions. So far, I have described two areas of research in group-based

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emotions which attempt to provide a novel insight into how group members feel in response

to a group moral transgression. If an outgroup has violated some moral rule or standard,

intergroup emotion theory suggests individuals experience a class of negative outgroup-

directed emotions; including anger, disgust and contempt (Mackie & Smith, 2003a).

Alternatively, the ingroup-directed self-conscious emotion literature suggests that individuals

will respond with shame and guilt when the ingroup has violated a moral code (Tracy et al.,

2007). Both the outgroup-directed and the group-conscious emotions include appraisals of the

wrongdoing and are believed to be important for intergroup relations. Anger and guilt and

believed to be focused upon a bad action and shame and disgust are believed to occur when

there is a belief that the character is essentially flawed (Lickel et al., 2005). While the

intergroup emotions may motivate distinct forms of collective protest (Becker et al., 2011;

Tausch et al., 2011), the ingroup-directed self-conscious emotions are more focused upon the

victim of injustice and whether the ingroup should issue and apology, compensate or simply

avoid the wronged group (Doosje et al., 1998b; Johns et al., 2005). Therefore, together these

models suggest individuals feel anger and disgust in response to outgroup transgressions, but

guilt and shame in response to ingroup transgression.

The ingroup-directed hostile emotion literature challenges the ingroup-outgroup

distinction between the group-based emotions. Some authors have argued that anger and

disgust can be felt in response to an ingroup moral transgression (Clark, 2015; Leach, Iyer, &

Pedersen, 2006; Thomas, McGarty, & Mavor, 2009). To put differently, individuals can also

feel self-directed anger and disgust. Some have taken this even further and suggested that

ingroup-directed emotions might be more helpful in creating more equal intergroup relations.

For instance, Thomas et al. (2009) argues that group members’ anger about their own

advantage will be more productive than intergroup anger since ingroup members, by

definition, have greater control over their resources and therefore will be more able to

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introduce regulations to address their advantage. Meanwhile, Clark (2015) argues that feeling

disgusted about the ingroup serves also social functions for protecting an individual from a

contaminated ingroup. Therefore, ingroup-directed emotions, such as feelings of anger and

disgust, will be linked a distinct appraisal and behavioural motivation in response to an

ingroup moral transgression.

In this section, the studies examining the relationship between ingroup-directed

emotions and identification, appraisals and behavioural motivations will be described and

evaluated. As will become clear throughout, there has been substantially more research

examining ingroup-directed anger and how it is distinct from the group-conscious emotions.

For example, several studies have conducted confirmatory factor analyses revealing guilt,

shame and anger to be distinct emotions that occur in response to an ingroup transgression

(Iyer et al., 2007; Leach et al., 2006). Meanwhile, the differentiating features of ingroup-

directed disgust has not received much empirical investigation. Therefore, currently our

understanding of ingroup-directed disgust remains exclusively theoretical.

Ingroup Identification

Group-based emotions are believed to be positively associated with ingroup

identification. Earlier, I described how research has shown there to be a positive association

between outgroup directed anger and disgust (Choma et al., 2016; Yzerbyt et al., 2003).

However, research has shown that the relationship between identification is not the same for

group-based emotions which has negative implications for the ingroup. For example, Smith et

al. (2007) found that anger directed at the outgroup was positively correlated with ingroup

identification, meanwhile anger at the ingroup was negatively correlated with ingroup

identification. Therefore, weakly identified ingroup members feel greater ingroup-directed

anger compared to strongly identified ingroup members. Smith et al. (2007) suggested that

identification causes individuals to justify or explain away the wrongdoing. According to this

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explanation, group-based emotion is caused by ingroup identification. However, this was a

correlational study therefore it remains difficult to untangle the causal claims regarding

ingroup-directed anger and ingroup identification.

To untangle the causal direction, Kessler and Hollbach (2005) conducted a study in

which Germans were asked to freely recall a situation which made them feel angry towards

the ingroup or towards an outgroup. They measured identification with the national group

before and after this recall task. Before the recall task, identification was unrelated to

ingroup-directed anger. However, they found that ingroup-directed anger predicted a stronger

decrease in ingroup identification. Since this study measured ingroup identification before

and after, it was able to make the claim that the emotion is causing the change in ingroup

identification. This suggests that feelings of anger might cause individuals to revaluate their

commitment to the ingroup.

Collective Appraisal

One characteristic of ingroup-directed emotions is that the appraisal relates to the

ingroup compared to an outgroup. This was found by Leach, et al. (2006), who in their study

attempted to identify the appraisals underlying anger towards the ingroup. The study

examined feelings of group-based guilt and anger that non-Aboriginal Australians report in

response to their groups’ advantage over the non-Aboriginal population. In one study, a

questionnaire was given out to Aboriginal people attending university. Feelings of guilt and

anger were measured using several emotion-based adjectives. Participants inclusion within

the ingroup (i.e., self-definition) was higher than the mid-point of the scale, which suggests

that the participants were sufficiently identified with their identity as a non-Aboriginal

Australian. The researchers asked participants to appraise the responsibility of the ingroup as

well as their government. They report that perceived ingroup advantage was positively

correlated with an appraisal of ingroup responsibility but not an appraisal of government

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responsibility. Additionally, both guilt and anger were predicted by perceived ingroup

responsibility. Therefore, it was argued that since the anger was related to ingroup

responsibility, and not the government, the authors argued that the anger was ingroup-

focused. Therefore, it appears group-based guilt and anger are similar in the extent that they

share an appraisal of ingroup responsibility.

However, the study was only correlational and therefore the causal relationship

between appraisal and ingroup-directed anger could not be established. Harth, Leach, and

Kessler (2013) conducted a study which manipulated appraisals of responsibility and

measured its effect on ingroup-directed anger and guilt. At the beginning of the study,

participants were given a sentence completion task (i.e., we Germans…) which was used to

increase the salience of the German identity. Participants were then presented with a fake

news article which either described the ingroup as responsible for environmental damage or

there was a control condition in which the ingroup was not mentioned. A pre-test revealed

that the different newspapers sufficiently manipulated appraisals of ingroup responsibility.

They found that participants felt more guilt and anger in the damage condition compared to

the control but not ingroup pride. Therefore, these findings help establish feelings of group-

based guilt and ingroup-directed anger to be caused by an appraisal of ingroup responsibility.

Other studies have focused on comparing ingroup-directed anger and guilt and

distinguishing these emotions from feelings of group-based shame. While anger and guilt are

concerned with action responsibility, shame is believed to be concerned about that one’s

moral character is flawed. For instance, Iyer, Schmader, and Lickel (2007) conducted a study

in which American undergraduate students were presented with a fictitious news article

which highlighted the problems caused by their country’s ongoing occupation in the Iraq

occupation. The study manipulated image threat by altering the information presented in the

news article. In the low image threat, participants were informed that Iraqi people blamed

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Americans for their behaviour. In the high image threat, Iraqi citizens blamed Americans

moral character. The authors included a measure of image appraisal in addition to the study

manipulation. Like in previous studies, emotion adjective scales were used to index guilt,

shame, and anger. The results found that appraisal of the group’s image was positively related

to shame. However, greater concern about the ingroups image was unrelated to feelings of

anger or guilt. In the high image threat condition, participants reported greater shame,

compared to the low image threat condition. There was no effect of image threat on anger or

guilt. This study demonstrates that unlike guilt and anger, shame can be differentiated by a

concern about an appraisal of the ingroup’s moral character.

Overall, the studies described have identified that feelings of group-based guilt and

ingroup-directed anger share an appraisal that the actions of the ingroup is bad. Meanwhile,

feelings of group-based feelings of shame are caused by an appraisal that the ingroup’s moral

character is flawed. So far, while some have proposed that disgust can be ingroup directed, no

study has examined the appraisals underlying ingroup-directed disgust. However, since anger

is focused on the action of the ingroup and the outgroup, it is plausible that disgust is based

on a character appraisal of the ingroup or outgroup.

Collective Behaviour

As described above, discrete group-based emotions are believed to motivate different

group behaviours (Smith et al., 2007). Therefore, it is expected that anger in response to

ingroup transgressions will predicted different collective behaviours compared to group-

based feelings of guilt and shame. There is reasonable support for this. For instance, by

examining non-Aboriginals in Australia, Leach et al. (2006) a study which attempted to

identify the collective behavioural motivations that were associated with ingroup-directed

anger and guilt. They distributed a survey to political activists and snowballed out into the

population. The effect of perceived ingroup advantage on willingness to engage in political

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action was mediated by stronger feelings of ingroup-directed anger but not guilt.

Additionally, this significant effect remained even once controlling for generalised prejudice.

In contrast, group-based guilt predicted a greater willingness to compensate outgroup while

ingroup-directed anger did not. The authors suggest these findings demonstrate the benefits

of examining specific group-based emotions rather than general forms of prejudice. While

guilt is focused on restoring victims, anger motivates more retributive forms of justice.

To corroborate these findings, in their study on environmental behaviours, Harth,

Leach, and Kessler (2013) examined the difference between behaviours which attempt to

repair the damage to the environment and to punish those who have contributed to global

warming. When the ingroup was deemed responsible for environmental damage, participants

reported stronger intentions to repair the environment, and this effect was shown to be was

mediated by guilt and not anger. Additionally, the effect of ingroup responsibility on

punishment for sinners was mediated by anger and not guilt or pride. This demonstrates that

group-based guilt and anger differ in their behavioural motivations.

However, other studies have failed to demonstrate this effect. Iyer, Schmader, and

Lickel (2007) conducted a study examining British people’s behavioural intentions towards

their country’s occupation in Iraq. Participants were provided with a fictional news article

which described British occupation of Southern Iraq. Guilt did not predict compensation

behaviours. However, group-based shame predicted intentions to withdraw from the occupied

territory. Meanwhile group-based anger predicted confronting ingroup members,

compensating outgroup members, and withdrawing their support from Iraq. The authors

argue this suggests that anger is an agentic emotion, which motivates individuals to engage in

collective action. The authors then compared anger at different target groups. They found that

anger at the ingroup predicted compensation behaviours while anger towards an outgroup

(i.e., Americans) predicted stronger intentions to confront those responsible.

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Lastly, ingroup-directed disgust is believed to motivate distinct group-based

behaviours. For instance, Clark (2015) hypothesised that intragroup disgust would behaviours

to distance themselves from the transgressing ingroup. He believed ingroup distancing

functioned to protect the individual from a contaminated ingroup. Therefore, it is possible

that ingroup-directed disgust, like group-based shame, motivates avoidance.

Section Summary

In all, the ingroup-directed emotions literature argues that in response to an ingroup

transgression, individuals feel angry and disgust towards their own group. Ingroup-directed

anger and disgust are believed distinct from feelings of collective guilt and shame. Ingroup-

directed hostile emotions are believed to have an important role in inter- and intragroup

relations. It has been argued that advantaged-ingroup-directed anger may be more helpful

than outgroup-directed anger, since it is advantaged group members that have greater access

to resources. The ingroup-directed emotions may influence how individuals identify as group

members. Ingroup-directed anger and disgust may be important in psychologically distancing

oneself from the transgressing ingroup.

Chapter Summary

The aim of this chapter was to introduce the concept of group-based emotions since

they are seen as helpful in understanding how group morality is regulated by the social

judgements of ingroup and outgroup members. Here I explained how group-based emotions

are those that occur when an individual’s social identity is made salient. Three different

research domains of group-based emotions were described and evaluated: outgroup-directed

hostile emotions theory, ingroup-direct self-conscious emotions, and ingroup-directed hostile

emotions. Each approach to group-based emotions has studied how emotions such as anger,

disgust, contempt, guilt and shame relate to an appraisal of group-based wrongdoing. The

evidence shows that these group-based emotions are involved in modifying individual’s

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psychological commitment to the group (i.e., ingroup identification), willingness to engage in

behaviour and the communication of social information. In the next chapter, I provide a set

of novel hypotheses which describes how individuals seek to regulate the behaviours of a

group.

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Chapter 3: Overview

Theories of the morality of social groups have focused upon how group processes

regulate the actions of group members. For instance, it has been argued that morality is

instilled and enforced from group processes top-down which functions to conserve the social

order of the group (Ellemers, 2017; Haidt, 2008). An alternative approach, instead of

explaining the processes which maintain order within a group, attempts to explain how the

practices of a society may change (Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Janoff-Bulman & Carnes, 2013).

Here it is considered that an individual’s moral judgement of a group functions to regulate

and change the group practices and norms, such as laws and regulations in a society. Indeed,

when a group is judged to be or to have acted immorally, it presents a significant social

problem since an immoral outgroup may be harmful to the ingroup while an immoral ingroup

may be a threat to a positive social identity (Leach et al., 2007; Phalet & Poppe, 1997). So,

the morality of an ingroup or an outgroup is considered to be extremely important for ingroup

and outgroup members. It has been argued that an individual’s moral judgements of social

groups include an emotional response which helps groups overcome the problems faced by

immorality by motiving distinct behaviours. In this chapter, I outline three hypotheses that

are made from the literature regarding the antecedents of group-based emotions and how they

function to help resolve the problem of group immorality. These hypotheses will be examined

over the next three chapters.

Overall, the evidence has shown that social judgements about a group’s moral

character and behaviour have distinct correlates with discrete moral emotions. In the previous

chapter, it was described how anger is focused on evaluating a group action, while disgust

focuses on a group’s overall moral character. What remains unclear is whether anger and

disgust are emotions which respond to just outgroup wrongdoing, or whether these emotions

can be self-critical emotions, like guilt and shame, which also respond to ingroups

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wrongdoing. Here is it argued that group-directed anger and disgust regulate the morality of

both ingroup and outgroups but in different ways. In other words, these group-based

emotions serve multiple group level functions when responding to outgroup transgressions

and ingroup transgressions. Several hypotheses are described which seek to explore the

functions of these emotions in regulating group morality.

Hypotheses

Here I propose that group morality is regulated by discrete moral emotions in three

different ways. Theories describing the social functions of emotion have proposed that

emotions serve multiple social functions at different levels (Giner-Sorolla, 2018; Keltner &

Haidt, 1999). The current perspective devatas from this perspective, instead arguing the

function the group-based emotions depends upon the group context. Firstly, intergroup moral

emotions motivate different types of collective behaviour. Secondly, moral emotions in

response to ingroup wrongdoing regulate how individuals define themselves as members of a

group. Finally, ingroup members may express negative group-based moral emotions which

communicate group-transcendent moral values. By motivating protesting behaviour,

changing the commitment of ingroup members, and signalling ingroup-transcendent moral

values, group-based moral emotions seek to regulate the morality of a group. A group which

receives protest from outgroup members while the ingroup members become less committed

may seek to change or preserve a policy. Each function is described in more detail below.

Protest Function

When a group’s practice or proposed practice is deemed to be immoral, they may be

subjected to intense opposition from outgroups. Since anger and disgust are not self-focused

emotions, it is expected that they will be more intense during intergroup settings compared to

intragroup contexts. Additionally, intergroup emotions have shown to be dependent upon

ingroup identification, with strongly identified ingroup members feeling more intense

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outgroup-directed anger and disgust (Yzerbyt et al., 2003). The relationship between ingroup

identification and group-based emotion for ingroup contexts appears to be less relevant

(Smith, 2007). Therefore, it is argued that anger and disgust are emotions which motivate

individuals to take action against other groups.

Adding to this, while anger and disgust become more intense when directed towards

outgroups, they have both shown to respond to different types of social judgement and

motivate different types of protest behaviours which are aimed at keeping the group in check.

Anger is considered to be constructive for intergroup relations. Since this emotion is focused

on a group’s behaviour, this emotion motivates peaceful and non-violent, or normative, forms

of collective protest against an outgroup, such as whether to demonstrate or participate online

(Tausch et al., 2011). In contrast, disgust is concerned about a group’s moral character, which

indicates a potentially greater threat to the ingroup, because character evaluations indicate

greater consistency of behaviours across situations. Indeed, when the outgroup is believed to

have an immoral essence, individuals are less likely to engage in peaceful protest (Cohen-

Chen et al., 2014). In the previous chapter, it was argued that this is believed to motivate, like

contempt, more violent forms of behaviours which attempt at exterminating the outgroup

(Clark, 2015). This characterisation of disgust as a violent approach emotion, differs from

perspectives which characterise disgust as a motivation of behavioural avoidance (Johnston

& Glasford, 2014).

Overall, these findings suggest that emotionally laden judgement of a social groups

function to change the moral norms of the group by motivating distinct forms of outgroup

protest. Research examining protest behaviours have argued that group-based emotions

motivate social change (Thomas & Louis, 2013). Here it is proposed that a group-based

emotion may regulate the group practices in different ways. If a group that receives, or

believes they will receive, such backlash from another group, they may seek to change its

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practices. The response from an outgroup may be a peaceful protest aimed at building better

intergroup relations. Alternatively, an outgroup may respond by trying to eradicate the group

by using violent tactics. In response to normative and non-normative protest from outgroups,

this may impact upon whether the group decides to change its policies. Therefore, since anger

and disgust in intergroup setting function to regulate the outgroup morality by motivating

different types of collective behaviours.

Commitment Function

Group morality is not entirely regulated by outgroup protest. Instead, another way in

which group morality is regulated is through the commitment of the ingroup members. A

given moral norm is likely to be sustained if it receives support from the members of the

group and more likely to change if it causes schisms and disengagement. It has been shown

that when the ingroup does something immoral, group members see the group as more

variable, disidentify from the group, and become less motivated to work to enhance the group

(Kessler & Hollbach, 2005; Leach et al., 2007; Täuber & van Zomeren, 2013). Alternatively,

group members may engage in effortful justification processes which attempt to exonerate the

group of its wrongdoing (Leidner et al., 2010; Roccas et al., 2004). This moral

disengagement defends the self from the negative self-image that is produced when the group

is deemed immoral. Overall, these two responses, either defend or distance, indicate different

types of commitment to the group.

It has been argued that in response to an ingroup moral transgression, individuals can

feel many group-based emotions; including anger and disgusted as well as the group-

conscious emotions guilt and shame (Iyer et al., 2007; Leach et al., 2006). Group-based

emotions are believed to be determined, at least in part, by ingroup identification because this

represents the inclusion of the group into the self-concept (Smith et al., 2007). What makes

the relationship with self-critical emotions more complex, such as guilt and shame, is that

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they are simultaneously self-relevant and self-threatening. One study has found a curvilinear

effect of identification and group-based guilt (Klein et al., 2011), in which moderately

identified ingroup members felt more guilt than weakly identified members (self-relevance)

but less guilt than strongly identified group members (self-threatening). The threat has been

shown to result in increased defensive cognition (Roccas et al., 2006).

However, interestingly, the same effect has not been observed for ingroup-directed

anger. Ingroup identification measured prior to the wrongdoing has shown to be unrelated to

anger towards the ingroup (Kessler & Hollbach, 2005). This may be the result that anger as

an emotion is less self-critical than the group-conscious emotions, therefore unaffected by

self-relevance or threats. However, since emotions such as anger and disgust are other-

directed (Haidt, 2003), these emotions may motivate individuals to other the transgressor

through a process of psychological distancing oneself ingroup. In other words, anger and

disgust, in response to ingroup immorality, will regulate the morality of an ingroup by

decreasing commitment with the ingroup. This may explain why sometimes, anger has been

shown to be negatively related to ingroup identification (Smith et al. 2007) and why

sometimes immoral groups decrease group members motivations to work to improve the

group (Täuber & Zomeren, 2013).

Overall, anger and disgust may also regulate the behaviour of the ingroup morality by

decreasing the psychological commitment of group members. Since the group-conscious

emotions, guilt and shame, are self-critical, they may involve greater defensive reactions

which attempt to down-regulate these emotions for highly identified group members.

Therefore group-based guilt and shame may function to sustain group members commitment

to the group. However, since anger and disgust are neither self-relevant nor self-critical but

instead function to motivate individuals to decrease their identification with the group.

Therefore group-based anger and disgust may regulate the morality of an ingroup by

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decreasing individual’s commitment with their group. A group which simultaneously is

facing conflict from an outgroup, and decreasing commitment from the ingroup, may rethink

its policies.

Communication Function

Emotions, such as anger and disgust, are not only felt but also expressed using verbal

and non-verbal signals (Giner-Sorolla, 2013). Interpersonal and group-level emotions have

shown to signal socially important pieces of information, such as signal moral condemnation

(Hutcherson & Gross, 2011), social motivation (Kupfer & Giner-Sorolla, 2016), essentialist

beliefs (Katzir & Liberman, 2018). The expressions of emotions have shown to have effects

on others also, such as eliciting feelings of guilt and shame (Giner-Sorolla & Espinosa, 2011)

and promote empathy and reduce collective action (de Vos et al., 2013). Overall, this

suggests that emotion communication serves a separate function of signalling and influencing

other individuals and group members.

So far research have characterised feelings of anger and disgust as a form of prejudice

which motivates the pursuit of collective group interests (Mackie & Smith, 2003a). However,

here it is argued that group-based anger and disgust may serve in regulating group-morality is

by communicating moral values. Over time, societies across the world have not only changed

their moral norms but have changed them to become more inclusive, with concerns about

other individuals, animals and the environment (Crimston et al., 2016; Reed & Aquino,

2003). Groups have also come to be concerned about the welfare not just of those in their

own narrow ingroup but also about the welfare of outgroup members. Not all moral values

are concerned about the welfare of outgroup members. Indeed, some values are concerned

about the welfare of an interest of the ingroups welfare, such as whether members remain

loyal to the group (Graham et al., 2012). Another set of values are concerned about broader

values which transcend group-interests. These values are universal values (Schwartz, 2007).

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Here it is argued that group-based anger and disgust also regulate moral behaviour of an

ingroup and outgroup so that it becomes more inclusive.

It has been shown that disgust in particular communicates more moral motivations

compared to anger (Kupfer & Giner-Sorolla, 2016). In other words, when individuals express

disgust towards others, individuals infer that they are concerned about a violation of morality.

This may explain why people would rather anger compared to disgust being expressed

towards them (Hutcherson & Gross, 2011). However, these studies have primarily focused

upon how disgust communicates morality when expressed about other individuals.

Individuals also express criticism about a group and those which do are inferred to have more

moral concerns (Sutton, Elder, & Douglas, 2006). Therefore, it is possible that expression of

group-based disgust communicates moral values which transcend narrow concerns about

ingroup welfare so that they include a concern about universal values. By expressing

criticism of the group, it may communicate that individuals want to expand the moral circle

of the group. Therefore, one possible explanation for why groups have become more

expansive over time, is because group-level emotions signal to the group that they desire a

group to have more universal concerns.

Chapter Summary

Here I proposed novel hypotheses that group-based moral emotions, particularly anger and

disgust, serve multiple functions which seek to regulate the morality of an ingroup or an

outgroup. It was argued that these emotions regulate the morality of a group in different

ways. In response to an outgroup moral transgression, anger and disgust become more intense

and motivate distinct collective behaviours to change the outgroup’s practices. Meanwhile, in

response to an ingroup transgression, anger and disgust motivate individuals to reduce their

commitment to the group. Furthermore, it is argued that anger and disgust towards the

ingroup are different to feelings of group-based shame and guilt. It is expected that

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moderately identified ingroup members will feel stronger feelings of guilt and shame in

response to an ingroup transgression compared to high and low identifiers. Instead, anger and

disgust will predict greater disidentification from the transgressing group but will be

unrelated to ingroup identification when measured before the transgression. Group-based

feelings of anger and disgust will have distinct appraisals, in which anger will be related to an

appraisal of group action while disgust will be related to an appraisal of group character.

Finally, in response to an ingroup or outgroup transgression, expressions of disgust signal to

others that individuals are concerned about universal values. Overall, when a group receives

protest from outgroups and simultaneously experiences a decreased commitment from

ingroup members, it may rethink its practices. When revaluating how the group practices can

be changed, expressed emotions signal that people have a concern for more inclusive,

universal values, and therefore the group may adjust their laws and policies accordingly. All

this suggests that group-based emotions function to regulate the morality of a group.

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Chapter 4: Group Emotions in Inter and Intragroup contexts

In the current chapter, I present two studies which were designed to examine the role of

group-based emotions in context of the 2016 European Union (EU) referendum in Britain.

Brexit continues to be an enduring and divisive issue in British politics. Britain decided to

leave the EU and since there have been reports of mass protest, demonstrations as well as

reports stating that police are preparing for civil unrest (Davis, 2018). In the previous

chapters, I outlined several social psychological theories of group-behaviour, which have

focused upon feelings of anger, disgust, guilt and shame (Leach et al., 2006; Mackie &

Smith, 1998; Tracy et al., 2007) as well as provided several hypothesises regarding the

relationship between group identities, appraisals, emotions and behaviours. The context of the

EU referendum was chosen because this created an intergroup context which encourages

specific emotional response that relate to collective behaviours.

Group Context and Group-Based Emotion

The referendum can be thought about as an intragroup conflict between British people

or as a form of intergroup conflict between Leavers and Remainers. Previous research has

examined how Remain voters have coped with the disappointing outcome of the referendum

(Sirois & Iyer, 2018). The current study instead considers how negative emotional response

of Remainers may predict different forms of political protest against the decision to leave the

EU. While some have examined how a superordinate European identity predicted intentions

to vote Remain in the referendum (Van de Vyver, Leite, Abrams, & Palmer, 2018), studies

have shown that subgroup identities cause people to engage in political protest (Kessler &

Mummendey, 2001; Ufkes, Calcagno, Glasford, & Dovidio, 2016), especially politicalised

social identities (van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears, 2008). Therefore, the intergroup context

between Remain and Leavers may motivate greater political participation in response to

Brexit than the superordinate intragroup context.

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Intergroup emotions theory argues that different group-level emotions predict

differentiated forms of collective action (Mackie & Smith, 2003b). Negative emotions such

as anger and disgust have been classified as other-directed emotions because the emotions are

directed towards things external to the self (Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Haidt, 2003; Tangney et al.,

2007). It was believed that because the intergroup context will enable Remainers to externally

attribute the outcomes of the EU referendum to Leave voters, that this would intensify

feelings of anger and disgust compared to the intragroup context. In contrast, emotions such

as guilt and shame have been classified as self-critical emotions (Brown et al., 2008; Doosje

et al., 1998b). A common national identity would enable Remainers to attribute the outcomes

of the EU referendum internally. Therefore, it was expected that guilt and shame would be

more intense during the intragroup context compared to the intergroup context. Overall, this

suggests that whether the conflict is construed as an intergroup conflict or an intragroup

conflict may have important implications over the type of emotions which are experienced in

response to Brexit.

This approach differs from those which propose that anger and disgust can be directed

internally towards the ingroup (Clark, 2015; Leach et al., 2006; Leach, Iyer, & Pedersen,

2007) suggesting that these emotions are similar to self-critical emotions guilt and shame.

However, there is support for the claim that the intergroup context facilitates emotions such

as anger and disgust. For instance, it was been shown that outgroup transgressions result in

stronger feelings of anger from the victim group and more self-conscious emotions from the

transgressing group (Paladino, Zaniboni, Fasoli, Vaes, & Volpato, 2014). Additionally, when

the context focuses on a common identity between conflicting groups, this weakens feelings

of intergroup anger (Ufkes et al., 2016). This suggests that group context impacts upon the

type of emotions which are experienced in conflict.

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Context not only affects the intensity of the emotions but also appears to influence the

relationship between ingroup identification and feelings of anger and disgust. During

intergroup settings, anger and disgust have shown to have a mutually reinforcing relationship

with ingroup identification, with more intense intergroup emotions causing stronger ingroup

identification and vice versa (Choma et al., 2016; Kessler & Hollbach, 2005; Yzerbyt et al.,

2003). Meanwhile, the intragroup settings appear to demonstrate a different relationship, with

some reporting a negative relationship between the ingroup directed anger and identification

(Smith et al., 2007). This suggests that the group context not only modifies the intensity of

anger and disgust, but also changes the relationship between these emotions and ingroup

identification.

It was expected that the effects on emotion intensity and identification would depend

upon which identity that was made salient. A participant’s identity as a Remain supporter

would make the intergroup context salient. In contrast, a participant’s British identity focuses

on the intragroup context. Therefore, it was predicted that when the Remain identity was

made salient, participants would experience more intense feelings of anger and disgust

compared to when the British identity was made salient. To put differently, the intergroup

context would facilitate the intensity of anger and disgust. Additionally, it was predicted that

the context would change the relationship between ingroup identification and these emotions.

Furthermore, it was expected that when a Remain identity was made salient, anger and

disgust would have a stronger relationship with identification, compared to British identity

was made salient. In other words, intergroup contexts would have a significantly stronger

positive relationship with ingroup identification compared to the intragroup context.

Protest Function of Anger and Disgust

Theories of group-based emotion argue that discrete emotions motivate distinct forms

of intergroup behaviours (Smith et al., 2007). More precisely, prior studies have attempted to

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distinguish the different behavioural motivations for intergroup anger and disgust. Anger has

been characterised as an outgroup approach emotion motivating normative protesting

behaviours such as peaceful protesting (Tausch et al., 2011; Van Zomeren et al., 2004). In

contrast, some have argued that disgust as an avoidant emotion, finding that it is associated

with more passive forms of intergroup harm, such as exclusion (Johnston & Glasford, 2014).

However, it has been argued that disgust might also motivate violent forms of approach

behaviours especially when behavioural avoidance is not tenable since the threat must be

exterminated (Clark, 2015). Therefore, it is argued that anger and disgust will be associated

with distinct forms of intergroup behaviours. It was expected that anger predicts peaceful

normative forms of collective protest, while disgust predict violent and disruptive non-

normative forms of collective behaviour.

Study 1

The first study focused on a young adult population who could not vote in the

referendum. This population was chosen because young people were majority Remain

supporters, who would be likely to judge the decision to leave to be wrong (Burn-Murdoch,

2016). Additionally, while young people have been shown to be less likely to engage in

formal political process, such as voting, they have shown a greater tendency to engage in

informal political participation, such as attending peaceful demonstrations (Barrett & Zani,

2015). In this study, British Remain supporters were asked to report their emotions towards

Leave supporters (intergroup context) and British people (intragroup context). This study had

two aims. The first was to identify whether the intergroup context facilitates anger and

disgust, such as modifying their intensity as well as their relationship with ingroup

identification. The second aim was to identify distinct collective behaviours associated with

outgroup-directed anger and disgust.

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Several predictions were made about the emotions. Firstly, predictions were made

about the intensity of specific emotions. It was predicted that when the intergroup context is

made salient, participants would feel more anger and disgust compared to when the

intragroup context is made salient. However, it was expected that guilt and shame would be

more intense during the intragroup contexts. Secondly, predictions were made regarding how

group context would modify relationship between the emotions and ingroup identification. It

was expected that during intergroup contexts, anger and disgust will have a more positive

association with group identification, compared to intragroup contexts. Lastly, intergroup

emotion theory argues that distinct group-based emotions motivates different types of

collective behaviour (Smith et al., 2007), therefore it was predicted that intergroup anger and

disgust will have different behavioural motivations. It was predicted that normative

behaviours would be predicted by greater anger but not disgust. Furthermore, it was predicted

that non-normative behaviours would be predicted by greater feelings of disgust compared to

anger.

Study 1 Method

Participants

A volunteer sample was obtained from an English college in the south east of England

as part of a psychology taster week that took place a short time after Britain decided to leave

the EU in 2016. The current study was for British people who believed that Britain should

remain a member of the EU. The students that indicated they believed Britain should leave

the EU or indicated that they were not British were directed onto another study. Before

running the study, it was anticipated that 90 participants would be available to do the study

during the taster sessions. Given this sample size and assuming a = .05, a power of .80

would be able to detect a small to medium difference of f = 0.11 using a within-subjects

ANOVA.

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In total the study obtained a slightly larger sample of 104 Remain supporters.

Participants age ranged between 16 and 18 years (M = 16.42, SD = 1.39). The participants

were a young sample and therefore all were unable to vote during the referendum. Since

younger populations have generally shown stronger support of remaining in the European

Union, it was expected that a younger population may show stronger attachment to remaining

in the EU (Burn-Murdoch, 2016). Indeed, on a seven-point scale (1 = Extremely, 7 = Not at

all), participants indicated the degree in which they supported Remaining in the EU. On

average, participants showed strong support for this position (M = 2.84, SD = 1.26, 95%CI =

[2.57, 3.11]). Of the sample, 90 participants were female, and 84 participants were White.

Additionally, participants reported their political orientation on a seven-point scale (1 =

Extremely Conservative, 7 = Extremely Liberal). The sample described themselves as

slightly liberal (M = 4.16, SD = 1.26, 95%CI = [3.92, 4.41]).

Procedure

Participants were invited to take part in a short questionnaire regarding recent

developments that occurred since the outcome of the 2016 EU referendum. After providing

their demographic information, participants completed a task which asked them to reflect

upon the socio-political developments that had happened since the outcome of the

referendum. This task was to encourage participants to think about the significant social

change that Britain has underwent. This task asked participants to provide up to five political,

economic, or social events/developments since the outcome of the referendum. After this,

participants were presented with a list of developments since the outcome provided by the

researcher (see Appendix A). Participants could spend as long as the wanted on this task

before proceeding to the next section.

The study included a within-subjects manipulation of group context, which either

made the intergroup or intragroup context salient. The presentation order of each context was

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counterbalanced. In the intergroup context participants were asked to report how much they

identify as a Remain Supporter and report how they felt about Leave supporters. In the

intragroup context, participants were asked to report the extent they identify as British and

asked about how they felt towards British people. Once this was complete, participants were

asked to report the extent they would engage in political behaviours. Therefore, dependant

measures included measures of ingroup identification and group-based emotions in both

contexts as well as a measure of collective action participation (see Appendix B for full list of

items).

Ingroup identification was measured by adapting the twelve item measure developed

by Cameron (2004). Each item included a statement about the appropriate ingroup (e.g., I

have a lot in common with other British people/Remain supporters), and participants rated the

extent to which they agreed with the statement by using a six-point scale (1 = strongly

disagree, 6 = strongly agree). This measured composed of three sub-scales of identification;

affective, cognitive and ingroup ties. However previous studies have used this as a measure

of global ingroup identification when assessing the relationship between guilt and shame

(Giguère, Lalonde, & Taylor, 2014). Half the items were negatively phrased and were

reversed scored. Mean summary scores were calculated to represent participant’s

identification as a Remain supporter ( = .66) and as British ( = .78). The items within the

scale were randomized. A higher score represented stronger ingroup identification.

Group-based emotion was measured using a list of emotion adjective which have been

used in different studies (Iyer et al., 2007; Russell & Giner-sorolla, 2011). Participants were

asked to rate how much the following emotions describe their feelings towards leave voters

and the British public (1 = not at all, 7 = very much). The study included measures of anger

(angry, frustrated, furious), disgust (disgusted, repulsed, sickened), guilt (guilty, regret,

remorse) and shame (ashamed, embarrassed, exposed). Items within each context block were

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presented in a random order to participants. A mean-summary score for intergroup anger (α =

.89), disgust (α = .95), guilt (α = .82) and shame (α = .84) as well as intragroup anger (α

= .86), disgust (α = .91), guilt (α = .74), and shame (α = .81). All emotion scales for both

group contexts had good internal reliability. Lastly, some positive emotion adjectives were

included as filler items (e.g., joyful and pleased). A higher score indicated more intense

negative group-based emotion.

Collective action participation was measured using the measure developed by Barrett

and Zani (2015). Participants were asked to rate the extent they had engaged in “the

following behaviours since the outcome of the European Union referendum.” The behaviours

included thirteen normative political behaviours (e.g., attending a public meeting or

demonstration) and two forms of non-normative political behaviour (e.g., graffiti on walls).

Participants rated these behaviours using a five-point scale (1 = Not at all, 5 = All the time).

The measures of normative (α = .92) and non-normative (α = .76) political behaviour had

good internal reliability. A composite score was calculated so that a higher score represented

greater collective action participation.

Ethical Considerations

The study was reviewed under the institution’s research ethics procedure and received

authorisation. Participants were informed about the nature of the study and provided their

informed consent before participating. All participants were reminded of their right to

withdraw and verbally debriefed at the end of the study.

Study 1 Results

Preliminary Data Analysis

The data revealed that 89.11% of participants were not missing any data. Little’s

MCAR test was conducted to test whether the data were missing completely at random. The

results were non-significant, 2 = 594.41, p = .35, suggesting the missing data did not

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diverge from randomness. Inspection of boxplots revealed no significant outliers. However, it

was found that the skewness and kurtosis for some variables significantly differed from zero

(see Table 4.1). Therefore, the data violated the assumptions of parametric testing. To

overcome the issue with non-normal data, a bootstrapping procedure was applied (5000

samples). This bootstrapping procedure has been used in other studies examining non-

normative collective action (Tausch et al., 2011). The Pearson correlations between all

measured variables are reported in Table 4.2.

Furthermore, before the main analysis, one sample t-tests were conducted to see

whether participants were sufficiently identified with both levels of the ingroup. This was

done to see if participants meaningfully identified as British as well as a Remain supporter.

The results revealed that remain identification was significantly above the mid-point of the

scale, t(96) = 10.95, p <.001. Additionally, British identification was sufficiently above the

midpoint of the scale, t(96) = 15.78, p < .001. This demonstrates that participants were

sufficiently identified with both groups. However, a paired samples t-test was conducted to

compare ingroup identification in the different group contexts. The results found a significant

difference between Remain identification and British identification, t(96) = 3.97, p < .001,

with participants reporting a stronger identification as British person (M = 4.01, SD = 0.63)

compared to their Remain supporter (M = 3.68, SD = 0.61). This weaker identification for the

Remain identity may be because these people were unable to vote during the referenda.

Group Context on Emotion Intensity

In order to assess whether there were any differences between group context (inter

and intra-group) on the intensity of different group-based emotions (anger, disgust, guilt, and

shame), a two-way within-subjects’ ANOVA was conducted. The descriptive statistics are

reported in Table 4.3. Mauchly’s test indicated the data violated the assumption of sphericity

(p < .001). Therefore, Greenhouse-Geisser correction was applied.

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Table 4.1. Distribution Statistics for Measured Variables for Study 1

  N ZSkew ZKurtosisRemain Identity 100 0.58 2.93*British Identity 98 -1.66 1.97*Intergroup Anger 99 0.52 -1.55Intergroup Disgust 98 4.00* 0.20

Intergroup Guilt 97 4.07* -0.36Intergroup Shame 98 2.25* -1.07

Intragroup Anger 100 0.21 -1.25Intragroup Disgust 99 3.18* 0.07

Intragroup Guilt 98 2.23* -2.20*Intragroup Shame 98 2.74* -0.43

Valid N (listwise) 94    * indicates p < .05

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Table 4.2. Pearson Correlation between Group Identification and Emotion for Study 1

  Remain Identity

British Identity

Intergroup Anger

Intergroup Disgust

Intergroup Guilt

Intergroup Shame

Intragroup Anger

Intragroup Disgust

Intragroup Guilt

British Identity .22*                

Intergroup Anger .40* .15

Intergroup Disgust .15 -.06 .73*

Intergroup Guilt -.03 .03 .20* .33*

Intergroup Shame .15 .15 .59* .66* .44*

Intragroup Anger .26* .05 .68* .54* .10 .46*

Intragroup Disgust .03 -.09 .50* .65* .27* .43* .74*

Intragroup Guilt .13 .05 .32* .46* .53* .44* 0.43* .60*

Intragroup Shame .09 .10 .41* .48* .31* .63* 0.62* .58* .70*

1Coefficents were bootstrapped using 5000 samples. * indicates significant (p < .05).

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Table 4.3. Means (SD) of Emotion Intensity by Group Context in Study 1

Emotion Intergroup Intragroup Total

Anger 3.60 (1.71) 3.25 (1.50) 3.43

Disgust 2.60 (1.75) 2.36 (1.36) 2.48

Guilt 1.94 (1.11) 2.18 (1.16) 2.06

Shame 2.94 (1.61) 2.72 (1.45) 2.73

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The results uncovered a non-significant effect of group context, F(1, 94) = 0.97, p

= .33, p2 = .01, indicating that overall, participants felt similar intensities of these negative

emotions for the intergroup (M = 2.72, SE = 0.13) and intragroup contexts (M = 2.63, SE

= .12). However, there was a significant difference in intensity between emotion type, F(3,

282) = 42.86, p < .001, p2 = .31. Bonferroni post hoc test revealed, regardless of identity

level, anger was rated significantly more intense compared to disgust, guilt and shame (p

< .001). The difference in intensity between disgust and shame was non-significant (p = .21).

These emotions were significantly more intense than reported guilt (p < .01).

Interestingly, there was a significant interaction between group context and emotion

type, F(3, 282) = 6.74, p < 001, p2 = .07. In order to examine this further, simple effect

paired samples t-tests were conducted. The results revealed significant differences in intensity

between intergroup and intragroup emotions. As expected, intergroup anger was significantly

more intense than intragroup anger, t(96) = 2.90, p = .003, Cohen’s d = 0.29. Similarly,

intergroup disgust was significantly more intense than intragroup disgust, t(94) = 1.71, p

= .045, d = 0.17. In contrast, the other emotions showed a different pattern of results. Guilt

was more intense during the intragroup context than the intergroup context, t(94) = 2.11, p

= .019, d = 0.22. However, there was no significant difference between intergroup shame and

intragroup shame, t(95) = 0.48, p = .32, d = 0.05. In sum, these findings indicate that the

feelings of anger and disgust were more intense during the intergroup compared to the

intragroup context. In contrast, feelings of guilt were more intense during the intragroup than

intergroup context.

Group Context and Identification

Pearson correlations were conducted to compare the relationship between

identification and group-based emotion between the two contexts. For the intergroup context,

the correlations between Remain identification and the intergroup emotions were calculated.

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For the intragroup context, the correlations between British identification and the intragroup

emotions were examined. A one-tailed Steiger's (1980) Z test was used to assess whether the

relationship between the identification and group-based emotions were significantly different

between the different contexts.

Anger. The correlations between anger and identification were calculated for the inter

and intragroup contexts. The results showed that these correlation coefficients were

significantly different, Z = 2.64, p = .004, revealing a stronger, more positive, correlation

between anger and identification for intergroup contexts compared to intragroup contexts.

Disgust. These correlation coefficients were significantly different from one another,

Z = 1.76, p = .039, revealing a similar pattern to anger. In other words, the relationship

between disgust and identification was stronger during intergroup contexts. Although the

Pearson correlation between Remain identification and intergroup disgust was initially non-

significant, Steiger’s (1980) Z test considers the dependency between the repeated

measurements of disgust. As can be shown here, the relationship between remain

identification and intergroup disgust became significant after controlling for intragroup

disgust, r(101) = .17, p = .049.

Guilt. The relationship between intragroup guilt and British identification was non-

significant. The correlation between intergroup guilt and Remain identification was also non-

significant. Additionally, the difference between these two correlations was also non-

significant, Z = 0.59, p = .28. Therefore, the relationship between guilt and identification was

similar for both group contexts.

Shame. The relationship between intragroup shame and British identification was

non-significant. Additionally, the correlation between intergroup shame and Remain

identification was non-significant. The difference between these two correlations was also

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non-significant, Z = 0.38, p = .35. This suggests there was a similar relationship between

identification and group-based shame across the group contexts.

Collective Behaviour

So far, it has been shown that intergroup anger and disgust are more intense and have

a stronger relationship with ingroup identification compared to these emotions in an

intragroup context. It was expected that these two emotions would predict different forms of

intergroup behaviour. In order to test this hypotheses, two separate multiple regressions were

conducted. Intergroup anger and disgust were entered as predictors into the model. The first

model included normative collective action as an outcome variable while the second model

included non-normative collective action. One potential confound is that some participants

may be generally more politically active than others. In order to control for general

differences in political engagement, the coactivating behaviour was included as a covariate in

the model.

Normative Action. Overall, the model was significant, F(3, 94) = 16.75, p < .001,

and could account for 36% of the variance. Inspection of the bootstrapped regression

coefficients revealed that normative action was predicted by stronger feelings of intergroup

anger ( = .09, p = .044) but not disgust ( = -.04, p = .43), once controlling for non-

normative action ( = .69, p < .001). The resulted indicate that the angrier participants felt

towards Leave voters, the more likely they were to engage in normative protest.

Non-Normative Action. The model was significant, F(3, 94) = 21.74, p < .001.

Above the effects of normative action ( = .47, p < .001), both anger ( = -0.12, p = .005) and

disgust ( = .14, p < .010) predicted non-normative action. Greater anger towards Leave

supporters was associated with a decrease in non-normative behaviours. Meanwhile, as

expected, participants who felt stronger feelings of disgust towards Leave voters were more

likely to engage in non-normative behaviour.

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Study 1 Discussion

In sum, the findings demonstrated that during intergroup contexts, feelings of anger

and disgust become more intense and more positively related to ingroup identification in

comparison to intragroup contexts. In other words, when participants’ identity as a Remain

supporter was salient, they felt more anger and disgust compared to when their identity as a

British person was made salient. Meanwhile, the group-conscious emotions, guilt and shame,

did not show the same pattern. As expected, guilt was found to increase during the intragroup

context compared to the intergroup context however there was no difference between

contexts for shame. Both guilt and shame revealed a non-significant linear relationship with

ingroup identification in both the intergroup and intragroup contexts. These findings are in

line with studies which demonstrate that anger increases intensity with a subgroup identity

compared to a common ingroup identity (Ufkes et al., 2016). This suggest that group-based

anger and disgust are distinct from feelings of guilt and shame because they are directed

externally towards other groups (Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Haidt, 2003; Tangney et al., 2007)

Additionally, the findings support to the claim that distinct intergroup emotions

motivate distinct forms of collective behaviour (Smith et al., 2007). Similar to previous

studies on collective action, anger was positively associated with constructive forms of

collective behaviour, such as peaceful demonstrations (Van Zomeren et al., 2004).

Previously, Tausch et al. (2011) had found that anger was unrelated, to non-normative

political behaviour. The current study found anger was also negatively related to disruptive

forms of behaviours. This supports the idea that anger not only motivates a constructive

forms of approach behaviours but discourages people from engaging in more radical

behaviours. In contrast, the current study identified that intergroup feelings of disgust

motivates non-normative and disruptive forms of collective action (Clark, 2015), which

suggests disgust does not necessarily result in intergroup avoidance. Previous studies have

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identified the role of a similar emotion, contempt, in understanding radical intergroup

behaviours (Tausch et al., 2011). Some have argued that disgust and contempt are

intrinsically related emotions (Prinz, 2007), especially in socio-moral situations (Giner-

Sorolla et al., 2017). It is unclear whether the effect that has been observed with contempt

may be accounted by disgust.

The findings from the first study also raised additional questions. Firstly, while anger

and disgust are believed to motivate distinct intergroup behaviours, it remains unclear

whether these emotions are associated with different appraisal of the outgroup. Research has

also attempted to distinguish the appraisals associated with anger and disgust. While anger

has been shown to respond to an appraisal of action responsibility (Leach et al., 2006),

disgust has been linked to an appraisal of more enduring properties; such as moral character

(Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005; Giner-sorolla & Chapman, 2017; Hutcherson & Gross, 2011).

However, no study has tested the character-action distinction between anger and disgust at

the group level yet. Individuals have been shown to appraise the actions and character of

groups as well as individuals (Leach, Ellemers, & Barreto, 2007). Therefore, it was possible

that intergroup anger is related to an appraisal of outgroup action but not outgroup character.

This is distinct from intergroup disgust which responds to an appraisal of outgroup character

but not action. To apply this to the current research context, this perspective argues that if

Remain participants appraised Leave supporters to have done something bad, then this would

result in anger. In contrast, if Leave supporters were appraised as having a bad moral

character, then this would result in disgust.

Additionally, the sample in the first study was an adolescent sample who was unable

to vote in the referendum. The study not only found that these young people reported strong

support for Britain remaining within the European Union but also, they had a strong

identification with their identity as a Remain supporter. However, the study also found that

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participants identified less as a Remain supporter compared to being British. Additionally, the

study found weaker internal reliability for the Remain identification scale compared to the

British identification scale. This weakened identification as a remain supporter may have

occurred because of the participants were unable to vote in the referendum. It is possible that

this difference in identification may account for the effects of group context reported above.

Study 2

The second study also examined the emotional responses to Brexit however this time people

who had actually engaged in the formal voting processes participated in the study. The study

had several aims. The first aim was to replicate the effects of group-context observed in study

one, showing that that feelings of anger and disgust, but not shame and guilt, become more

intense and have a stronger relationship with ingroup identification during intergroup

contexts. Adding to this aim was to desire to extend these findings by testing whether the

effect of group-context on feelings of contempt will show a similar pattern to anger and

disgust. Therefore, it was hypothesised that the relationship between the ingroup

identification and the emotions anger, disgust, and contempt will become more intense during

intergroup contexts.

The second aim was to replicate the previous study findings which showed intergroup

anger to be related to normative action and disgust to be related to non-normative action. Due

to previous findings (Tausch et al., 2011), it was expected that intergroup contempt, like

disgust, would also predict stronger non-normative collective action intentions. However, it

was predicted that because disgust is a basic and universal emotion, that it would be able to

account for more of the variance of non-normative action compared to contempt (Giner-

Sorolla et al., 2017). It was predicted that the effect of contempt would be reduced to non-

significance once intergroup disgust was taken into account.

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Previous studies have examined how an intergroup appraisal of injustice predicts

normative and non-normative collective action and this effect is mediated through emotion

(Tausch et al, 2011). However, theories of group-based emotion propose that discrete

emotions respond to different appraisals (Smith et al. 2007). Therefore, character and action

appraisals of the other group, but not the ingroup, were also measured. The third aim of the

study was to examine how these distinct intergroup appraisals relate to anger and disgust. It

was hypothesised that intergroup anger would be predicted by an appraisal of outgroup

actions as bad but would be unrelated to an appraisal of the outgroup character. In contrast, it

was expected that intergroup disgust would be predicted by an appraisal of outgroup

character but not an appraisal of outgroup actions.

Study 2 Method

Participants

People who had participated in the 2016 referendum but nonetheless remain

dissatisfied by the result were invited to participate in the study. Before conducting the study,

a priori power-analysis was conducted in order to estimate the same size needed to effectively

test the hypotheses. The results revealed that in order to detect a small to medium effects that

was observed in the first study (d = 0.26), with alpha set to .05 and power set to .09, a sample

size of 119 was needed. However, more participants would need to be sampled because it

was planned that some exclusions will be necessary. For instance, it was that participants

only those who had voted that Britain should remain in the EU would be included in the

analyses. Secondly, the study aimed to examine the emotional response of people who

disagree with the country’s decision. Therefore, participants who had changed their mind on

Britain’s European Union membership were also excluded. Therefore, anyone who indicated

they did not vote Remain or still did not support that position were excluded from the study.

While this was difficult to estimate, it was predicted that approximately 20% of participants

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were to be excluded. In all, the study obtained 138 British participants, all of whom had voted

remain in a referendum. Participants were recruited by using the online crowdsourcing

website, Prolific Academic. A small monetary reward was given for participating. Of those

who had participated, 90% were white. There were 79 females, 58 males and one gender fluid

participant. Participants age ranged between 18 and 64 years old (M = 35.49, SD = 11.20).

On a scale from 1 (extremely conservative) to 7 (extremely liberal) participants identified

themselves as slightly liberal (M = 5.01, SD = 1.13). Furthermore, only 10% of participants

were excluded because they indicated that they had changed their position on Britain’s

membership of the European Union since voting in the referendum. A total sample size of

124 was retained for the analysis.

Materials, Procedure and Design

The study used the same procedure as before in which participants completed a task

asking them to provide key economic/political developments that had occurred since the

outcome of the European Union referendum. The study also included a within-subjects

manipulation of group context, which was counterbalanced between participants, which

asked questions relating to the participant as a British person (intragroup context) or the

participant as a Remain supporter (intergroup context). Participants completed measures of

group-based emotions and ingroup identification for both group contexts, as well as

intergroup appraisal and willingness to engage in collective action.

The measure of ingroup identification was identical to study 1. Both identification as

a Remain supporter ( = .88) and as a British person ( = .91) had good internal consistency.

As expected, the identification measure appeared to be more reliable in this voting adult

sample compared to the adolescent sample. This could be due to the fact that participants in

the current sample had actually voted and therefore the Remain identity was more

meaningful.

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The measure of group-based emotions was similar to the study one, in that

participants were asked to rate the extent they felt specific emotion adjectives towards British

people (intragroup context) and towards Leave supporters (intergroup context). This study

also included emotion adjectives that measure group-based contempt (i.e., contempt, disdain,

scorn). Measures were computed so that a higher a score represented more intense negative

intergroup anger ( = .92), disgust ( = .94), contempt ( = .92), guilt ( = .71) and shame

( = .76) as well as intragroup anger ( = .90), disgust ( = .95), contempt ( = .90), guilt (

= .76) and shame ( = .78).

Intergroup appraisal was measured by asking participants to rate the extent in which

the statements described their thoughts regarding Leave supporters. Three statements

included an evaluation of the outgroup’s character (e.g., Leave supporters are immoral) and

three statements referred to the outgroups actions (e.g., Leave supporters are responsible for

their actions). Participants rated these statements on a seven-point scale (1 = Not at all, 7 =

Very much). Composite scores were created so that a higher score represented a more

negative appraisal of the outgroup’s actions ( = .62) and character ( = .81).

This time it was decided that participants’ willingness to engage in collective action

would be measured. This is in line with other studies that have examined the effect of anger

and contempt on normative and non-normative collective action willingness (Tausch et al.,

2011). Participants using a seven-point scale were asked to rate a series of actions from not at

all to very much. Six items referred to normative forms of collective actions (e.g., participate

in discussion meetings) and six related to non-normative collective actions (e.g., engage in

violent behaviour). A summary score was calculated so that a higher score represented

stronger intentions to engage in normative ( = .92) and non-normative ( = .80) forms of

collective action.

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Study 2 Results

Preliminary Data Analysis

The results revealed that there were no missing values. Skewness and kurtosis scores

were calculated to assess whether the data significantly deviated from a normal distribution.

Similar to the previous study, the results indicated significant deviation from normality for

most variables (see Table 4.4). There were no missing values. Like the previous study, the

problem of non-normally distributed data was overcome by using the same bootstrapping

procedure (5000 samples). The correlation between all measured variables are reported in

Table 4.5.

Before the main analysis, one-sample t tests were conducted to see if participants

meaningfully identified with both groups. The results found British, t(123) = 10.72, p <.001,

and Remain, t(123) = 24.51, p < .001, identification to be significantly above the midpoint of

the scales. This suggested that participants were sufficiently identified with both identities.

Interestingly, the results demonstrated a significant difference between identification as a

Remain supporter (M = 4.42, SD = 0.65) and as a British person (M = 3.80, SD = 0.83), with

participants demonstrating a stronger identification with their Remain identity, t(123) = 6.85,

p < .001. These findings differ from the previous study which may be due to the fact these

participants had actually participated formally in the voting processes and therefore the

Remain identity was more meaningful.

Group-Context on Emotion Intensity

A two-way paired samples ANOVA was conducted in order to see whether there was

a difference in emotion intensity between emotion type (anger, disgust, contempt, guilt and

shame) and group context (intergroup and intragroup context). The descriptive statistics are

reported in Table 4.6. The results showed a significant main effect of group context, F(1,

123) = 8.81, p = .004, p2 = .07. Inspecting the means revealed that participants reported

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Table 4.2. Distribution Statistics for Measured Variables for Study 2

  N ZSkew ZKurtosisRemain Identity 124 0.45 -1.31

British Identity 124 -1.77 0.29

Intergroup Anger 124 -2.94* -1.10

Intergroup Disgust 124 0.74 -3.09

Intergroup Contempt 124 0.20 -2.89*

Intergroup Guilt 124 4.77* 1.11

Intergroup Shame 124 0.22 -2.26*

Intragroup Anger 124 -2.16* -1.03

Intragroup Disgust 124 1.14 -2.80*

Intragroup Contempt 124 0.36 -2.41*

Intragroup Guilt 124 3.00* -0.45

Intragroup Shame 124 -0.93 -2.19*

Intergroup Action Appraisal 124 -0.26 -0.64

Intergroup Character

Appraisal124 1.30 -2.59*

Normative Action 124 0.38 -2.45*

Non-Normative Action 124 12.55* 18.96*

Valid N (listwise) 124    

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Table 4.3. Pearson Correlation between Group Identification and Emotion for Study 2

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Table 4.6. Mean and Standard Deviations of Emotion Intensity by Group Context in Study 2

  Intergroup Intragroup Total

Anger 4.90 (1.71) 4.31 (1.56) 4.61

Disgust 3.87 (2.01) 3.48 (1.82) 3.68

Contempt 3.89 (1.96) 3.46 (1.70) 3.68

Guilt 2.40 (1.43) 2.62 (1.38) 2.51

Shame 3.87 (1.74) 3.86 (1.66) 3.86

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more intense negative emotion during an intergroup context compared to the intragroup

context.

There was a significant main effect of emotion type, F(4, 492) = 88.92, p < .001, p2 =

.42. Bonferroni post hoc tests were conducted. Similar to the previous study, the results

showed that anger was significantly more intense than all other emotions (p < .001). Guilt

was significantly less intense than all other emotions (p < .001). The differences between

disgust, contempt, and shame were non-significant (p > .05).

There was a significant interaction between emotion type and group context, F(4,

492) = 18.20, p < .001, p2 = .13. Simple effect parried sample t-tests were conducted.

Overall, these findings replicate the effects observed in the previous study. There were

significant differences between intergroup anger and intragroup anger, t(123) = 5.14, p

< .001, d = 0.46, intergroup disgust, and intragroup disgust, t(123) = 2.42, p = .001, Cohen’s

d = 0.31. Furthermore, as expected there was a significant difference between intergroup

contempt and intragroup contempt, t(123) = 4.06, p < .001, d = 0.36. The results show that

like anger and disgust, contempt was more intense during the intergroup context compared to

the intragroup context.

The same effect was not observed for group-conscious emotions. While there was a

significant difference between intragroup guilt and intergroup guilt, t(123) = 2.63, p = .010, d

= 0.24, the effect was in the opposite direction. In other words, guilt was rated more intense

during the intragroup context compared to the intergroup context, replicating the effect

observed in study 1. Lastly, the difference between intergroup shame and intragroup shame

was non-significant, t(123) = 0.12, p = .91.

Group Context on Identification

Similar to the previous study, Pearson correlations were conducted to compare the

relationship between ingroup identification and group-based emotions between the two group

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contexts. One-tailed Steiger's (1980) Z tests were conducted to assess whether the correlation

between Remain identification and intergroup emotion was significantly stronger than the

relationship between British identification and intragroup emotion.

Anger. Identification as a Remain Supporter was significantly positively correlated

with intergroup anger. Meanwhile, the association between intragroup anger and

identification as a British person was also significant but in the opposite direction. Lastly,

these two correlation coefficients were significantly different from one another, Z = 5.87, p

< .001. This shows that the relationship between ingroup identification and anger was

dependent upon the level of the identity which was made salient.

Disgust. A similar pattern of results was shown for disgust. Identification as a Remain

supporter was significantly positively correlated with intergroup disgust and identification as

a British person was significantly negatively correlated with intragroup disgust. These

correlation coefficients were significantly different from one another, Z = 5.35, p < .001. This

shows that the relationship between identification and disgust is conditional upon the group

context.

Contempt. The association between intergroup contempt and Remain identification

was also significant, with stronger identification occurring alongside more intense intergroup

contempt. Additionally, the negative association between intragroup contempt and British

identification was significant. The difference between these correlations was significant, Z =

4.97, p < .001. Thus, contempt showed a similar relationship with identification as anger and

disgust.

Guilt. Surprisingly, intergroup guilt was significantly positively correlated with

Remain identification. However, the relationship between intragroup guilt and British

identification was non-significant. The difference between these correlations was significant,

Z = 2.63, p < .05.

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Shame. Intergroup shame was significantly related to Remain identification.

Intragroup shame was weakly negatively associated with British identification. The

difference between these correlations were significant, Z = 4.67, p < .001. Therefore,

surprisingly shame showed a similar pattern as the morally condemning group emotions in

this study.

Normative Collective Action Intentions

Multiple regression analyses were conducted to identify which of the morally

condemning intergroup emotions (i.e., anger, disgust, and contempt) predicted collective

intentions. In the first step, intergroup anger and disgust were entered in the model alongside

the other behavioural measure. This initial step provides a direct comparison with the first

study. In the second step, contempt was added, to see if it was able to explain any additional

variance in the model that could be explained by its addition into the model.

When predicting normative collective behaviour, in the initial step, the model was

significant, F(3, 123) = 18.48, p < .001, and could explain 32% of the variance. In line with

the previous study findings, intergroup anger significantly predicted stronger intentions to

engage in normative collective action ( = .26, p = .005) but feelings of disgust did not (

= .02, p = .79), when controlling for non-normative action ( =1.35, p < .001). In the second

step, contempt was added to the model which did not significantly improve the model (F <

1). Despite this, anger remained significant (p < .01) and disgust remained non-significant (p

> .10). Since there was a very strong correlation between intergroup disgust and contempt (r

= .88), it is possible that multicollinearity can explain the non-significant relationship of

contempt on normative action intentions. Therefore, one additional step was made in which

disgust was removed from the model, the results found that anger (p < .01) but not contempt

(p > .10) predicted greater willingness to engage in normative collective action. This

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demonstrates that anger, and not disgust nor contempt, which predicts peaceful protesting

behaviours.

When predicting non-normative actions, in the first step, the overall model was

significant, F(3, 123) = 14.17, p < .001, and could explain 26% of the variance within the

model. Replicating the previous findings, the results showed a significant negative effect of

anger on non-normative collective action ( = -0.07, p = .005) and a positive effect of disgust

on non-normative action ( = 0.07, p = .005), once controlling for normative collective

behaviour ( = 0.15, p < .001). These findings replicate those found in study 1, showing

greater intergroup disgust, but less intergroup anger, significantly predicted stronger

intentions to engage in violent collective action.

In the second step, intergroup contempt was added to the model. Despite this, anger

remained a significant negative predictor of non-normative action (p < .01), while disgust

became marginally significant (p = .07), and contempt was non-significant (p > .10). Lastly,

when disgust was removed from the model, intergroup contempt became a significant

predictor of non-normative action (p = .03) and anger remained a negative predictor (p =

-.015). This shows that after controlling for intergroup disgust, contempt does not predict

non-normative action. However, the predictive effect of disgust on non-normative action

remains relatively robust to controlling for intergroup contempt.

Intergroup Appraisal

It was found that participants reported significantly more negative appraisals of leave

voters actions (M = 4.36, SD = 1.14) compared to leave voters character (M = 3.44, SD =

1.75), t(123) = 7.48, p < .001. Negative appraisals of an outgroup ought to be related to

stronger identification. Therefore, in order to check that these appraisals constituted an

outgroup appraisal, it was expected that Remain identification would predict a more negative

action and character appraisal, while British identification would not. A multiple regression

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predicting action appraisal with the two identification measures was conducted. It was found

that model was significant, F(2, 123) = 5.87, p < .004. As predicted, remain identification

was positively related with more negative outgroup appraisal action appraisal ( = 0.46, p

= .001) while British identification was negatively related ( = -0.23, p = .034). A separate

multiple regression was conducted to see if the identification measures predicted more

negative appraisals of outgroup moral character. The results found the model to be

significant, F(2, 123) = 10.39, p < .001. Inspection of the regression coefficients revealed that

stronger remain identification ( = 0.65) but weaker British identification ( = -0.67)

predicted a more negative appraisal of outgroup character. This suggests that the appraisals

represent an intergroup appraisal.

It was expected that the emotions would be predicted by different intergroup

appraisals. Multiple regressions were conducted to see which appraisals predicted intergroup

emotions (i.e., feelings of anger, disgust, and contempt towards leave supporters). A

hierarchical entry method was chosen so that the effect of appraisal could be test before the

coactivating intergroup emotions were entered. At the first step, both action and character

appraisal were entered into the model. At the second step, the other coactivating intergroup

emotions were entered into the model. This statistical method is in line with other studies,

which control for coactivator of the emotions within the analysis.

The model predicting intergroup anger was significant in the first step, F(2, 123) =

29.19, p < .001, R2 = .33. The results revealed that both action ( = .41, p = .011) and

character ( = .35, p = .001) appraisal significantly predicted intergroup anger. Once disgust

( = .30, p = .001) and contempt ( = .37, p = .001) were controlled, the results showed that

intergroup anger was significantly predicted by action ( = .25, p = .006), but not character (

= -.07, p = .29) appraisal.

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The model predicting intergroup disgust was also significant in the initial step, F(2,

123) = 48.99, p < .001, R2 = .45. The results showed that character appraisal significantly

predicted more intense intergroup disgust, = .66, p = .001. However, action appraisal was

non-significant, = .24, p = .17. In the second step, character appraisal (= .27, p = .014)

remained significant and action appraisal remained non-significant ( = -.01, p = .92) after

controlling for anger ( = .22, p = .054) and contempt ( = .67, p < .001).

Intergroup contempt was significantly predicted by the model in the first step, F(2,

123) = 39.60, p < .001, R2 = .45. Inspection of the regression coefficients revealed that

character appraisal ( = .55, p = .001), but not action ( = .15, p = .36), significantly

predicted intergroup contempt. In the second step, character appraisal remained significant (

= .25, p = .025) and action appraisal remained non-significant ( = -.02, p = .87) after

controlling for disgust ( = .62, p = .066) and anger ( = .25, p = .077).

Study 2 Discussion

The findings for study two demonstrated that during the intergroup context, feelings

of anger, disgust and contempt were more intense and their relationship with ingroup

identification was more positive compared to the intragroup context. These findings

corroborate the effects observed in the first study. In contrast, guilt and shame did not

become more intense during intergroup contexts. Instead, participants reported stronger

feelings of guilt in the intragroup context compared to the intergroup context. Meanwhile the

difference in shame between the two contexts was non-significant. These effects successfully

replicate and extents the findings observed in the first study that show that anger, disgust, and

contempt respond to intergroup contexts.

The study supports those which argue that intergroup anger and disgust are

differentiated by a distinct intergroup appraisals and action tendencies (Mackie et al; 2000;

Smith et al., 2007). Anger included an appraisal of outgroup action and predicted a greater

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willingness to engage in normative forms of protest. Disgust included an appraisal of

outgroup character and predicted a greater willingness to engage in non-normative collective

protest. While contempt also included an appraisal of outgroup character, its ability to predict

non-normative collective action was reduced to non-significant after controlling for

intergroup disgust. Meanwhile, after controlling for contempt, disgust became marginally

significant predictor of non-normative behaviour. This suggesting that disgust might be a

more appropriate conceptualisation for intergroup hostility.

Chapter Discussion

The aim of the studies was to examine how the intergroup context created by the 2016

EU referendum in Britain facilitated outgroup-hostile emotions and collective behaviour.

Across the two studies, it was shown that a specific class of emotions respond to the

intergroup context. Feelings of anger and disgust were more intense and become more related

to ingroup identification during intergroup settings than intragroup settings. This was not

shown for guilt and shame in response to ingroup wrongdoing; guilt was consistently shown

to be stronger during intragroup settings than intergroup settings. This finding supports those

who characterise emotions such as anger, disgust and contempt as other-directed emotions

since the target is something external to the self (Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Haidt, 2003).

Additionally, these findings challenge those who argue that anger and disgust can be self-

directed emotion, like guilt and shame (Clark, 2015; Leach et al., 2006). Lastly, the findings

support to those which argue discrete emotions are functionally distinct in terms of their

distinct appraisal and behavioural motivations (Mackie et al., 2000). While anger and disgust

share this responsiveness to outgroup transgressions, they were also shown to have different

associated appraisals and behaviours, suggesting that these emotions may have important

implications for intergroup relations.

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Anger and Activism

The intergroup context established in the 2016 EU referendum was shown to intensify

feelings of anger. Feelings of intergroup anger was more strongly related to identification

with the politicised subgroup identity as Remain supporter compared to anger during the

intragroup context. This supports findings that reveal that identification is related to greater

anger towards an outgroup but not the ingroup (Kessler & Hollback, 2005; Smith et al.,

2007). Overall, this indicates the group-based anger is more responsive to outgroup

transgressions (Mackie et al., 2000). It has been argued that group-based anger is a functional

emotion that enables individuals to appraise their surroundings and respond (Giner-Sorolla,

2013; Smith et al., 2007). Previous findings had suggested that anger responds to appraisals

regarding action intent and responsibility (Leach et al., 2006) and the current study

demonstrated this by finding that an appraisal of Leave supporter actions as bad, but not an

appraisal of their character was related to more intense feelings of anger towards Leave

supporters.

Additionally, anger was also associated with the type of collective behaviours which

Remain supporters have been reported on by the national newspapers. This finding

corroborates the findings which have shown anger to lead to forms of action, such as peaceful

protesting and demonstrating, which primarily occur in democratic societies (Barrett & Zani,

2015; Edwards, 2014). It has been suggested by some that anger is a constructive emotion,

which functions to maintain relationships by upholding moral standards (Tausch et al., 2011).

Adding to this position, it was found that anger was consistently negatively related to more

disruptive and radical forms of intergroup behaviour. Overall, while anger does intensify

during intergroup settings, it is related to constructive approach behaviours which seek to

uphold moral standards when an outgroup does something wrong.

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Revulsion and Revolution

Like anger, disgust was found to become more intense during the intergroup context

compared to the intragroup context. Additionally, the relationship between disgust and

ingroup identification was more positive during the intergroup contexts. This supports those

who argue that disgust is an other-directed emotion (Giner-Sorolla, 2013; Haidt, 2003) since

the intergroup context enabled Remainers to direct their emotions externally to another group

(i.e., Leave Voters). This challenges those who argue that disgust, like shame, can be directed

towards the ingroup (Clark, 2015). Overall, this suggests that group-based disgust is part of a

class of outgroup-directed hostile emotions.

It was found that group-based disgust has a distinct appraisal from anger. Disgust was

unrelated to an appraisal of outgroup action as bad, suggesting that people feel disgusted in

response to who they are rather than what they do. While previous studies have shown that

outgroup-disgust is concerned about the outgroup contaminating the ingroup (Cottrell &

Neuberg, 2005), the current study has extended these findings beyond a concern for ingroup

purity, instead showing that outgroup-directed disgust responds to socio-moral concerns

regarding the outgroups’ moral character. This finding supports those found at the individual

level disgust, which shows that disgust responds to character evaluations of other individuals

(Giner-sorolla & Chapman, 2017; Hutcherson & Gross, 2011).

Previous findings have characterised disgust to be an avoidant emotion, which

motivates passive and avoidant forms of intergroup behaviours, such as motivation to exclude

or distance oneself from disgusting outgroup members (Johnston & Glasford, 2014). This is

similar to other studies which has shown that the belief that an outgroup has an immoral

essence that cannot be changed actually reduces normative forms of collective (Cohen-Chen

et al., 2014). The current study complements these findings by showing that disgust does not

predict normative forms of collective behaviour. However, disgust consistently predicted

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some approach behaviours, but instead of the constructive approach, it predicted more violent

and disruptive forms of collective behaviour. Previous research had examined the role of the

similar emotion of contempt in predicting non-normative action (Tausch et al., 2011).

However, the current study suggests that disgust might be a stronger predictor of non-

normative collective action. One possible explanation for this is that disgust is more

concerned about moral violations while contempt is less so. This position is supported by

Haidt (2003) and Hutcherson and Gross (2011). Therefore, it’s through a processes of

moralisation that disgust legitimises political violence against others whilst contempt does

not. While contempt and disgust are both constituted by an appraisal of the other person

having a flawed character, disgust promotes violence with a stronger concern about morality.

Additionally, these findings align with the historical treatment of stereotypically

disgusting groups, such as homosexuals, who have historically been subjected to violent

treatment and practices rather than be passive neglected by groups. Lastly, this supports the

claim that disgust may be involved in extermination behaviours, especially when outgroups

are considered to be irredeemable (Clark, 2015).

Limitations

There are some limitations to the studies. It was found, across both studies, that the

relationship between ingroup identification and some group-based emotions, particularly

anger and disgust, was significantly stronger in the intergroup context compared to the

intragroup context. Despite this robust finding, there are two important limitations to this

effect. Firstly, since the current studies only measured identification and group-based

emotion rather than manipulated either of these variables. Therefore, I am unable to discern

any direction of the effect. Previous studies have demonstrated that the relationship between

ingroup identification is bi-directional by measuring ingroup identification before and after

the emotion eliciting stimulus (Kessler & Hollbach, 2005; Yzerbyt et al., 2003). Therefore,

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future studies may consider multiple measurements of ingroup identification to examine the

causality of the relationship.

This brings on to the second noteworthy point about the effects of ingroup

identification and group-based emotions- the apparent unreliability of the effects observed in

the intragroup context. In the first study, it was found the relationship between anger and

disgust in the intragroup setting with identification was negative. In contrast, the second

study observed a significant and negative correlation in the intragroup context. One possible

explanation for this inconsistent effect could be the failure to consider the causal direction

between identification and group-based emotion. Unlike the intergroup context, the

relationship between identification and these emotions is not mutually reinforcing. While

identification as an antecedent may be unrelated to these emotions, ingroup-directed anger

and disgust may be involved in individuals psychologically distancing themselves from the

ingroup (Kessler & Hollbach, 2005; Smith et al., 2007). Since the current study measured

identification alongside the group-based emotions, future studies ought to measure ingroup

identification before and after the emotion eliciting stimulus to examine the dynamics

between identification and these emotions within a group context.

Conclusion

It appears that group-based anger and disgust become more intense and more related

to ingroup identification during intergroup settings. In the context of the 2016 European

Union referendum, these group-based emotions may have important implications for the

political behaviours of people within Britain who are dissatisfied with the current group

decision. Rather than characterising all protestors as “Remoaners” who are attempting to

thwart a popular vote, the findings indicate that protesting behaviours may constitute a form

of regulating the group moral behaviour. While Remain supporters believe that Leave voters

did the wrong thing by voting for Brexit, there is a tendency to feel angry and engage in the

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peaceful types of protests, like those which have been reported upon in the national

newspapers. However, if Remain supporters start to appraise the Leave voters to be bad

people, they become more likely to feel disgusted and engage in more disruptive forms of

political behaviours. Both these emotions, in different ways, attempt to regulate the moral

behaviours of others. While anger aims to be more constructive and correct others

wrongdoing, disgust is more destructive and tries to exterminate those inherently flawed.

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Chapter 5: Ingroup Transgressions and Group Emotion

In the previous chapter it was revealed that during intergroup contexts, anger and

disgust become more intense and the relationship between identification becomes more

positive, compared to intragroup contexts. These findings demonstrated that anger and

disgust are best understood as other-directed emotions which are themselves distinct from the

self-conscious emotions, guilt and shame (Haidt, 2003; Tangney, 2007). While anger and

disgust share this responsiveness to others’ wrongdoing, intergroup anger was predicted by

appraising outgroup action as bad, whereas disgust was predicted by appraising outgroup

character to be flawed. However, previous studies have shown that anger also responds to

ingroup transgressions (Iyer et al., 2007; Leach et al., 2006). The current chapter focuses on

ingroup moral transgressions more closely since the relationship between identification and

self-conscious emotions is believed to be more complex (Smith et al., 2007). Previous

research has primarily focused on how identification and appraisals of ingroup action and

character are related to feelings of collective guilt and shame (Klein, Licata, & Pierucci,

2011; Lickel, Steele, & Schmader, 2011). The current study focuses upon the unique role that

anger and disgust may have in response to ingroup transgressions.

Ingroup Identification

Ingroup identification represents the incorporation of the group into the self-image

(Tropp & Wright, 2001). As has already been discussed, ingroup identification had a bi-

directional relationship with group-based emotions, functioning both as a cause and a

consequence. As an antecedent, it has been argued that group members feel negative

emotions for their groups moral violations, despite the individual having no involvement in

the transgression themselves, because with the identity comes the emotional significance of

events which impact the group (Doosje et al., 1998a). However, self-threatening group-based

emotions may also motivate individuals to revaluate their membership of the group and

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therefore psychologically distance themselves from the transgressing ingroup (Kessler &

Hollbach, 2005). So, the relationship between identification and emotion is a two-way street.

As an antecedent, the relationship between ingroup identification and the group-

conscious emotions have been demonstrated to be somewhat complex. Klein, Licata, and

Pierucci (2011) conducted a study which found that feelings of guilt have a curvilinear

relationship with ingroup identification, in that moderately identified ingroup members have

stronger feelings of guilt compared to both highly and lowly identified ingroup members.

This complex relationship was explained by two parallel psychological processes.

Moderately identified ingroup members feel more group-based guilt because the eliciting

events are more relevant to the self-compared to weakly identified ingroup members.

Meanwhile, highly identified ingroup members are more likely to provide justifications

which mitigate their feelings of group guilt. Indeed, by cognitively overloading participants,

the relationship between guilt and identification becomes non-significant (Sharvit et al.,

2015). Therefore, moderately identified ingroup members feel greater guilt because the

eliciting events are simultaneously relevant to their social identity and not threatening enough

for them to down-regulate the emotion by explaining away the wrongdoing.

In contrast, anger and disgust in response to an ingroup transgression may not

demonstrate the same curvilinear relationship. Anger and disgust are less self-focused

compared to guilt and shame (Tracy, Robins, & Tangney, 2007). Prior to learning about any

ingroup wrongdoing, ingroup identification has been shown to be unrelated to ingroup-

directed anger (Kessler & Hollbach, 2005). Therefore, it is possible that in response to

ingroup transgression, anger and disgust are less relevant to the self-concept and less

threatening to a positive social identity compared to collective guilt and shame. Therefore, it

was expected that group-based guilt and shame will show a more complex relationship with

pre-misdeed ingroup identification compared to anger and disgust. It was expected that the

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group-conscious emotions, guilt and shame, were to have a curvilinear relationship with

ingroup identification, measured before learning about the wrongdoing. In other words, it was

predicted that moderately identified ingroup members will experience more intense feelings

of guilt and shame than strongly and weakly identified ingroup members. Meanwhile, there

was no theoretical reason to expect anger and disgust differ between highly, weakly and

moderately identified group members.

Negative group-based emotions may also change how individuals define themselves

as members of a group (Kessler & Holbach, 2005). Indeed, it has been shown that when the

ingroup violates personal moral values, individuals disidentify with the group. For instance,

Glasford, Pratto, and Dovidio (2008) found that when the ingroup violates moral standards

this resulted in stronger dis-identification from the ingroup. They did find that ingroup

violation had no impact upon negative ingroup emotions, a measure of participant’s feelings

of disgust, annoyance and dissatisfaction with the ingroup, however this could be due to the

fact that some group-based emotions serve this ingroup distancing function compared to

others. Furthermore, if ingroup-identification is measured after the transgression this, the

relationship may depend upon the type of group-based emotions Anger and disgust have been

characterised as other-directed emotions (Haidt, 2003) and therefore when these emotions

may function to psychologically distance oneself from a transgressing ingroup through a

process of othering the ingroup. Kessler and Hollbach (2005) tested the impact of anger on

ingroup identification and found that participants that felt angry in response to ingroup

transgressions disidentified with the ingroup. In contrast, guilt and shame are self-critical

emotions are directed internally rather than towards other people and groups (Giner-Sorolla,

2013; Tangney et al., 2007). Since these emotions are not directed towards other groups, it

was suspected that these self-critical emotions would not be involved in psychologically

distancing oneself from a group. Therefore, it was hypothesized that ingroup-directed anger

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and disgust function to distance the self from the group, while guilt and shame keep

individuals committed to their group.

Intragroup Appraisals

In the previous chapter, it was shown that outgroup-directed anger and disgust are

related to different types of appraisal. While anger was shown to be more focused on

outgroup action, disgust was focused upon outgroup character. Indeed, this distinction

between character and action has been shown in response to ingroup moral transgressions.

For instance, feelings of group-based guilt and anger have shown to be elicited with high

perceived behavioural control, such as appraisals of responsibility, while collective shame

has been shown to be focused upon group image concerns (Iyer et al., 2007; Leach et al.,

2006; Lickel, Schmader, Curtis, Scarnier, & Ames, 2005). Likewise disgust has been shown

to focus on more enduring character evaluations of other people (Giner-sorolla & Chapman,

2017; Hutcherson & Gross, 2011). This suggests that an appraisal in response to ingroup

transgression will focus on either the group action or group character. More precisely, it was

predicted that these distinct appraisals of group immorality would differentiate the group-

based emotions. More intense feeling of anger and guilt will be predicted by appraisal of

group action, while shame and disgust will be predicted by an appraisal of group character.

Summary

The current study sought to test these hypotheses using British identity as a research context.

This research context was chosen for two reasons. Firstly, previous research has examined

group-based anger, guilt and shame in response to wrongdoing within a British identity

context (Iyer et al., 2007). Secondly, the population of British people was available to the

researcher. The study began with British participants competing measures of ingroup

identification. They were then asked to read a fictitious news article which contained

information relating to a moral transgression by the British military. Firstly, it was predicted

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that moderately identified British people, measured prior to learning about the wrongdoing,

will respond with more intense feelings of guilt and shame, than those who either strongly or

weakly identify themselves as British. Secondly, it was expected that appraisal of British

character would predict stronger feelings of disgust and shame, while appraisal of British

action would predict stronger feelings of anger and guilt.

Study 3 Method

Participants

A priori power analysis was conducted to estimate the required sample size needed to

conduct a multiple linear regression analysis. The results revealed that in order to find a small

to medium effect size (f = .07), with alpha and statistical power set to the norms within

psychology, (.05 and .08, respectively) the results indicated a total sample of 160 was needed

to analyse the data. It was expected that some participants would need to be excluded because

they would have missing values. Therefore, the researchers aimed for a total sample of 200.

Overall, 216 participants gave their consent to participate. However, 24 participants opted to

withdraw their data after receiving a warning that they would read a distressing news article.

Furthermore, of the remaining sample, 6.6% had at least one missing value. Little’s MCAR

test revealed scores were missing completely at random (p = .93). Participants with missing

values were therefore excluded from the analyses and analyses were conducted with a sample

of 184 British participants aged between 18 and 70 years old (M = 24.82, SD = 9.73). The

volunteer sample was obtained through poster advertising on campus and online. There were

122 females, 61 males, as well as one transgendered participant. The majority of the sample

(77%) identified themselves as White. Furthermore, 107 participants described themselves as

atheists with the remaining reporting some theistic beliefs.

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Materials and Procedure

British people were approached on a university campus and were invited to complete

an online questionnaire about reactions to a social issue. Participants were told that they

would be asked to provide their opinions on a national newspaper article and there was no

mention about any wrongdoing. At the start of the study, participants were asked to provide

their demographic information. Immediately after this, participants completed the measure of

pre-misdeed identification. This scale was identical to the measure included in the previous

chapter, which was adapted from Cameron (2004). Participants were asked to indicate

whether they agree or disagree with 12 statements that related to their British identity (1=

strongly disagree, 6 = strongly agree). Items included statements, such as “I feel strong ties to

other British people” and “The fact that I am a British person rarely enters my mind.” Six

statements were negatively phrased and were reverse coded. Participants could not go back

and change their scores. Overall, the scale had good internal reliability (α = .85). A mean

summary score was calculated, with a higher score representing stronger ingroup

identification.

After this, participants were then shown a fabricated news article, which contained

rich information regarding wrongdoing committed by the British military. In the news article,

it was reported that the British military were instructed to ignore any witnessed child sexual

abuse in Afghanistan. All participants received the same stimulus. The news article was

presented as an online article, with the website banner removed (see Appendix C.).

Participants were then asked to appraise the ingroup’s actions and moral character as well as

report how the transgression made them feel. The order of the intragroup appraisal and

emotion scales was randomised.

The measure of ingroup appraisal was measured using six statements, that were

included in the previous study and were adapted from Giner-sorolla and Chapman (2017). All

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items began with “I think that the British military…” and participants were asked to rate their

agreement for each item. Therefore, it was hypothesised that this measure contained two

subscales: appraisal of the bad act (e.g., are responsible for their actions) and appraisal of the

bad character (e.g., have bad moral characters). The six items were rated upon a seven-point

scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). A confirmatory factor analysis was

conducted to assess the fit of the hypothesised factor structure. Using the alpha criteria

of .001, the results revealed a non-significant difference between the observed covariance

matrices and those expected based on the hypothesised model, 2 (8) = 22.70, p = .004. The

two-factor model indicated a good fit on several fit indices, CFI = 0.97, IFI = .97, RMSEA

= .10. Both action and character appraisal had good internal consistency (α = .84, α = .82,

respectively). A mean summary score was computed for action and character evaluations,

with a higher score representing a stronger negative appraisal.

Furthermore, group-based emotions were measured. This scale measured participants

group-based moral emotions. Similar to previous studies, the scale began with “As a British

person this made me feel…” followed by a series of emotion adjectives (Smith et al., 2007).

Participants were asked to rate the extent they felt each emotion adjective (1 = not at all, 7 =

very much). The adjectives angry, frustrated and furious have been used to measure indicate

anger. Meanwhile disgusted, repulsed, sickened, grossed-out and nauseous have been used to

indicated disgust (Russell & Giner-sorolla, 2011). Three guilt items (guilt, regret, and

remorse) and five shame items (ashamed, embarrassed, exposed, humiliated, and disgraced)

which again have also been used in other studies measuring group-conscious emotion (Iyer et

al., 2007). Therefore, it was hypothesised that this scale would have a latent four factor

structure. This was assessed using a confirmatory factor analysis and compared to two factor

solution, in which anger and disgust items were included as one factor and guilt and shame

represented another factor. This two-factor solution was chosen because anger and disgust

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have been shown to be highly correlated with one another, while feelings of guilt and shame

tend to co-activate. Therefore, these correlations could indicate that these emotions are

similar underlying emotion. The four-factor model was significant, 2 (98) = 247.98, p

< .001, and demonstrated adequate fit on several fit indices; CFI = .93, IFI = .93, RMSEA

= .09. The four-factor model was significantly better fit than the two-factor solution, 2 =

57.10, p < .001. The four factors, including anger (α = .90), disgust (α = .91), guilt (α = .80),

and shame (α = .88), had good internal reliability. A mean-summary score for each sub-scale

was computed, with a higher score indicating more intense emotion.

At the end of the survey, post-misdeed ingroup identification was measured using a

single item at the end of the survey. A single item was believed to be appropriate for two

reasons. Firstly, previous studies have used different items to measure ingroup identification

before and after (Kessler & Hollbach, 2005). Secondly, a single item measure may mitigate

boredom effects from influencing the results. The question asked participants “How strongly

do you identify as a British person?” and participants rated this item on a seven-point scale (1

= not at all, 7 = strongly identify). A higher score therefore represented stronger ingroup

identification after the transgression.

Ethical Considerations

Before data collection, the study received favourable ethical opinion by the University

of Surrey Ethics Committee. In designing the study, there was a concern about deceiving

participants by presenting fabricated group wrongdoing to participants. However, there were

also ethical considerations of providing a real moral transgression in which accidentally

include some of those affected. Therefore, it was decided to use a fabricated news article as

part of the study, and all participants, even those withdrawn, were debriefed and informed the

news article was a fabrication. All participants were given information about the

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requirements and purpose of the study and provided their consent before taking part.

Participants were reminded of their right to withdraw.

Study 3 Results

Preliminary Analysis

The descriptive statistics are reported in Table 5.1, which includes measures of central

tendency, dispersion and the distribution of each measured variable. The results revealed a

negative skew for disgust and action appraisal (Z > 3.29), which was significantly different

from a normal distribution. To overcome issues regarding the normality of the data, a

bootstrapping procedure was applied on all analyses (5000 samples). The bivariate

correlations between all measured variables are reported in Table 5.2. As expected, there

were very high correlations between feelings of anger and disgust (r = .78) and feelings of

guilt and shame (r = .71), which suggests coactivation between these emotions. While these

correlations were indeed strong, they were not sufficiently high enough to cause concern

about multicollinearity issues. Indeed, as described above, the CFA revealed that a four-

factor model had a significantly better fit than when the emotions were collapsed into two

factors. Therefore, the emotions were kept as four separate factors.

Pre-Misdeed Identification

Further tests were conducted to assess whether there was a linear or curvilinear

relationship between national identification and group-based emotions. Multiple regression

analyses have been used to test non-linear relationships provided that mathematical functions

are applied to the predictor variable so that the regression equation is linear in the

coefficients. By centring national identification, a score of zero represents the mean score and

by squaring this centred variable, a linear relationship is established, with a higher score

representing both high and low identification. Therefore, since it was predicted that both

higher and low identification would result in reduced emotion response, it was expected that

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Table 5.4. Descriptive Statistics for all Measured Variables for Study 3

  M SD Z-Skew Z-Kurtosis

Anger 4.73 1.64 -2.66 -1.61

Disgust 4.72 1.59 -3.39 -0.71

Guilt 3.5 1.71 1.16 -2.16

Shame 3.6 1.56 1.49 -1.93

Action 4.79 1.36 -3.30 -0.09

Character 4.03 1.35 -0.84 -0.78

Identification (Pre) 4.07 0.70 -2.69 -0.48

Identification (Post) 4.8 1.50 -3.09 1.69

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Table 5.5 Bivariate Pearson Correlations between all Measured Variables for Study 3

1 2 3 4 5 6 71. Anger -

2. Disgust .79 -

3. Guilt .54 .49 -

4. Shame .66 .65 .71 -

5. Action .37 .30 .17 .24 -

6. Character .37 .36 .12 .26 .63 -

7. Identification (Pre) -.02 .04 .10 .04 -.19 -.22 -

8. Identification (Post) -.14 -.10 -.07 -.06 -.14 -.21 .71

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the transformed national identification variable would have a negative relationship with

group-conscious emotions.

Collective Anger. Overall, the model was non-significant, F (2, 183) = 0.72, p = .49,

R2 = .01. The results demonstrate that pre-misdeed ingroup identification did not have either a

significant linear ( = -11, p = .54) nor a curvilinear ( = -.19, p = .37) relationship with

collective anger.

Collective Disgust. The model was non-significant, F (2, 183) = 2.25, p = .11, R2

= .02. The results indicated that pre-misdeed ingroup identification did not predict intensity

of collective disgust. Both the linear ( = -.05, p = .82) and curvilinear ( = -.33, p = .07)

relationship of collective disgust was non-significant

Collective Guilt. Overall the model was significant, F (2, 183) = 3.37, p = .036. The

results indicated that a significant curvilinear effect of ingroup identification on collective

guilt ( = -.37, p = .002). The results indicate that moderate identification with the ingroup

predicted more intense feelings of guilt, while lower and high ingroup identification predicted

less intense feelings of collective guilt. The linear effect of ingroup identification was non-

significant, ( = .10, p = .55).

Collective Shame. Overall the model was significant, F (2, 183) = 3.88, p = .022, R2

= .04. The bootstrapped regression coefficients revealed a significant curvilinear effect of

ingroup identification on collective shame ( = -.42, p = .003). The results indicate that both

high and low ingroup identifiers feel less intense feelings of collective shame than moderate

ingroup identifiers. The linear effect of identification was non-significant once controlling for

the curvilinear effect ( = -.08, p = .64).

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Post-Misdeed Identification

Multiple regression analyses were conducted to identify the emotions which predict

post-misdeed ingroup identification. Each collective emotion was included as a predictor in a

separate model. Pre-misdeed identification was controlled.

Collective Anger. Overall, the model was significant, F (2, 183) = 96.29, p < .001, R2

= .52. The results indicate that pre-misdeed ingroup identification predicted stronger post

misdeed identification ( = 1.50, p < .001). Furthermore, more intense feelings of anger

resulted in lower post-misdeed ingroup identification, once controlling for pre-misdeed levels

of ingroup identification ( = -.11, p < .013).

Collective Disgust. Overall, the model was significant, F (2, 183) = 96.04, p < .001,

R2 = .52. As expected, pre-identification significantly predicted post-identification ( = 1.51,

p < .001). Additionally, controlling for pre-misdeed identification, more intense feelings of

disgust resulted in stronger dis-identification from the ingroup ( = -.12, p < .007).

Collective Guilt. Overall, the model was significant, F (2, 183) = 97.78, p < .001.

The results indicated that more intense feelings of guilt predicted lower post-misdeed ingroup

identification once controlling for initial levels of identification ( = -.12, p = .035).

Collective Shame. Overall, the model was significant, F (2, 183) = 93.47, p < .001.

However, inspection of the bootstrapped coefficients revealed that collective shame did not

significantly predict post-misdeed identification after controlling for pre-misdeed ingroup

identification ( = -.09, p = .11).

Hostile Emotions. It has been shown that both anger and disgust independently

predicted greater dis-identification. However, a further analysis was conducted to see if these

emotions independently predict dis-identification. Only pre-misdeed identification was

entered in the first step and the model was overall significant. However, most importantly,

adding anger and disgust in the second step significantly improved the model ΔF(2, 180) =

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3.21, p = .043. However, neither anger (p = .37) and disgust (p = .45) were independently

significant, which suggests that it is something they have in common together which is

motivating individuals to misidentify from the group.

Self-conscious Emotions. A similar procedure was applied to the self-conscious

emotions. It was found that guilt predicted greater dis-identification while shame did not.

Therefore, the current study examines whether the effect of guilt on dis-identification remains

after controlling for shame. It was found that adding guilt and shame to the model

significantly better than the model which included just the pre-misdeed identification, ΔF(2,

180) = 3.68, p = .027. Furthermore, Guilt remained significant after controlling for shame (

= -.13, p = .040)

Group-Level Appraisal

In order to identify whether the group-based emotions were predicted by different

appraisals, multiple regression analyses were conducted. Predictor variables were entered

hierarchically. In the initial step, both character and action appraisal were entered into the

model. In the second step, co-activated emotion was entered into the model. By entering the

coactivated emotion, this would be able to identify whether action appraisal predicts anger,

controlling for disgust and character appraisal. Additionally, this would also test whether

character appraisal predicts disgust controlling for anger and action appraisal. The proposed

theoretical model does not suggest that guilt and shame need to be controlled, since anger and

guilt were not predicted to differ in terms of their appraisal of group action, nor disgust and

shame in terms of their appraisal of group character.

Collective Anger. In the first step, the model was significant, F (2, 181) = 18.33, p

< .001, R2 = .17. Inspection of the bootstrapped coefficients revealed that collective anger

was significantly predicted by both action ( = .28, p = .007) and character appraisal ( = .27,

p = .013). This indicates a more negative evaluation of the group’s character and actions

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resulted in more intense feelings of anger. The model remained significant in the second step,

F (3, 180) = 105.51, p < .001, R2 = .64. As expected, disgust was a significant predictor of

anger (( = .76, p < .001). Once collective disgust had been controlled, the results showed

that a more negative evaluation of group action predicted more intense feelings of anger (

= .18, p = .011). However, character evaluation did not significantly predict more intense

anger ( = .01, p = .88).

Collective Disgust. The model was significant in the first step, F (2, 181) = 14.35, p <

.001, R2 = .14. The results showed that a negative appraisal of group character significantly

predicted more intense feelings of disgust ( = .34, p = .001). However, an evaluation of

group action as bad did not significantly predict stronger feelings of disgust, ( = .14, p

= .20). In the second step, the model remained significant, F (3, 180) = 99.46, p < .001, R2

= .62. As expected, collective anger significantly predicted disgust, ( = .74, p < .001). Once

collective anger had been controlled, character appraisal remained significant ( = .14, p

= .031) while action appraisal was non-significant ( = -.07, p = .33).

Collective Guilt. In the initial step, the model was marginally significant, F (2, 181)

= 2.72, p = .069, R2 = .03. The bootstrapped confidence intervals revealed that a marginally

significant effect of action appraisal. The results were in the direction that a stronger negative

evaluation of group action predicted more intense feelings of guilt ( = .20, p = .050).

Furthermore, character appraisal did not significantly predict stronger feelings of guilt (

= .02, p = .91). In second step, the model became significant, F (3, 180) = 62.31, p < .001, R2

= .51. Shame significantly predicted more guilt ( = .79, p < .001). However, once feelings of

collective shame had been controlled for, action appraisal became non-significant ( = .09, p

= .13) and character appraisal remained non-significant ( = -.15, p = .10).

Collective Shame. In the initial step, the model was significant, F (2, 181) = 7.64, p =

.001, R2 = .08. Inspection of the bootstrapped coefficients revealed a stronger negative

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appraisal of group character significantly predicted more intense feelings of shame ( = .21,

p = .036). However, a more negative appraisal of group action did not significantly predict

stronger feelings of shame ( = .15, p = .19). In the second step, the model remained

significant, F (3, 180) = 68.77, p < .001, R2 = .53. Guilt significantly predicted more shame (

= .63, p < .001). Additionally, once feelings of guilt had been controlled for, character

appraisal remained significant, ( = .20, p = .005) while action appraisal did not significantly

predict greater shame ( = .02, p = .78).

Study 3 Discussion

In the previous chapter, the findings from study one and two demonstrated an

unreliable relationship between ingroup identification and group-based emotions in response

to ingroup wrongdoing. Also, these studies did not include appraisal of the ingroup.

Therefore, the third study adds to these studies by examining the relationship between

ingroup identification as well as appraisal on emotional responses to ingroup wrongdoing.

Ingroup Identification

Ingroup-identification represents the incorporation of the group into self-concept

(Tropp & Wright, 2001). An emotions is considered to be group-based if it is positively

related to ingroup identification (Smith et al., 2007). However, the results suggest that for

ingroup-critical emotions, such as ingroup-directed anger, disgust, guilt and shame, the

relationship is more complex than a simple linear relationship. The results from study three

demonstrated ingroup-directed self-critical emotions, guilt and shame, had a curvilinear

relationship. Moderately identified group members felt more intense feelings of shame and

guilt compared to weakly or strongly identified ingroup members. Since the ingroup

identification was measured before the emotion inducing stimulus, this indicates that

identification was playing a causal role in the emotion. This curvilinear relationship has been

explained because these group-based emotions are simultaneously become more relevant to

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the self with identification as well as more threatening to a positive self-image (Klein et al.,

2011).

The current study also shows that adds to this relationship does not occur for all

negative emotions, such as ingroup-directed hostile anger and disgust. This findings is in line

with those who have also failed to show a significant relationship between identification and

ingroup-directed anger (Kessler & Hollbach, 2005; Smith et al., 2007). There was no

significant positive, negative nor curvilinear relationship between these emotions and pre-

misdeed identification. One possible explanation for these failures to find a curvilinear effect

is because group-based anger and disgust are neither self-relevant nor self-threatening. This

findings support those which characterise anger and disgust as an other-directed emotion

(Haidt, 2003). These findings also challenge those which argue that anger and disgust can be

self-directed and are therefore similar to feelings of guilt and shame (Iyer et al., 2007; Leach

et al., 2007). This suggests that anger and disgust when directed towards the ingroup, they

serve the function of enabling group members to psychologically distance themselves from a

transgressing group. This supports the findings that ingroup transgressions reduce group

members commitment to enhance the group (Täuber & van Zomeren, 2013) and they see the

group as more heterogeneous (Leach et al., 2007).

One concern that could be raised is that the anger and disgust might not be considered

group-based emotions since one of the criteria for an emotion to be considered group-based is

that it is related to ingroup identification (Smith et al., 2007). However, the current study

found that feelings of anger and disgust were related to post-misdeed ingroup identification.

This result suggests that these emotions serve to regulate an individual’s positive self-image

by psychologically distancing oneself from the transgressing ingroup. While guilt was found

also to be related to a decrease in ingroup identification, shame was not. This finding

replicates and previous research which had shown anger towards the ingroup to decrease

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group members’ ingroup identification (Kessler & Hollbach, 2005). Additionally, it supports

the findings that individuals become less committed to the group when it violates a moral

principle (Tauber & Zomeren, 2013). Therefore, the current study demonstrates that the anger

and disgust are still group-based emotions because they are involved in the regulation of an

individual’s social identity. However, nonetheless this still supports the claim anger and

disgust are other-directed emotions, since when individuals feel angry or disgusted at the

group, instead of down-regulating the emotion, they become less psychologically committed

to the group instead.

The current study found that group-based guilt also predicted greater disidentification

from the ingroup. Guilt is a negative self-critical emotion and it has argued that highly

committed ingroup members feel greater threat in response to an ingroup transgression.

Previous studies have found that in order to mitigate the feelings of guilt, highly identified

ingroup members attempt to justify the wrongdoing, such as minimising the harm done

(Sharvit et al., 2015). However, the current study suggests that dis-identifying from the group

may be another strategy which helps mitigate feelings of guilt.

Intragroup Appraisal

The third study demonstrated that an appraisal of the ingroup actions as bad is distinct

from an appraisal of the ingroups moral character as flawed. This supports the claim that

discrete group-based emotions have distinct underlying appraisals (Smith et al., 2007).

Appraising the group’s moral character to be flawed was found to be associated with stronger

feelings of collective disgust and shame but not guilt and anger. Furthermore, appraisal of the

group’s actions as bad resulted in more intense collective anger, but not disgust or shame.

These findings replicate the findings reported in the previous chapter, that anger is an action

focused emotion compared to disgust which responds to moral character. Additionally, it

replicates the findings of other studies. For instance, it replicates those that have found group-

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based shame responds to concerns about a flawed group character but anger to respond to

group actions (Iyer et al., 2007). Additionally, it extends findings reported for interpersonal

feelings of disgust, which has been shown to respond to concerns about moral character

(Giner-sorolla & Chapman, 2017). These findings suggest that in response to ingroup

transgressions, anger and disgust are distinct emotions.

This supports the claim that disgust and shame are character focused emotions.

Surprisingly, the results deviate from previous studies an appraisal of group action did not

predict feelings of collective guilt (Lickel et al., 2005). A possible explanation for this could

be because the stimulus focused on impure actions which might have been less relevant for

guilt. Purity concerns have shown to be more relevant for disgust and shame, while anger and

guilt respond to harmful actions (Powell, Overton, & Simpson, 2015; Rozin, Lowery, Imada,

& Haidt, 1999; Russell & Giner-sorolla, 2011). Therefore, it is possible that by using a

stimulus that involves violations of intergroup harm, this may have been more relevant to

character-focused emotions such shame and disgust.

One limitation for the study was that it only measured appraisals. Therefore, from the

current study alone, it remains unclear whether the appraisal is operating as an antecedent or

a consequence of emotion. However, previous studies have successfully manipulated

appraisal by presenting participants with slightly different emotion stimuli and found that

appraisals impact upon the emotions (Harth et al., 2013; Russell & Giner-sorolla, 2011).

Therefore, future studies may benefit by manipulating the newspaper stimulus, such as

manipulating whether the group violates a harm or purity norm. It is possible that harmful

transgressions would impact upon feelings of anger and guilt, and this effect would be

mediate by an appraisal of group actions as bad. In contrast, purity violations would impact

upon feelings of disgust and shame and this effect would be mediate by an appraisal of group

character.

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Another possible limitation is that participant’s ingroup identification was measured

and thus the analyses were primarily correlational. While causal claims may be inferred from

the pre and post measurement of ingroup identification, causal claims could be strengthened

by experimentally manipulating ingroup identification. Previous studies have manipulated

ingroup identification using a linguistic framing method, which either presents statements

about their group which participants can easily agree or disagree (Greenaway et al., 2015).

Future studies would benefit from experimentally manipulated ingroup identification and

showing their impacting upon the group-based emotions.

Chapter Conclusion

Overall, the current study suggests that in response to ingroup wrongdoing, anger and

disgust operate differently to the group-conscious emotions, guilt and shame. Moderately

identified group members feel these group-conscious emotions because they are relevant to

their social identity but not threatening enough to exonerate the group’s wrongdoing. This

balancing act occurs because these emotions are self-focused. In contrast, anger and disgust

are distinct emotions that occur in response to ingroup wrongdoing. Instead, anger and

disgust when confronted with ingroup immorality, are involved in psychologically distancing

oneself from the transgressing group. These findings support the hypothesis that anger, and

disgust regulate ingroup morality by reducing commitment to the groups that transgress.

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Chapter 6: Group-Based Emotions as a Signal for Universal Values

Early in 2018, newspapers alleged that the British charity Oxfam had engaged in

covering up sexual misconduct. Celebrity ambassadors for the charity described the

allegations as “disgusting” and stated that they are “dissociating” themselves from the charity

(https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43112200). This case reveals that emotions are not just felt

in response to group moral transgressions. In response to wrongdoing, emotions are openly

expressed to others. Indeed, it has been argued that expressing disgust serves the function of

signalling to others that one is motivated by morality (Giner-Sorolla et al., 2017). Thus far, in

the previous chapters, the functional role of anger and disgust has been examined. Study 1

and 2 examined how these emotions included distinct appraisals of the outgroup and

motivates different types of behaviours towards those groups, which serves the function of

regulating group behaviour. Study 3 revealed that these emotions when felt towards the

ingroup, motivate individuals to disidentify themselves from a transgressing ingroup,

suggesting that these emotions serve to regulate the morality of a group by reducing the

commitment of its membership. Previous studies have examined the communicative function

of interpersonal feelings of anger and disgust (Kupfer & Giner-Sorolla, 2016). Therefore, the

current chapter extends this by presenting three studies which aimed to examine the role that

group-level emotions may serve, namely the role in social communication. Here I explore the

role of group-based feelings in communicating a set of moral values that go beyond group

interest, instead communicating a set of group-transcendent values to others.

Interpersonal Emotions in Social Communication

When other people violate a moral norm, individuals may experience interpersonal

feelings of anger and disgust (Haidt, 2003). Emotions are not only felt but expressed so that

they communicate socially relevant information to others. The expression of different moral

emotions is believed to communicate different social motivations to other. For instance,

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Kupfer and Giner-Sorolla (2016) conducted several studies which sought to identify when

people infer others are motivated by selfish or moral concerns. They found that when a target

expressed anger, participants inferred that the target was motivated by their self-interest.

Meanwhile, when the target expressed disgust, participants inferred that the target was

motivated by a concern about morality. In a subsequent study, participants were asked to

imagine that they wanted to communicate to another person a message. In one condition the

message was that they believed this person had done something immoral. In another

condition, the message was to express that this person had personally harmed themselves.

They found that participants would strategically express these emotions to commutate these

different social motivations. When the goal was to communicate personal harm, anger was

expressed more than disgust. In contrast, when the goal was to communicate a moral concern,

disgust was communicated more than anger. These findings suggest that disgust strategically

communicate emotions at the group-level.

Since disgust signals a moral concern, this may explain why individuals prefer to

receive anger compared to disgust. For instance, Hutcherson and Gross (2011; study 4) asked

participants about their preferences about being targets of the moral emotions. They found

that people would rather receive anger from third parties rather than disgust. Other’s feelings

of disgust were perceived to be more enduring, more intense and difficult to remit than anger.

Disgust was also shown to be more indicative about one’s own moral character than anger.

These findings suggest that different emotions serve distinct functions in social

communication, with discrete emotions signalling different messages to others.

Group-level Emotions in Social Communication

While interpersonal disgust communicates more moral motivations compared to

anger, there are reasons to believe this would not occur when group-based emotions are

expressed. Firstly, when individuals criticise the ingroup, the results found that others infer

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greater moral concerns of the speaker (Elder, Sutton, & Douglas, 2005), which may make

expressions of anger seem less selfish at the group level. Secondly, outgroup-directed disgust

may communicate illegitimate and prejudicial beliefs about an outgroup, making it seem less

moral. For instance, Katzir and Liberman (2018) conducted a set of studies in which a

participants were asked to infer the beliefs of targets that expressed anger and disgust. In one

of their studies, a target expressed emotions about homosexuals. Participants inferred that the

target held more essentialist beliefs about homosexuality, viewed homosexuality to be

immoral, and viewed homosexuality to be impure when disgust was expressed compared to

anger. Furthermore, participants perceived expressions of anger to be more legitimate than

disgust. Participants perceived target more negatively when they expressed disgust compared

to anger. Overall, these findings suggest that anger and disgust, at the group-level, may

communicate the similar levels of moral motivation. This would imply a boundary condition

for the effect reported by Kupfer and Giner-Sorolla (2016), showing that it does not extend to

the group level.

Instead, group-based anger and disgust may communicate different types of moral

values. Research has distinguished between moral values which are concerned about the

welfare of the ingroup, such as whether ingroup members remain loyal (Haidt & Graham,

2007), and a set of group-transcendent (i.e., universal) values, which are concerned about the

welfare of something other than the ingroup, such as outgroups, animals and the environment

(Schwartz, 2007). While loyalty has been shown to motivate greater charitable donations to

help ingroup members, universal values has been shown to increase support for sacrificing

the ingroup to help outgroup members (Crimston et al., 2016; Nilsson, Erlandsson, &

Västfjäll, 2018). Therefore, different moral values vary in their scope of concern. As

described already, interpersonal disgust communicates broader motivations compared to

interpersonal anger. Following this pattern, it was predicted that ingroup-directed anger

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would communicate greater loyalty concerns compared to ingroup-directed disgust.

Furthermore, it was predicted that ingroup-directed disgust would communicate more

universal moral values compared to ingroup-directed anger. No specific prediction about the

communication moral values were made about the interpersonal emotions.

One possible confound is that participants differ in their own degree of moral concern.

Crimston, Bain, Hornsey, and Bastian (2016) developed the measure of moral expansiveness.

Those low on expansiveness are concerned about a more exclusive or narrow group of people

(i.e., themselves, close family members and their own ingroup). In contrast, those high on

expansiveness are also concerned about the welfare a broader group of entities (i.e., outgroup

members, animals, and the environment). It is possible that the scope of participants own

moral concern could confound the results, with participants inferring that others share their

own degree of inclusiveness. Therefore, the current set of studies measured participants moral

expansiveness, and this was measured to explore as a covariate within the analyses.

Study 4 Method

Participants

A-priori power analysis was conducted to identify the sample size that would be

required to test the hypotheses. The results revealed that in order to detect a small to medium

effect size (f = 0.13) using a mixed ANOVA, with alpha set to .5 and power set to .8, a total

sample size of 168 participants will be needed. Since it was predicted that some participants

will drop out from the survey or have missing data, a total of 177 participants were recruited

from an online crowdsourcing platform Prolific Academic. Participants were provided with a

small monetary incentive in accordance to the website guidelines. Of the sample, 116 (67%)

were female, and 159 (93%) were White. Participants age ranged between 19 and 61 years

old (M = 35.43, SD = 10.03). Using a 7-point scale (1 = extremely conservative, 7 =

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extremely liberal), the obtained sample described their political ideology as slightly liberal

(M = 4.60, SD = 1.39).

Design, Materials, and Procedure

A 2 (emotion: anger vs disgust) x 2 (target: interpersonal vs ingroup) between-

subjects experimental design was used, in which participants were randomly assigned to read

one of four vignettes in which they were asked to imagine overhearing a conversation at

work. The scenarios were based upon the materials used in Kupfer and Giner-Sorolla (2016),

which kept the wrongdoing ambiguous. In other words, participants read a scenario in which

they over hear someone expressing emotion about an unknown moral transgression. The

decision to keep the wrongdoing ambiguous was made because participant’s inferences may

otherwise be confounded by whether they believe the emotion to be justified or instead report

based on their own emotional response to the wrongdoing. Therefore, this enabled greater

experimental control so that participants inferences could be attributed to the manipulation of

the study. All scenarios were identical except that some participants overheard a colleague

expressing anger, while others overheard their colleague expressing disgust. The emotion was

either targeted towards another individual or towards the ingroup. For example, the ingroup-

directed disgust condition was:

Now imagine you are sitting in the break room before you start work and have

not yet had a chance to read the daily newspaper or check your emails. Two people

come into the room and sit at the table at the other end. After a few minutes you

overhear someone talking and because you have met her before, you recognise the

voice as belonging to your colleague Mary.

You can’t hear all the conversation from where you are but from what you

hear, you can tell they are talking about your company [someone else] having done

something wrong. You can tell from Mary’s voice she sounds disgusted [angry]. A

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minute later, you overhear the words, “I feel so disgusted [angry] about what our

organisation has [they have] done.” You decide to glance up at her and when you see

her face, you can tell from her expression of disgust [anger] that her feelings are

strong.

After reading the vignette, participants completed a series of self-report measures, including

inferred motive, inferred loyalty concern, inferred universal values, and their own level of

moral expansiveness. The order of the scales was randomised and items within each scale

were randomised.

Inferred Motive. Participants were asked “Why do you think Mary feels this way

about whatever happened?” As used in Kupfer and Giner-Sorolla (2016), three items

measured inferences about Mary’s selfish motivation (e.g., she is mainly concerned about

herself) and three items measured inferences about her moral motivation (e.g., she thinks

someone has behaved unethically). Participants rated these motives on a 6-point scale (1 =

extremely unlikely, 6 = extremely likely). Mean summary scores were calculated for inferred

selfish (α = .73) and moral motivation (α = .81) so that a higher score presented stronger

inferences of the motivation.

Inferred Loyalty Concern. Five items were taken from the Graham et al. (2009)

measure, which included items such as “whether or not someone showed a lack of loyalty”.

Previously this scale has been used to measure the extent to which a person values loyalty.

However, the instructions were adapted so that participants were asked to infer the likelihood

that Mary valued ingroup loyalty. The instructions were “When Mary decides whether

something is right or wrong, how likely is it that Mary takes the following considerations in

her thinking?” Participants rated each item on a 6-point scale (1 = extremely unlikely, 6

extremely likely). Mean summary scores were calculated, with a higher score representing

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stronger inferences that Mary is concerned about ingroup loyalty. The scale had good internal

reliability (α = .73).

Inferred Universalism. This eight item measure was adapted from Schwartz (1992)

and included items such as “social justice” and “equality”. Again, this measure has typically

been used to measure the extent to which people endorse universal values. However, the

instructions were adapted so that it measured the extent to which that participants inferred

Mary endorsed universal values. The instructions were asked “Based on what you have read,

how important are the following guiding principles in Mary’s life?” The items were rated on

a 5-point scale (1 = Not at all, 5 = Extremely). Mean summary scores were calculated so that

a higher score represented stronger inferences of universal values. The measure had good

internal reliability (α = .84).

Moral Expansiveness. It was speculated that participants who were more morally

inclusive (i.e., those who are concerned about the welfare of a broad number of things) would

infer that others have a broader set of values (i.e., universal values). Therefore, this measure

was different from all other measures since it asked participants to report their answer, rather

than infer Mary’s expansiveness. The 30-item measure was taken from Crimston et al (2016)

but was adapted so it was relevant to a British sample. Participants were asked to consider the

level of moral concern they have for each of the listed entities. The items included a range of

items, ranging from a narrow set of concerns (i.e., family members, British soldiers) and

broader set of concerns (i.e., refugee, cow, lake district). Participants placed each entity on a

four-point scale (0 = outside the moral boundary, 3 = inner circle of moral concern). This

scale was presented alongside the same instructions as Crimston et al (2016). The ratings

were summed so that a maximum score of 90 represented a broader moral concern. The scale

had good internal reliability (α = .93).

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At the end of the survey, participants were asked to recall which emotion had been

expressed which functioned as an attention check. The study was subjected to local university

ethical review procedures and received authorisation to be conducted. All participants were

informed about the nature of the study and were debriefed after completing the survey.

Study 4 Results

Preliminary Analysis

The study had several a priori exclusion criteria for the study. The results showed that

8% of participants answered the attention check question incorrectly. Although including

these participants scores in the analysis did not change the interpretation of the results, they

were excluded from the analysis reported below. Additionally, one participant was missing

one score on a moral expansiveness item. This participant was excluded from analyses

involving moral expansiveness. The skewness and kurtosis Z-scores were calculated for

participants per condition. The results found that these scores fell within the normal range for

all conditions (± 3.29), suggesting that data were suitable for parametric testing. The Pearson

correlations and descriptive statistics for all measured variables are presented in Table 6.1,

showing that the highest correlation between the measures was .28.

Inferred Motive

A principle component analysis was conducted on the six inferred motive items. An

oblique rotation method (direct oblimin) was applied. The analysis revealed that two factors

had eigenvalues over the Kaiser’s criterion of 1, in which both factors explained 66.88% of

the variance within the scores. Therefore, two factors were retained, and the factor loadings

are displayed in Table 6.2. The items contained on the same factor suggest factor 1 represents

inferences about self-motivations, while factor 2 represents inferences about moral

motivation.

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Table 6.6. Person correlation and descriptive statistics for measured variables in study 4.

  1 2 3 4 5

1. Self-Motive _

2. Moral-Motive 0.00 _

3. Inferred Universal Values -0.03 .14* _

4. Loyalty .25** .28** .22** _

5. Moral Expansiveness -0.11 0.08 .22** -0.04 _

M 4.12 5.11 3.37 4.35 45.35

SD 0.95 0.68 0.58 0.78 13.89

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Table 6.7. Factor loading for inferred social motivation in study 4.

  Factor 1 Factor 2

She is mainly concerned about herself -0.07 0.73*

She is concerned about how something has affected herself 0.03 0.84*

She feels that she has been wronged 0.05 0.82*

She thinks someone has behaved unethically 0.82* -0.05

She feels this way because someone’s behaviour violated a moral principle 0.84* 0.07

She feels this way because she thinks important moral rules have been broken 0.84* -0.01

* > 0.40

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A 2 (motive: self and moral) x 2 (emotion: anger vs disgust) x 2 (target: ingroup

interpersonal) mixed ANOVA was conducted. Firstly, the results revealed significant main

effects. For instance, there was a significant difference between the two motives, F (1, 140) =

115.17, p < .001, ηp2 = .45, with participants inferring more moral motivations (M = 5.11, SD

= 0.68) than self-motivations (M = 4.12, SD = 0.95). This difference between the inferred

motivations constituted a large effect. Additionally, the main effect of target was significant,

F (1, 140) = 9.79, p = .002, ηp2 =.07. Inspection of the means showed that participants

inferred stronger motivations when another person was the target of the emotion (M = 4.76,

SD = 0.55) compared to the ingroup (M = 4.47, SD = 0.58). This effect was a medium effect

size. However, the main effect of emotion expressed was non-significant, F (1, 140) = 0.04, p

= .84, with expressions of anger (M = 4.60, SD = 0.63) resulting in a similar strength of

inferred motivation compared to expressions of disgust (M = 4.63, SD = 0.53).

The results revealed significant two-way interaction effects. Firstly, the motive by

emotion interaction was significant, F (1, 140) = 5.82, p = .017, ηp2 = .04. Simple effect t tests

were conducted. A significant difference between expressions of anger and disgust for moral

motive, with participants inferring more moral motivations when disgust (M = 5.23, SD =

0.57) was expressed compared to when anger (M = 4.99, SD = 0.75) was expressed, t (142) =

2.16, p = .033, d = 0.25. This difference was small. However, for inferences for self-

motivation, the difference between anger and disgust was non-significant, t (142) = 1.18, p

= .24, d = 0.14, with participants inferring similar amounts of self-motives for anger (M =

4.21, SD = 0.96) and disgust (M = 4.03, SD = 0.93). These findings partially replicates the

effects reported by Kupfer and Giner-Sorolla (2016) which show that when disgust was

expressed individuals inferred more moral motivation than when anger was expressed (see

Figure 6.1). However, the effects here were much weaker than those reported in their study,

which can be explained by the inclusion of the group-based emotions.

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Figure 6.1. Inferred social motivations by emotion expressed.

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Additionally, the motive by target interaction effect was significant, F (1, 140) =

12.87, p < .001, ηp2 = .08. Simple effect t test revealed that ingroup targets (M = 3.81, SD =

1.01) results in weaker inferences of self-motives compared to interpersonal targets (M =

4.43, SD = 0.76), t (142) = 4.15, p > .001, d = .49, representing a medium effect size.

However, the difference in inferred moral motives between ingroup (M = 5.13, SD = 0.62)

and interpersonal (M = 5.09, SD = 0.74) targets was non-significant t (142) = 0.25, p = .81.

This supports the hypothesis that group-based moral emotions communicate less selfish

motivations.

The expressed emotion by target interaction was non-significant, F (1, 140) = 0.21, p

= .65. Furthermore, the three-way interaction effect was non-significant, F (1, 140) = 1.23, p

= .27, ηp2 =.01, suggesting the disgust still communicates more moral motivations than anger

at the group level. This fails to support the hypotheses that there is a boundary condition to

effects reported by Kupfer and Giner-Sorolla (2016). Nonetheless, the a priori simple effects t

tests were conducted. This was decided since Kupfer and Giner-Sorolla (2016) only

examined the differences for interpersonal targets. Therefore, analysing interpersonal and

ingroup targets separately allowed for a direct comparison of their study. The simple effects

uncovered a more nuanced pattern and are reported in Figure 6.2. A significant difference

between interpersonal anger and disgust was found for self-motive, t (70) = 1.98, p = .026,

with the means showing that interpersonal anger (M = 4.60, SD = 0.72) resulting in stronger

inferences in self-motivation compared to interpersonal disgust (M = 4.26, SD = 0.77).

Additionally, there was a significant difference between interpersonal anger (M = 4.94, SD =

0.86) and disgust (M = 5.24, SD = 0.56) in moral-motive, t (70) = 1.75, p = .042, with

participants reporting stronger inferences when disgust was expressed. In contrast, the

differences in moral, t (70) = 1.26, p = .11, and self-motives, t (70) = 0.24, p < .41, between

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Figure 6.2. Inferred social motivation by emotion expressed and target.

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ingroup anger and disgust were non-significant. This shows some support to the claim that

both group-based anger and disgust communicate moral motivations.

Inferred Ingroup Loyalty

A 2 (target: ingroup versus interpersonal) x 2 (expressed emotion: anger versus

disgust) between-subject ANOVA was conducted to identify differences in inferred ingroup

loyalty concerns. The descriptive statistics are reported in table 6.3. The main effect of

emotion was non-significant, F (1, 140) = 0.85, p = .36, ηp2 =.01. The results indicate that

participants inferred similar levels of ingroup loyalty when anger and disgust was expressed.

The main effect of target was marginally significant, F (1, 140) = 3.81, p = .053, ηp2 = .03.

Inspection of the means revealed a non-significant trend in which participants inferred greater

concerns regarding loyalty when the target was another person compared to the ingroup. This

may have occurred because being outwardly critical of an ingroup could be seen as less loyal

to the group.

The interaction between emotion and target was non-significant, F (1, 140) = 2.32, p

= .13, ηp2 = .02. For exploratory purposes, the simple effects were inspected. The results

suggested a different pattern. The results revealed a non-significant effect in inferred loyalty

when the emotions were targeted towards other people, t (70) = 0.48, p = .32. In contrast, the

results revealed a marginally significant difference between anger and disgust when the

emotions were targeted towards the ingroup, t (70) = 1.56, p = .061, with the results heading

in the opposite way as expected. Inspection of the means revealed that participants inferred

more loyalty when ingroup disgust was expressed compared to ingroup anger.

Lastly, simple effect comparisons were made for the separate emotions at each level.

For anger, the results showed a significant difference between interpersonal targets and

ingroup targets, t (70) = 2.38, p = .020, with stronger inferences of loyalty concern when

anger was targeted towards other people. This shows that interpersonal anger communicates

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Table 6.8 Means (and SDs) for Inferred loyalty values by condition in study 4

  Anger Disgust TotalInterpersonal 4.51 (0.73) 4.43 (0.62) 4.48 (0.67)

Ingroup 4.07 (0.85) 4.38 (0.85) 4.22 (0.86)

Total 4.49 (0.82) 4.41 (4.40) 4.34 (0.78)

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greater loyalty compared to ingroup-directed anger. However, for disgust, the results showed

that the difference between interpersonal and ingroup targets were non-significant, t (70) =

0.32, p = .75. Overall, while non-significant, the trend indicates that disgust communicates

stronger concerns regarding ingroup loyalty, however this effect only occurs when disgust is

directed towards the ingroup.

Inferred Universal Values

A two-way between-subject ANOVA was conducted to examine whether

participants’ inference of universal values was dependent upon the emotion expressed and the

target. The descriptive statistics are reported in table 6.4. The results revealed a significant

main effect of emotion, F (1, 139) = 4.93, p = .028, ηp2 = .03, in which participants inferred

stronger universal values when anger was expressed compared to when disgust was

expressed. Additionally, there was a significant main effect of target, F (1, 139) = 12.17, p

= .001, ηp2 = .08. When the ingroup was the target of the criticism, individuals inferred that

the critic had more universal values than when another individual was the target. This is in

line with the hypothesis that criticising the ingroup communicates group-transcendent values.

The interaction between emotion and target was significant, F (1, 139) = 8.59, p

= .004, ηp2 = .06. Simple effect t tests were conducted. When the target was another

individual, anger significantly communicated more universal values compared to disgust, t

(69) = 3.64, p = .001. However, when the target was the ingroup, the difference between

anger and disgust was non-significant, t (70) = 0.50, p = .62. Additionally, the results

revealed no significant difference in inferred universal values when anger was targeted

towards the ingroup or towards another person, t (70) = 0.41, p = .68. However, it was shown

that disgust towards targeted towards the ingroup resulted in significantly stronger inferences

compared to disgust targeted towards other people, t (70) = 4.35, p < .001. This shows that

when disgust is

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Table 6.9. Mean (and SDs) for Inferred universal values by condition in study 4

  Anger Disgust TotalInterpersonal 3.45 (0.53) 2.98 (0.55) 3.53 (0.54)Ingroup 3.50 (0.50) 3.56 (0.57) 3.21 (0.58)

Total 3.47 (0.52) 3.27 (0.63) 3.37 (0.58)

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targeted towards a group, individuals infer as much universal values as interpersonal and

ingroup anger, compared to when it is directed towards another person.

Inferred universal values were significantly correlated with the participants own level

of moral expansiveness, validating the speculation that participants with more inclusive moral

regard inferred stronger universal values than those who are less inclusive. To see if the effect

of disgust on inferred universal values still holds after controlling for moral expansiveness a

between-subjects ANCOVA was conducted by just using the disgust conditions. One

assumption of ANCOVA is that there is independence between the covariate and

experimental conditions. A between-subjects t-test revealed a non-significant difference

between moral expansiveness when disgust targets another individual compared to a group t

(69) = 1.55, p = .13, suggesting independence between condition and moral expansiveness.

Additionally, ANCOVA assumes homogeneity of regression slopes. To test for this

assumption an initial model was included which included a condition by moral expansiveness

interaction, the interaction was non-significant, F (1, 68) = 0.65, p = .80, suggesting the

assumption had been met. The results revealed that a significant effect of disgust target on

inferred universal values, after controlling for participants own level of moral expansiveness,

F (1, 70) = 16.46, p < .001. When ingroup-directed disgust was expressed, participants

inferred more universal values compared to when interpersonal disgust was expressed.

Study 4 Discussion

The fourth study aimed to see whether inferred moral motives and values were

dependent upon the emotion expressed (anger vs disgust) and the target (interpersonal versus

ingroup). One aim of the study was to replicate the effects observed by Kupfer and Giner-

Sorolla (2016). The effect that interpersonal disgust signals more moral motivations

compared to interpersonal anger was successfully replicated. Furthermore, interpersonal

feelings of anger communicated more self-motives compared to disgust. Despite replicating

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these findings there were some slight deviations from the results. One difference between the

current study was that overall participants inferred more moral motivations. However, Kupfer

and Giner-Sorolla’s (2016) participants inferred more self motivations. One possible

explainion for this could be that the current study also included group targets of the emotions

while Kupfer and Giner-Sorrlla did not. When the target of the emotion was a group, shown

to reduce inferences of selfish motivations. Therefore, the current study successfully

replicates the findings interpersonal anger and disgust signal different motivations.

A second aim to identify a boundary condition for the communicative effect of the

social motivations. This was predicted because group criticism communicates more moral

motivation (Elder et al., 2005), which may make group-based anger communicate as much

moral motivation as others. Inspection of the simple effect t tests did reveal a trend in that

direction, showing marginally significant differences at the interpersonal conditions but non-

significant differences between the group level emotions. However, since the three-way

interaction effect was non-significant, the null hypotheses has failed to be rejected. Overall,

this suggests that group-based disgust communicates more moral motivation compared to

group-based anger.

Thirdly, it was expected that expressions of group-level anger and disgust

communicate different moral values, with anger communicating greater loyalty concern and

disgust communicating more universal values. However, this hypothesis did not receive any

support. In fact, the trend for disgust was in the opposite direction, suggesting that ingroup

disgust communicated greater ingroup loyalty compared to ingroup anger. There was no

significant difference between ingroup anger and disgust in communicating universal values.

Exploratory analyses revealed effects of disgust on the signalling of group-transcendent

moral values. Unlike anger, the social signalling of universal values was dependent upon the

target of disgust. While ingroup-directed disgust resulted in stronger inferences of universal

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values compared to interpersonal expressions of disgust. This effect also occurred when

controlling for participants own degree of concern. Haidt (2003) described anger and disgust

as “guardians of the moral order” however the current study has shown that expressions of

group-based disgust communicate universal concerns that transcend the group order. Despite

being critical of the ingroup, ingroup-directed disgust did not communicate less concern

about ingroup loyalty. These findings suggest that ingroup-directed disgust may function to

communicate transcendent group-values, but not at the expense of ingroup loyalty. However,

it must be noted that this effect was not explicitly predicted prior to the study.

Therefore, a further study was conducted, which aimed to replicate the effects of

group-based disgust on the communication of moral values. This provided the opportunity to

test these newly generated hypotheses. It was expected that expressions of ingroup-directed

disgust produce significantly stronger inferences of universal values compared to expressions

of interpersonal disgust. It was also predicted that this effect would be maintained after

controlling for participants own level of moral expansiveness. The previous study also

indicated a marginally significant effect of inferred loyalty concern with group-level

emotions communicating greater loyalty. However, it was suspected that this effect was

driven by ingroup anger and does not occur for ingroup disgust. Therefore, the fifth study

focused entirely on interpersonal and ingroup directed disgust and how they communicate

different values.

Study 5 Method

Participants

An a priori power analysis was conducted to estimate the required sample size. In

order to detect a medium effect, with alpha set to .05 and power set to .80, a sample of 128

will be needed to effectively test the hypotheses. Since it was expected that some participants

will be excluded, a total of 146 participants were obtained from social spaces around a

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University campus, in which they completed a paper questionnaire. Participation was

completely voluntary. Of the sample, 89 (69%) identified themselves as female and 102

(70%) as White. The age ranged between 18 and 55 (M = 22.95, SD = 7.78). Using the same

scale as the previous study, participant’s political orientation was slightly liberal (M = 4.77,

SD = 1.33).

Design, Measures, and Procedure

The study used both disgust conditions which were identical to those in the previous

study. Participants were randomly assigned to read a scenario in which a fictitious colleague

expresses disgust about another person or disgust about their organisation. The condition

assignment was also double-blind. Participants then completed the same measures of inferred

ingroup loyalty (α = .71), inferring universal values (α = .81), and moral expansiveness (α

= .94), all of which showed good internal reliability. Since the previous indicated no

significant difference between ingroup disgust and interpersonal disgust in social

motivations, the current study did not include this measure of the subsequent studies. Since

the study was a paper-based survey, the order of the items for all scales was presented in a

fixed order and items within the scales were not randomised. The survey ended with a forced-

choice attention check question, which asked participants to recall what emotion was

expressed; anger or disgust. The study received favourable ethical opinion and all participants

were debriefed.

Study 5 Results

Preliminary Analysis

The same exclusion criteria were applied in this study. Overall, 11 participants (7%)

failed the attention check question by either providing an incorrect response or no response.

Missing values analysis revealed that 7% of participants had at least one missing score on the

inferred universal values and loyalty concern variable. For these participants, the score was

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an average of other scores on the same scale. The analysis reported below includes the results

with the participants excluded. However, note that including these participants did not change

the conclusions of the results. The skewness and kurtosis Z-scores for all fell within the

normal range (± 3.29), suggesting that data were suitable for parametric testing.

Inferred Ingroup Loyalty Concern

An independent samples t test was conducted to see if there was a significant

difference in inferred loyalty concern between conditions. The previous study demonstrated a

marginally significant main effect of target, with participants inferring greater concerns

regarding ingroup loyalty when the target was another person rather than a group. However,

the results revealed a non-significant difference between ingroup-directed disgust (M = 3.86,

SD = 0.83) and interpersonal disgust (M = 3.80, SD = 0.88), t(133) = 0.40, p = .69.

Inferred Universal Values

An independent samples t-test was conducted to see if there was a significant

difference in inferred universal values comparing expressions of ingroup-directed disgust and

interpersonal disgust. There was a significant difference, t(133) = 2.50, p = .007, with

participants inferring more universal values when the target expressed disgust towards an

ingroup compared to another individual.

In order to see if this difference remains once controlling for individuals’ own moral

values, a between-subjects ANCOVA was conducted in which moral expansiveness was

included as a control variable. An independent t test revealed a non-significant difference in

moral expansiveness between the two conditions, t (133) = 0.88, p = .38, revealing that this

assumption was met. Additionally, an ANCOVA assumes that there is homogeneity of the

regression slopes. To test this assumption a condition by moral expansiveness interaction

effect was included. The results were non-significant, F (3, 131) = 0.50, p = .48, indicating

the assumption had been met. The results showed that participants with a broader moral

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regard inferred stronger universal values than participants with a narrow moral regard, F (1,

132) = 12.32, p < .001, ηp2 = .09. There was a significant main effect of condition, F (1, 132)

= 5.42, p = .008, ηp2 = .05, with participants inferring stronger universal values when ingroup-

directed disgust (M = 3.27, SD = 0.59) was expressed compared to interpersonal disgust (M =

2.95, SD = 0.71).

Study 5 Discussion

The findings from the fifth study successfully replicated the exploratory findings

observed in fourth study, revealing robustness to the effect that expressions of ingroup-

directed disgust result in stronger inferences of universal values compared to expressions

interpersonal disgust. Furthermore, the fourth study suggested that ingroup targets could

possibly result in inferences that one is less concerned about ingroup loyalty. While in the

fourth study, the interaction effect between anger and disgust was non-significant, which

indicated that both expressions of ingroup anger and disgust communicated less concerns

about ingroup loyalty. However, the fifth study found, by just focusing on disgust, it was

shown that ingroup targets resulted in a similar level of inferences of loyalty concern as

interpersonal targets. This supports the suspicion that the effect of ingroup loyalty in the

fourth study was primarily driven by ingroup anger. Overall, the findings show that

expressing disgust about an ingroup communicates stronger universal values, without

communicating that one is unconcerned about ingroup loyalty.

There are several possible explanations as to why ingroup-disgust communicates

more universal values compared to interpersonal disgust. The first potential explanation for

this effect is that this occurred because ingroup-directed disgust is self-critical while

interpersonal disgust is other-critical (The Self-Disgust Hypothesis). If this is the case, then it

would be expected that self-directed disgust also communicates universal values. An

alternative possibility is that criticising a group functions to regulate the moral behaviour of a

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group. Therefore, expressions of disgust about a group signal a set of concerns which are

more inclusive and universal (The Group Disgust Hypothesis). If this is the case, then we

would expect expressions of outgroup-directed disgust to communicate universal values since

it was also group level. Another possibility is a combination of the two; that disgust only

communicates universal values when it is directed towards the ingroup (The Ingroup-Disgust

Hypothesis). If this is the case, then disgust would only communicate more universal values

when it targeted at the ingroup compared to expressions of self-directed disgust, interpersonal

disgust, outgroup-directed disgust.

There is reasonable theoretical support for each of these positions. In support of the

self-disgust hypotheses, it has been argued that self-critical emotions function to

communicate a commitment to those we have harmed (Tangney, Stuewig, Malouf, &

Youman, 2013). It is possible that because ingroup-directed disgust is self-critical, this

communicates commitment to the welfare of others. In support of the group-disgust

hypothesis, interpersonal emotions are believed regulate individual’s behaviour so that it is

compliant with group norms (Keltner & Haidt, 1999) and therefore expressing these personal

disgust signals narrower group-values. In contrast, group-based emotions are believed to be

regulate and change a group’s behaviour (Mackie et al., 2000), which may therefore

communicate values that transcend group membership, such as concerns for outgroup-

welfare. According to this theoretical framework, this would support the group-disgust

hypotheses. Lastly, there is some support for the ingroup-disgust hypotheses. It has been

found that outgroup-directed disgust communicates prejudicial beliefs about outgroups

(Katzir & Liberman, 2018), which would therefore not indicate concern about the welfare of

outgroups. It is therefore plausible that it ingroup-directed disgust communicates more

universal values because it is both group-based and self-critical.

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Therefore, a third study was conducted which aimed to test the different explanations

for the effect that ingroup-directed disgust communicates more universal values compared to

interpersonal disgust. Using a similar design to the previous two studies, participants were

presented with a hypothetical scenario in which a protagonist expresses disgust towards

different targets: the personal-self, another person, the ingroup, or an outgroup. Two targets

were self-directed (personal-self and ingroup) and two targets were other-directed

(interpersonal and outgroup). Additionally, two targets were at the individual level (self and

interpersonal) and two targets were at the group level (ingroup and outgroup).

This design helped distinguish the different explanations and therefore several

hypotheses were made. If the self-disgust hypothesis is correct, then we would expect to find

a significant main effect of emotion direction, with ingroup and personal disgust

communicating stronger universal values. If the group-disgust hypothesis is correct, then we

would expect to find a significant main effect of level, with ingroup and outgroup targets

communicating more universal values. Lastly, if the ingroup-disgust hypothesis is correct,

then we would expect to find a significant interaction effect, with ingroup-directed disgust

communicating stronger universal values.

Study 6 Method

Participants

An a priori power analysis was conducted to see identify the required sample. The

results found that in order to detect a small to medium effect size, using the same alpha and

power levels before, using a between-subjects ANOVA, then approximately 199 participants

will be needed to be recruited. In total, 205 participants were recruited from online

crowdsourcing platform Prolific Academic. Participants were excluded if they had

participated in study four. Furthermore, participants received payment in accordance with the

website guidelines. Of the sample, 161 (79%) were female and 191 (93%) were white.

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Participants age ranged between 24 and 69 (M = 38.30, SD = 9.97). Additionally, participants

described themselves as slightly liberal (M = 4.21, SD = 1.43).

Design, Materials, and Procedure

A between-subjects experiment was conducted which incorporated a similar design to

the previous studies. Participants read a vignette in which a colleague expresses disgust.

However, the study manipulated the level of the target (group versus individual) and the

direction of the target (self vs other). Participants were assigned to conditions randomly.

Therefore, the four conditions included outgroup-directed, ingroup-directed, interpersonal,

and self-directed disgust. The scenario presented was similar to the previous studies.

You can’t hear all the conversation from where you are but from what you hear, you

can tell they are talking about another company [your company / someone else /

Mary] having done something wrong. You can tell from Mary’s voice she sounds

disgusted. A minute later, you overhear the words “I feel so disgusted about what

their organisation has [our organisation has / they have / I have] done.” You decide

to glance up at her and when you see her face, you can tell from her expression of

disgust that her feelings are strong.     

The measure of inferred universal values (α = .86) and moral expansiveness (α = .93) were

kept identical to the previous study. All participants were debriefed.

Study 6 Results

Preliminary

An exclusion criterion was applied to the data which was identical those reported in

studies four and five. Of the sample, 6 participants (3%) failed the attention check question

and were therefore excluded from the analysis. There were no missing values. The skewness

and kurtosis scores for all measured variables were checked per condition. The results

showed no significant deviation from a normal distribution (± 3.29), thus indicating that the

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data are suitable for parametric testing. The correlation between moral expansiveness (M =

46.45, SD = 13.92) and inferred universal values (M = 3.23, SD = 0.68) was significant (r

= .20, p = .007).

Universal Values

A 2 (Level: group vs person) x 2 (Direction: Self vs Other) between-subjects ANOVA

was conducted was conducted to see if there were any significant differences in inferred

universal values. The results revealed a significant difference between group level targets and

personal targets, F(1, 204) = 17.23, p <.001, with participants inferring more universal values

when the target of disgust was a group compared to an individual. The main effect of

direction was non-significant, F(1, 204) = 0.51, p = .48. Furthermore, the interaction was

non-significant, F(1, 204) = 2.22, p = .14. Overall, these findings support the group-disgust

hypotheses, indicating when disgust is targeted towards groups, disgust signals a concern

regarding group transcendent concerns compared to when disgust is expressed about another

individual.

To see if the effects could be explained by participants own scope of moral concern,

an ANCOVA was conducted. To test the assumption of that there is independence between

the conditions and the covariate, a two-way ANOVA was conducted. The results indicated a

non-significant main effect of level, F(1, 201) = 0.03, p = .86, and direction, F(1, 201) = 0.24,

p = .62, on moral expansiveness. There interaction between level and target was also non-

significant, F(1, 201) = 0.17, p = .69, suggesting there was independence between MES and

conditions. Additionally, to test the homogeneity of regression slopes, interaction terms

between the conditions and the covariate were added. The interaction between level by MES

interaction, F (1,198) = 0.99, p = .32, the direction by MES interaction, F (1, 198) = 0.02, p =

.90, and the three-way interaction were non-significant, F (1, 198) = 1.28, p = .26, suggesting

that the assumption had been met.

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A significant effect of moral expansiveness was found, revealing that participants

with a more inclusive moral regard infer stronger universal values than participants with a

narrow moral regard, F (1, 213) = 8.41, p = .004, ηp2 = .04. The results revealed a significant

main effect of target, F (1, 213) = 18.16, p < .001, ηp2 = .08. Inspection of the means

indicated that participants inferred more universal moral values when group-level disgust was

expressed (M = 3.43, SD = 0.63) compared to personal expressions of disgust (M= 3.05, SD =

0.68). The effect of direction was non-significant, F (1, 213) = 0.69, p = .41, with participants

reporting similar levels of universal values when disgust was directed towards the self (M =

3.27, SD = 0.65), compared to when disgust was directed towards others (M = 3.20, SD =

0.71). The interaction between level and direction was non-significant, F (1, 213) = 2.06, p

= .15, indicating that regardless of whether disgust was directed towards the ingroup or

outgroup, group-based disgust expression resulted in participants inferring more universal

values compared to expressions of personal disgust. This suggests the signalling of universal

values could not be explained by individual differences in the scope of moral concern.

Study 6 Discussion

Based upon previous theorising, it was argued that ingroup-directed disgust

communicates more universal values than interpersonal disgust because it is more self-critical

(Tangney et al., 2013), because it is group-based (Mackie & Smith, 2003b), or because it is

both self-critical and group-based (Katzir & Liberman, 2018). The sixth study aimed to test

these predictions. Firstly, it was found that when disgust was directed towards the personal-

self, this did not communicate more universal values which challenges the self-criticism

hypothesis. Secondly, it was found that outgroup-directed disgust also communicated greater

inferences of universal values. This finding challenges the ingroup-directed disgust

hypothesis. This appears to contradict other’s findings in which outgroup-directed disgust

communicates prejudice (Katzir & Liberman, 2018). This may be because the group in the

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current study was more ambiguous, while the previous studies had focused upon known

groups (e.g., homosexuals). Therefore, the findings support the group-based disgust

hypothesis, in which expressions of group-based disgust signals more universal values to

others.

General Discussion

Overall, this chapter explored the signalling of group-transcendent moral values when

individuals express negative group-based emotion. Three studies were conducted to examine

this. The fourth study revealed that disgust communicates more moral motivations than

anger. Furthermore, the results suggested that while ingroup anger and disgust communicate

similar levels of universal values however, disgust, unlike anger, did not signal a lack of

concern about group loyalty. The fifth study demonstrated that ingroup-directed disgust

signals greater universal values compared to interpersonal disgust. Furthermore, when disgust

is targeted towards the ingroup, this does not result in others inferring less ingroup loyalty.

The final study aimed to understand why ingroup directed disgust resulted in greater

universal values. The study considered whether it was because ingroup disgust is self-critical,

because it is targeted towards a group, or because it was critical of the ingroup. The findings

suggest that group-level rather than self-directed disgust that results in greater universal

values.

Previous research has shown that expressing disgust serves a communicative function

by signalling moral motivations to others (Kupfer & Giner-Sorolla, 2016). However, while

some moral values refer to conforming to the group norms, other values are about upholding

universal principles (Haidt & Graham, 2007; Schwartz, 2007). Indeed, interpersonal feelings

of disgust have been characterised as an emotion which seeks to uphold the moral order of a

group (Haidt, 2003). Previous research has considered how expressions of disgust regulate

others people’s behaviour. Indeed, Hutcherson and Gross (2011) found that individuals

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would rather receive expressions of anger compared to disgust. Disgust facial expression

have shown to elicit feelings of shame in others (Giner-Sorolla & Espinosa, 2011). This

suggests that expressions of disgust towards other individuals seek to regulate and uphold the

moral order of the group.

However, those studies had only examined the role of disgust when targeted towards

other individuals. The current study examined the social signals of disgust at the group level.

Previous research has characterised feelings of group-based disgust as serving narrow group

interests, such as a form of intergroup prejudice (Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005). Adding to this,

expressions of outgroup disgust to communicate beliefs about the outgroup that are

considered less appropriate (Katzir & Liberman, 2018). However, the current set of studies

have demonstrated that disgust may communicate less parochial concerns. Instead, when an

individual express disgust about an ingroup or outgroup, this appears to communicate more

universal moral values. Interestingly, expressing disgust about the ingroup was not showed to

communicate a lack of loyalty concern. Overall, disgust signalled to others that there is a

concern about group morality and that there are a broader and more inclusive set of values.

The studies are not without their limitations. Firstly, the study used a hypothetical

scenario in which deliberately kept the wrongdoing ambiguous. While the method allowed

for greater experimental control, it came at the cost of ecological validity. Future research

should aim to use rich and detailed cases to see if the effect occurs in those settings.

Secondly, the fifth study focused on people around a university campus, which would be

primarily a student sample. The scenario asked them to imagine a hypothetical employment

scenario, which may have been less relevant to the student group. Finally, future research

would be benefited by aiming to uncover the potential social consequences that the signal of

universal values. It is expected that by communication of universal values, this results in

others in expanding their own moral regard and seeking to change the group practices.

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Despite these limitations, the current study has reliably shown that disgust

communicates socially important bits of information to others, such as the scope of the

individual’s moral values. While both interpersonal and ingroup disgust communicates moral

motivations to others (Giner-Sorolla et al., 2017; Kupfer & Giner-Sorolla, 2016), they both

communicate different moral values. Ingroup-disgust communicates greater universal values,

not because it is self-critical, but because it is targeted towards a group. Therefore, by

expressing disgust about a group, individuals may seek to regulate the group practices, by

signalling that they are concerned about universal values.

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Chapter 7: Discussion

At the beginning of the thesis, the question was raised as to how and why social

groups change their practices across time. In Britain alone, there has been a dramatic

transformation in the practices of the society. For example, instead of imprisoning and

chemically castrating homosexual men, now the British state legally recognises same-sex

relationships. These past behaviours of the group are now considered to be immoral. Previous

approaches in moral psychology have focused upon how moral order of the group is

conserved by regulating individual behaviour of its members (Ellemers, 2017; Haidt, 2008).

This thesis examined the various ways in which affective moral judgements of ingroup and

outgroup members may regulate the morality of a group. Since the immorality of social group

constitutes a social problem in a society, a group’s behaviour needs to be checked and

regulated so that it conforms to what individuals deem to be moral. It has been long argued

that emotions are functional in that they help solve social problems (Giner-Sorolla, 2013;

Hutcherson & Gross, 2011). Indeed, it has also been argued that emotions not only help

individuals overcome their problems but are also useful for social groups (Keltner & Haidt,

1999). In this chapter, I aim to integrate the findings across the six studies with the other

findings in the literature, describe possible implications for these findings, identify the

limitations of the studies and gaps within the literature, and outline future directions for

research.

In the first chapter I identified two broad approaches to studying group morality. One

approach was characterised as a form of top-down regulation in which a shared group

morality was considered to confine behaviour within a group so that it conforms to the

current social order (Ellemers, 2017; Haidt, 2008). According to this perspective, social

judgements regulate individual’s morality so that they conform to the standards proscribed by

the group. For instance, it has been shown that morality, rather than competency or

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sociability, is more important in forming the global evaluation of other individuals (Brambilla

et al., 2011; Goodwin et al., 2014). It has been argued that when individuals violate a moral

group norm, the social judgement of others induces negative feelings of threat, guilt or shame

that motivate individual to change their behaviour so that they conform to the group moral

norms (Ellemers, Pagliaro, & Barreto, 2013a; Tangney et al., 2007). According to this

perspective, individual behaviour is regulated by the group. Overall, this approach describes

how group-based morality is conserved and maintained and is unable to explain how morality

of a group changes.

An alternative approach was to show how individual group members may regulate the

group practices and policies and how this may explain social change (Giner-Sorolla, 2013;

Janoff-Bulman & Carnes, 2013). From this bottom-up perspective, a group that has been

deemed to have violated some moral standard or principle, may be faced by a reaction from

outgroups as well as from their own group members which attempts to regulate the group

behaviour. According to this perspective, individual social judgements are believed to

function to regulate the morality of the group. It has been shown that individuals evaluate the

morality of a group-as-a-whole (Leach et al., 2007; Phalet & Poppe, 1997) as well as the

morality of group-based action (van der Toorn et al., 2015). The morality of a group is

considered to be more important than its sociability and competency (Brambilla et al., 2012).

When a group violates a moral standard, this may provoke collective action (Tausch et al.,

2011; van Zomeren et al., 2008) and reducing ingroup members commitment to the group,

such as through disidentification and reduce engagement with the group (Glasford et al.,

2008; Kessler & Hollbach, 2005; Täuber & van Zomeren, 2013). Therefore, in response to

outgroup and ingroup moral condemnation, a social group may consider either refraining or

changing a policy or practice.

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Declarative judgements, otherwise known as an appraisal, include an emotional

response (Lazarus, 1982; Nussbaum, 2001) and emotional responses are believed to serve

multiple social functions such as motivating behaviours, self-regulation and assist in social

communication (Giner-Sorolla, 2018; Keltner & Haidt, 1999). A particular class of emotions

are respond more to moral concerns, such as anger, disgust, contempt, guilt and shame

(Haidt, 2003; Hutcherson & Gross, 2011; Rozin et al., 1999). When individuals judge groups,

ingroup or outgroup, as unjust or immoral, their judgements include an emotional response

such as anger, disgust, guilt and shame (Iyer et al., 2007; Mackie et al., 2000; Tausch et al.,

2011; Tracy & Robins, 2004). Group-based emotions are related to an appraisal of the group

as well as ingroup identification (Smith et al., 2007).

Additionally, discrete group-based moral emotions are believed to have distinct

intergroup appraisals. While initially research had characterised anger and disgust as other-

directed moral emotions, which respond when the wrongdoing was perceived to be

something external to the self (Haidt, 2003). While anger focuses on an evaluation of an

action as bad, disgust includes an evaluation of moral character (Giner-sorolla & Chapman,

2017). Therefore, these emotions at the group-level have been considered to characterised as

outgroup-directed hostile emotions (Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005; Hodson et al., 2013; Mackie

et al., 2000), which is a form of emotional prejudice. This is in contrast to ingroup-directed

self-conscious emotions, such as guilt and shame, which occur when individuals perceive the

ingroup to have morally transgressed (Branscombe, Slugiski, & Kappen, 2004; Johns et al.,

2005). It has been argued that guilt is more concerned about an action evaluation, while

shame is more concerned about the overall character evaluation (Tracy, 2006). This suggests

that a model which distinguishes the group-based emotions by their target (ingroup versus

outgroup) and their focus (action versus character).

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However, some had challenged this conceptualisation that anger, and disgust had

different targets to guilt and shame. For instance, it had been argued that like guilt and shame,

anger and disgust can also be directed towards the ingroup (Clark, 2015; Iyer et al., 2007;

Leach et al., 2007). For instance, Leach et al. (2006) found that an appraisal of ingroup

responsibility for the bad action predicted both anger and guilt towards the ingroup. They

argued that because anger was related to an appraisal of an ingroup, it was therefore self-

directed. However, others have shown that anger towards the ingroup results in greater

disidentification from the group (Kessler & Hollbach, 2005). This effect was explained by

anger motivating people to psychologically distance themselves from the transgressing group.

Overall, it remained unclear whether anger and disgust are emotions which are targeted

towards transgressors external to the self, or whether these emotions can also be self-directed

emotions.

Throughout the thesis it was argued that group-based moral emotions in response to a

group transgression, particularly anger and disgust, seek to regulate the behaviours of

transgressing group. However, the function is serves depends upon whether the target is an

ingroup or an outgroup. A total of six studies were conducted, which sought to examine the

role of these emotions in motivating protest against outgroups, decreasing commitment from

a transgressing ingroup, and signalling group-transcendent moral values to others. Therefore,

I begin the chapter by integrating the findings from the six studies reported in the thesis and

integrate them with the findings described in the literature review as well as describing the

current limitations of research in the area. Overall, the studies reported here provide a unique

insight into the role of emotion in regulating group morality. In one perspective, anger and

disgust have been characterised as a form of prejudice which are targeted towards other

groups (Mackie & Smith, 2003a). In another domain anger has been described as being a

self-critical emotion which motivates individuals to take action (Iyer et al., 2007; Leach et al.,

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2006). Hopefully, it has been shown that anger and disgust are neither simply parochial nor

self-critical emotions but nonetheless serve multiple functions in regulating outgroups’ and

ingroups’ morality.

The Antecedents and Functions of Group-Based Emotions

Overall, as outlined in the title, the thesis aimed to examine the social functions of

group-based emotions and identify the possible antecedents of these emotions. Other

approaches have argued that group-based moral emotions serve multiple distinct group-level

social functions (Haidt, 2003; Keltner & Haidt, 1999) however here it was argued that these

emotions help regulate the morality of social groups in three different ways. Firstly, group

morality may be regulated by the occurrence or the threat of intergroup conflict. For instance,

a group may reconsider a policy or practice of the group, if outgroups engage in sustained

violent or peaceful collective action. For example, after four weekends of violent protests

regarding the cost of living, the President of France announced that there would be an

increase in the minimum wage (BBC, 2018). Secondly, group morality may be regulated by

psychological commitment of the ingroup members. A group may rethink a policy if it is

likely to face decreasing commitment from the membership of the group. Finally, group

morality may be regulated by individuals expressing and communicating group moral values

that transcend the narrow concerns of the group. Since group-based emotions motivate

collective behaviours, involving either commitment or distancing from the group, and the

expression of emotion communicates moral values, it is argued that group-based emotions

may have important implications for the practices of the group. Additionally, emotions serve

different social functions therefore it is important to identify their antecedents. Group-based

emotions are believed to be caused by ingroup identification and an appraisal about how

events impact upon an individual’s social identity (Smith et al., 2007).

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Collective Behaviour and the Regulation of Outgroup Morality

The morality of other groups is considered to be extremely important in the social

judgement of groups since outgroup transgressions may harm the ingroup (Phalet & Poppe,

1997). According to theories of collective behaviour, individuals are likely to engage in

collective action against an outgroup if they identity with a social group and perceive an

injustice (Thomas & Louis, 2013; van Zomeren et al., 2008). Intergroup conflict has been

characterised as a mechanism for achieving social change (van Zomeren et al., 2008). Indeed,

protesting behaviour is more likely to occur in functioning democracies (Edwards, 2014).

Furthermore, political engagement is believed to enable those in a group to make more

effective decisions (Barrett & Zani, 2015). Therefore, the occurrence or potential threat of

collective action may seek to modify the behaviours of a group so that it falls in line with

what other groups deem to be moral.

It has been argued that emotions respond to injustice and motivate individuals to

engage in behaviours that uphold social norms (Haidt, 2003) however these emotions may

also serve the social function of promoting social change. Perhaps more importantly, discrete

emotions motivate different types of behaviour (Mackie & Smith, 2003). Of course, a group

facing a peaceful protest or demonstration will respond differently to those facing violence

and destruction. According to intergroup emotions theory, outgroup-directed emotions can be

differentiated by a distinct appraisal of the transgressing group and a tendency to engage in a

particular type of collective behaviour (Maitner, Mackie, & Smith, 2006; Smith et al., 2007).

According to this approach, group-based moral emotions will impact upon the type of

conflict that a group will face in response to a moral transgression.

Here it was argued that group-based anger and disgust are involved in the regulation

of collective behaviour in response to an outgroup moral transgression. In study one and two,

it was found that during intergroup contexts, anger and disgust had stronger positive

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relationships with ingroup identification as well as becoming more intense compared to

intragroup contexts. This supports the claim that anger and disgust are best characterised as

“other-condemning” emotions (Haidt, 2003) and challenges those who argued anger and

disgust can be self-critical group-based emotions (Clark, 2015; Leach et al., 2006). These

findings support those who have found that a common ingroup identity reduces anger (Ufkes,

Dovidio, & Tel, 2015) as well as those who have shown that victim groups feel more anger

while perpetrator groups experience greater self-conscious emotions (Paladino et al., 2014).

These findings extend this by showing that specifically anger and disgust, as opposed to guilt

and shame, become more intense during intergroup conflicts.

While group-based feelings of anger and disgust share a sensitivity to outgroup

wrongdoing, they were found to have distinct appraisals. Previous research in moral

judgement of social groups suggested that individuals appraise both the moral character of an

outgroup as well as the actions of an outgroup (Leach et al., 2007; van der Toorn et al.,

2015). Indeed, it was found that an appraisal of group action was different from an appraisal

of group character. These distinct moral judgements were associated with different emotions.

An appraisal of group action predicted stronger anger, while an appraisal of group character

predicted stronger disgust. These findings support those at the when evaluating the morality

of other people, which suggest anger results from an appraisal of the action intention and

responsibility, while disgust results from an appraisal of moral character (Giner-sorolla &

Chapman, 2017; Hutcherson & Gross, 2011). Overall, the unique relationship with an

appraisal suggest that anger and disgust are distinct emotions. However, since the findings

currently reported were only correlational it remains unclear whether these group-level

appraisals cause the group-based anger and disgust.

Furthermore, anger and disgust were found to motivate distinct types of intergroup

behaviours. Anger was shown to motivate constructive approach behaviours and was shown

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to actually decrease intentions to engage in disruptive forms of behaviours. This falls in line

with previous studies which demonstrated that anger motivates normative protesting (Van

Zomeren et al., 2004). In contrast, it has been argued that disgust is an avoidant emotion

(Haidt, 2003). Indeed, it has been found that disgust results in passive behavioural responses

(Johnston & Glasford, 2014). However, the historical treatment of groups deemed to be more

disgusting have included more violent forms of approach. For example, the historical

treatment of homosexuals includes criminalisation and the subjection to harmful

interventions. This has led some to suggest that disgust might motivate violent, exterminating

behaviours (Clark, 2015). Indeed, previous studies have shown how a similar emotion,

contempt, motivates radical forms of collective behaviour (Tausch et al., 2011), however the

current study found that disgust motivated more disruptive non-normative behaviours and

this was a stronger predictor compared to contempt. Disgust may be more relevant to violent

behaviours because it is a more basic and universal emotion (Giner-Sorolla, Kupfer, & Sabo,

2017b). This suggests that the characterisation of disgust as an avoidant emotion might not

apply for social groups.

Overall, these findings show that individuals social judgements are concerned about

the morality of outgroups action as well as their moral character. These different judgements

include a distinct emotional response and behavioural consequence. When individuals judge a

group to have done something bad, they feel angry and engage in peaceful forms of collective

protest. However, when individuals judge an outgroup to have a bad moral character, or

otherwise irredeemable, they feel disgusted towards the outgroup and are motivated to

engage in violent destruction. Of course, the collective behaviour produces collective change.

A group facing either peaceful protest or violent destruction may reconsider and change its

current policies. Therefore, these findings support the claim that group-based emotions are

helpful in regulating group morality by motivating collective behaviour.

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Ingroup Commitment Regulating Ingroup Morality

Groups function as a result of the commitment from their members. Societies have

been able to enact social policies because group members remain committed to improving the

group. Individuals desire to be members of groups they deem to be moral, since this provides

them with a positive social identity (Ellemers, 2017). Indeed, morality of a group is

considered to be extremely important factor in the overall judgement, much more important

than whether the group is competent or sociable (Leach et al., 2007). Here it is argued that

individual’s commitment of the ingroup functions to regulate the behaviour of the group. If a

group is likely to keep the support of its members, then then they may continue with their

current action. However, if a group is likely to have ingroup members disengage from the

group, then a group may be less likely to engage in the behaviour. Therefore, the role of

individual judgement of the ingroups morality is believed to regulate the group behaviour.

Previous research has shown individuals, in response to an ingroup moral

transgression, may psychologically disengage and be less inclined to enhance the interests of

the ingroup (Täuber & van Zomeren, 2013), disidentify from the group (Kessler & Hollbach,

2005), and see the ingroup as more variable (Leach et al., 2007). Other studies have argued

that in response to ingroup moral transgressions, group members are more likely to defend

and justify the ingroups moral behaviour (Leidner et al., 2010; Roccas et al., 2004). These

different responses to ingroup transgressions are believed to result from the threat that is

experienced when group is deemed to be immoral (Smith, 2007). Therefore, group members’

decision to distance or defend the group may impact upon the groups decision to continue

with a contentious policy.

Different emotional reactions to ingroup moral transgressions may impact upon

whether individuals seek to defend the group or whether they decide to distance themselves

from the group. Research has primarily focused on the role of group-based feelings of guilt

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and shame. These emotions are believed to be group-conscious emotions, since they are

focused about the actions of the ingroup. Individuals feel guilty and ashamed for things they

had no personal involvement in, simply because they share an identity with the transgressing

group. Smith et al. (2007) argued that individuals’ ingroup identification drives individuals to

feel group-based emotions, however self-critical emotions may motivate strategies to manage

the aversive negative emotion. In chapter five, it was found that group-conscious emotions

guilt and shame have a curvilinear effect on ingroup identification. These findings were in

line with previous studies which had reported a curvilinear effect of group-based guilt (Klein

et al., 2011). In simpler terms, moderately identified ingroup members were more likely to

feel guilty and ashamed compared to strongly or weakly identified ingroup members. This

relationship has been explained by two parallel processes relating to self-focused nature of

these emotions. Moderately identified ingroup members experience more group-conscious

emotion than weakly identified because they are more likely to see the wrongdoing as self-

relevant. However, highly identified ingroup members are less likely to experience group-

based shame and guilt because they justify, they wrongdoing. Therefore, because these

emotions are more self-critical, the results suggest that they include more defensive

responses, especially with those who are most committed to the group.

Meanwhile, while others have suggested that anger and disgust can be self-critical

(Clark, 2015; Leach et al., 2006), the third study failed to find that ingroup identification,

measured prior to the wrongdoing, was related to group-based anger and disgust. However,

the results demonstrated that feelings of anger and disgust motivated individuals to

disidentify from the transgressing group. This represents a form of psychological distancing

which may results from a threatened social identity. This adds the work that group-based

anger causally impacts upon ingroup identification (Kessler & Hollbach, 2005) by showing

that disgust also produces distancing from the group. Therefore, these findings show that

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ingroup members, regardless of whether they are strongly, moderately, or weakly identified

with the ingroup, feel anger and disgust in response to group wrongdoing. Unlike the group-

conscious emotions, highly identified ingroup members were not likely to down-regulate the

emotions. It is possible that this is because anger and disgust towards the ingroup are less

self-critical emotion. In fact, these emotions may mitigate the threat of ingroup morality by

motivating ingroup members to disengage from the group. This was found in the third study,

in which anger and disgust predicted weaker ingroup identification after the ingroup

transgression.

Overall, the psychological commitment of ingroup members function to regulate the

moral behaviour of the group. Furthermore, group-based emotional responses to ingroup

moral transgressions may drive individuals to either defend or distance themselves from a

transgressing ingroup. For instance, group-based feelings of guilt and shame are emotions are

more self-critical and therefore highly identified ingroup members are less likely to

experience these group-based emotions because of justification processes. However, anger

and disgust towards the ingroup are felt by weakly and strongly identified group members

and function to psychologically distance oneself from the transgressing group. Therefore,

group-critical emotions may likely result in defensive responses, while anger and disgust may

be more likely to reduce the commitment of the group members.

The commitment of group members is essential to the functioning of the group.

Group-based transgressions may impact upon the ability of an organisation to function

because ingroup members stop striving for the group (Täuber & van Zomeren, 2013), they

see the group as more heterogenous (Leach et al., 2007) and they distance themselves from

the group (Kessler & Hollbach, 2005). The current study has shown how individuals’ feelings

of anger and disgust towards the ingroup motivate this disidentification and therefore these

ingroup directed emotions may impact upon the ability of the group to function properly.

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Communicating Moral Values

Another way that group morality may be regulated is through individuals

communicating a broader set of moral values to others. It has been argued that societies have

become more expansive over who or what is worthy of moral concern, with rights being

afforded to outgroup members, animals, and even the environment (Crimston et al., 2016;

Passini & Morselli, 2016). Expressing criticisms about a group communicates moral concerns

to others (Elder et al., 2005). Therefore, here it has been argued that by signalling more

universal values to others, individuals may regulate group action, since group members may

also consider these groups as worthy of moral concern. In other words, the expressing group-

based criticism may act as a form of moral persuasion, which, on mass, may regulate the

group to afford greater rights to a more inclusive set of entities.

Emotions are not only felt but are also expressed. Feelings of outgroup-directed anger

and disgust have been characterised as a form of prejudice motivating the pursuit of group

interest (Mackie & Smith, 2003b). However, the expression of emotions are believed to serve

a social communicative function which signals important information to others, with

expressions of disgust in particular communicating that a person is motivated by morality

based concerns rather than by self-interest (Kupfer & Giner-Sorolla, 2016). While previous

studies have examined the how outgroup-directed disgust is deemed to be less appropriate

because it communicates moral condemnation (Katzir & Liberman, 2018). Individuals would

prefer to receive expressions of disgust rather than anger (Hutcherson & Gross, 2011).

Expressions of group-based anger has been shown a constructive intergroup emotion,

encouraging other groups to empathise with those expressing anger (de Vos et al., 2013).

However, not much work had been done examining the role of group-based disgust. A robust

effect was shown that anger towards a group, either ingroup or outgroup, communicate more

universal moral values compared to disgust targeted towards a person, either the self or

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another. This suggests that by expressing disgust, individuals socially signal information to

others, which may regulate the groups behaviour in a way that it becomes more morally

inclusive over time.

Strengths, Limitations and Future Directions

While the studies reported support the claim that group-based moral emotions

function to regulate the morality of the group, there are of course some strengths and

limitations that should be highlighted and addressed. Here I describe several evaluative points

and outlined how future studies may be conducted to further an understanding about the

regulation of the morality social groups.

Firstly, the studies examining the appraisal processes specifically focused on explicit

cognitive appraisals and how emotions relate to these deliberative forms of social

judgements. Similar to other studies that have examined appraisals that underlie group-based

emotion, participants were asked to indicate explicitly, how they evaluate the morality of

group (Mackie et al., 2000). However, as was noted in chapter one, emotions, including

moral emotions, are believed to respond to rapid and implicit cognitions, which some call

automatic appraisals and others refer to as intuition (Haidt, 2001; Prinz, 2007). It has been

argued that appraisals feature of emotions enables people to understand their surroundings

and respond to the immediate situation (Lazarus, 1982). However, quicker emotional

associations connect the present with the past and form enduring emotional attitudes towards

an object (Giner-Sorolla, 2013). Of course, these emotional associations may play a role in

systemic problems of group immorality, rather than responding to immediate political

decisions. However, measuring emotional associations will of course require a different

methodology, perhaps including measures of implicit appraisals and emotion, which could be

assessed using reaction time methods. Recent work has found that an implicit appraisal of

unfairness predicted more implicit anger (Tong, Tan, & Tan, 2013). Therefore, future

178

research could examine the role of group-based moral emotions in emotion intuition using

this alternative method.

Secondly, the third study examined the effects of the emotions on dis-identification

and found that anger and disgust predicted greater dis-identification from the group. This was

achieved by measuring identification before the eliciting stimulus and then after. This was

approach has been used in other studies examining the role of anger on identification (Kessler

& Hollbach, 2005). To extend these effects another approach might be appropriate. Becker

and Tausch (2013) has developed a dis-identification measure which is distinct from

measuring change in identification. Therefore, future studies may be strengthen by

considering this approach to measuring the relationship between the emotions and dis-

identification.

Thirdly, when examining the role of expression group-level emotion in the

communication of group moral values, the current study focused on the values that are

expressed when individuals communicate personal level emotions and group level emotions

and the types of information that the disgust signals. The role of social communication of

moral values is believed to act as a form of social influence within a group. Previous studies

have shown emotional expressions to influence others, such as expressions of disgust

invoking greater feelings of shame (Giner-Sorolla & Espinosa, 2011). It is possible that the

signalling of group-transcendent values acts as a form of social influence, which broadens the

types of concerns of others around them. Future research ought to consider the social

consequences of expressing the emotion and how they may function as a means of moral

persuasion within a group.

Fourthly, the current research had only examined the role of emotion in collective

action using self-report methods. Other studies have examined collective behaviour using

different methods, such as approaching those who are already politically engaged (Becker et

179

al., 2011). More recently, using machine learning to extract data from social media sites,

research has examined how the moralisation of online messages predicts peaceful and violent

protests in real social movements (Mooijman, Hoover, Lin, Ji, & Dehghani, 2018). It is

possible that the effect of moralisation is qualified by the emotion which is being expressed.

By analysing the emotional content of social media content, such as weather a tweet

communicates anger and disgust, then this might this might be able to predict whether a

protest would remain peaceful or violent. Future research may benefit from examining how

emotion communication on social media may be a helpful tool in predicting the emergent of

violent and non-violent protests.

Finally, research has examined how different moral concerns relate to political

ideology such as moral foundations (Graham et al. 2009) and moral expansiveness (Crimston

et al., 2016). Futhermore, research has considered how emotions relate to distinct moral

concerns (Rozin et al, 1999). Meindl, Johnson, and Graham (2016) found an immoral

assumption effect in which moralisation of an action changes the stituation-dispositional

attributions of the person. They found that conservates were more prone to moralising actions

and thus less likely to make dispositional attributions. In my second and third studies on

anger and disgust have shown that anger is considered to be more situationally focused on the

wrongness of a given action while disgust is concerned about the more enduring dispositional

characterstics of the transgressor. Therefore, future research may benefit from examining the

moderating effect of political identification on the character and action appraisals that

differentiate group-based anger and disgust.

Conclusion

Throughout history, many societies have changed what they consider to be moral.

Societies that once considered slavery to be immoral now abhor this practice. This raises the

question regarding how are groups moral behaviours regulated or changed? Theories in moral

180

psychology have focused on how a group conserves its morality (Ellemers, Pagliaro, &

Barreto, 2013; Haidt, 2003). Here it has been argued that moral judgements of the individual

ingroup and outgroup members regulate the behaviours of a group. Emotions play an

important part in the type of reaction which the group may receive and thus these emotions

therefore may have important implications for the practices of society. A group considering

continuing a policy that is widely deemed to be unethical may reconsider if group members

are signalling values that transcend the group, outgroup members are initiating conflict, and

ingroup members are becoming less committed to enhancing the group. A group morality

which remains unregulated, seeking to impose a problematic moral norm that is the cause of

many social problems, may find it difficult to sustain attacks from outgroups as ingroup

members become less committed. Group-based moral emotions help facilitate a groups moral

engagement by regulating the group’s morality in several ways.

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Appendix A

Stimulus for Study 1 and 2

The outcome of the recent U.K. referendum was to leave the European Union. Since the

outcome there have been important political, economic, and social events.

Some Events Include:

• The British Prime Minister resigned after saying he would still be PM if the vote was

to leave.

• The opposition leader has lost the confidence of his parliamentary party.

• The Scottish National Party leader will reconsider Scottish independence.

• The leader of U.K. Independence Party resigned

• There is an increase in reported hate crime.

• There is economic uncertainty.

• People have attended EU demonstrations

• A petition calling for a second referendum has been signed by millions of people.

• Legal professionals have signed a letter saying the referendum is only advisory

Considering all this information, in the next section you will be asked to answer questions

about your thoughts and feelings towards the British Public, British Politicians and Leave

supporters.

200

Appendix B

Questionnaire for Study 1, 2, and 3

Ingroup Identification for Studies 1, 2 and 3

1. I have a lot in common with other British people / Remain Supporters

2. I feel strong ties to other British people / Remain Supporters

3. I find it difficult to form a bond with other British people / Remain Supporters *

4. I don’t feel a sense of being ‘connected' with other British people / Remain

Supporters *

5. I often think about the fact that I am a British person / Remain Supporter

6. Overall, being a British person / Remain Supporter has very little to do with how I

feel about myself *

7. In general, being a British person / Remain Supporter is an important part of my self-

image

8. The fact that I am a British person / Remain Supporter rarely enters my mind *

9. In general, I am glad to be a British person / Remain Supporter

10. I often regret that I am a British person / Remain Supporter *

11. I don’t feel happy about being a British person / Remain Supporter *

12. Generally, I feel happy when I think about myself as a British person / Remain

Supporter.

* Items were reverse scored.

Group-Based Emotions for Studies 1, 2 and 3

1. Anger: Angry, Frustrated, Furious

2. Disgust: Disgusted, Repelled, Repulsed

3. Contempt: Contempt, Distain, Scorn*

4. Guilt: Guilt, Regret, Remorse.

201

5. Shame: Ashamed, Embarrassed, Exposed

*These adjectives were not included in all studies.

Collective Action Study 1

1. Attended a public meeting or demonstration dealing with political and social issues

2. Done volunteer work

3. Worn a bracelet, sign or other symbol to show support for a social or political cause (a

badge, a T-Shirt with a political message)

4. Distributed leaflets with a political content

5. Donated money to a social or political cause/organisation

6. Boycotted or bought certain products for political or ethical reasons

7. Took part in concerts or a fundraising event with a social or political cause

8. Linked news or music or videos with a social or political content to my contacts

9. Discussed societal or political questions on the net

10. Visited a website of a political or civic organisation

11. Participated in online based protests or boycotting

12. Connected to a group on Facebook (or similar online social networks) dealing with

social or political issues

13. Wrote political messages or graffiti on walls

14. Participating in political actions that might be considered illegal (e.g. burning a flag,

throwing stones, …)

Collective Action Study 2

1. Participate in discussion meetings

2. Write flyers

3. Sign a petition

4. Take part in demonstrations

202

5. Organise demonstrations

6. Join in a peaceful public rally

7. Disturb events where advocates of rival ideas/attitudes appear.

8. Engage in violent behaviour

9. Blackmail a member of the government who endorses Leave

10. Block roads around political buildings

11. Clash with police

12. Throw rocks and bottles during protests

13. Attack politicians and police

Intergroup Action Appraisal

1. The British public / Leave Voters are responsible for their actions

2. The British public / Leave Voters are Immoral

3. The British public / Leave Voters should be punished

Intergroup Character Appraisal

1. The British public / Leave Voters have bad characters

2. The British public / Leave Voters are to blame for their actions

3. The British public / Leave Voters have a bad moral image

Questionnaire for Studies 4, 5, 6

Inferred Self Motive

1. She is mainly concerned about herself

2. She is concerned about how something has affected herself

3. She feels that she has been wronged

Inferred Moral Motive

1. She thinks someone has behaved unethically

2. She feels this way because someone’s behaviour violated a moral principle

203

3. She feels this way because she thinks important moral rules have been broken

Inferred Loyalty

1. Whether or not someone did something to betray his or her group

2. Whether or not the action was done by a friend or relative or hers

3. Whether or not someone showed a lack of loyalty

4. Whether or not the action affected her group

5. Whether or not someone put the interests of group above his or her own

Inferred Universal Values

1. Protecting the environment

2. Unity with nature

3. A world of beauty

4. Broad minded

5. Social justice

6. Wisdom

7. Equality

8. A world at peace

Moral Expansiveness

1. Family/Friends: Family Member, Close Friend, Partner/Spouse

2. Ingroup: British Citizen, Somebody from your neighbourhood, Co-worker

3. Outgroup: Foreign Citizen, Member of opposing political party, Somebody with

different religious beliefs

4. Revered: Prime Minister of UK, British Soldier, Charity Worker

5. Stigmatised: Homosexual, Mentally Challenged Individual, Refugee

6. Villains: Murderer, Terrorist, Child Molester

7. High-Sentient Animal: Chimpanzee, Dolphin, Cow

204

8. Low-Sentient Animal: Chicken, Fish, Bee

9. Plants: Redwood Tree, Apple Tree, Rose Bush

10. Environment: Coral Reef, Old-growth Forest, Lake District

205

Appendix C