The role of shame in motivating support for, and opposition to, intergroup reconciliation: two forms of shame as separate predictors of positive and negative responses to ingroup wrongdoing

This thesis deals with how group members respond to wrongdoing committed in their group's name. In particular, I investigate whether individuals feel ashamed or guilty for these acts, and in turn, what motivational effects these emotions have. A review of the literature on shame and guilt turns up serious inconsistencies regarding both the charac- terisation of these emotions and the empirical evidence relating to them. In particular, shame is found to be related to both prosocial and antisocial outcomes, and guilt is some- times associated with prosocial acts and sometimes not. My empirical work tests an explanation for these inconsistencies. Notably, I test a novel way of seeing shame, and propose that not only are there different forms of shame but that these different forms have divergent motivational effects. I focus on two important forms of shame: moral shame and image shame, which arise when one sees the ingroup's actions as threatening one's morality or reputation, respectively. I show that moral shame is consistently related to increased prosocial attitudes (support for apology and compensation) and decreased an- ger, avoidance and cover-up; whereas image shame is predictive of higher levels of anger, avoidance and cover-up. The effects of guilt are weak or non-existent in the presence of these two forms of shame. I also show that these emotions have a meaningful influence on how group members relate to unrelated minorities in society, borne in part of a feeling of moral obligation for past wrongdoing. A study is also reported that shows that, depend- ing on their individual motivations, different group members prefer different emotional expressions within apologies offered by their leaders.