ABSTRACT
This chapter establishes the critical conditions for collective guilt to be experienced, what factors contribute to the intensity of this group-based emotion, and the social consequences that can flow from collective guilt. Social Identity Theory provides the starting point for people doubts about whether social emotions are solely a function of individualistic antecedents. Self-categorization theory helps explain the experience of group-based emotion by rejecting the assumption that the self can be equated with the individual. Collective guilt should be distinguished from moral outrage, which, can occur without self-categorization as a member of the perpetrator group. McGarty found that Romanian participants contested the historical involvement of Romanians in anti-Jewish actions during World War II, and consequently reported little collective guilt about the harm that occurred. Doosje shows that the type of reparation that is believed to have already occurred can influence the extent to which collective guilt is experienced depending on how committed people are to their national group.
