When the immoral nation becomes moral: Evidence for group-based morality restoration in motivated perceptions of history
Marta Witkowska (SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poland)
The illusion of ingroup morality is omnipresent. People hold positive views of their group as moral even after extreme war crimes and genocides committed by the group. This article proposes that the perception of ingroup morality can be driven by a need to restore the personal sense of morality. Two binational studies test this prediction including a nation that committed genocidal crime in recent history (Germany) and a nation that has been victim of international violence repeatedly. After experimental induction of a threat to individual morality people tend to subjectively elevate the moral historical status of their nation. This effect has been observed in both studies in a country with a dominant perpetrator self-perception, but not in a country with a dominant victimhood self-perception. No such effects have been observed when other forms of threat were induced. This group level morality restoration process proved to enhance the strength of identification with a national group among nations with perpetrator history.
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