Group-Based Shame and Guilt: Emerging Directions in Research

Research on the role of emotion in social identity, group processes, and intergroup conflict is burgeoning. This paper examines recent research on group-based shame and guilt and describes important themes in this research. Guilt and shame are distinguished by different appraisals and motivations in intergroup contexts. Group-based shame is associated with threats to group-image and motivations to protect and repair that image. In contrast, group-based guilt is associated with efforts to repair and apologize for ingroup wrongdoing. Current research is expanding in several important directions. First, the scope of emotions is expanding beyond that of shame and guilt to consider the roles of emotions such as ingroup-directed anger in situations that may also provoke group-based shame and guilt. Second, people’s motivations to avoid feeling group-based shame and guilt are becoming better understood, particularly in relation to different aspects of social identification. Finally, we argue that dynamic processes in emotion expression and experience, particularly due to the relation between perpetrator and victim groups, are an important future direction in research on group-based shame and guilt. People’s memberships in social groups are deeply important to them. The human definition of ‘self’ is not only defined by our individual identities, but also extends to those with whom we are connected through group membership. Because of this, the actions of fellow-group members, and the history and collective actions of groups to which we belong, have the capacity to evoke strong emotions. Consider for a moment the emotions that Germans may feel when thinking of the history of the Holocaust. Or, how White Americans may feel about the history of slavery in America or when confronted with a present-day act of racism committed by a fellow White person. The goal of our paper is to describe the recent research that has sought to understand these sorts of emotional contexts, in particular what we will refer to as group-based shame and guilt. We use the term ‘group-based’ to refer to instances in which people are feeling emotions that are caused because of the actions of fellow-group members (we leave as a separate topic, instances in which people may feel compunction for their own personal acts of intergroup bias; e.g., Devine, Monteith, Zuwerink, & Elliot, 1991). Sometimes, people will have these reactions to the specific actions of a fellow-group member (e.g., racist comments made by a family member). In other instances, people feel these emotions about their group’s present or past history of behavior toward an outgroup (such as the policies seen as unfairly discriminating against a minority group; see Iyer & Leach, 2008 for a more nuanced taxonomy of these distinctions). Research on group-based shame and guilt is burgeoning, and in this article, we will provide an overview of some of the main Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5/3 (2011): 153–163, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00340.x a 2011 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass a 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd themes of this research as well as what we see as some of the more exciting new directions taken by research in this area. Core Themes of Shame and Guilt In everyday life, people often use the words shame and guilt somewhat interchangeably. And, indeed, compared to other emotions, shame and guilt share many appraisal and motivational similarities (Smith & Ellsworth, 1985), and as such, people often experience a mix of these emotions in response to transgressions (Schmader & Lickel, 2006a). However, research shows that there are important differences in the experience of shame and guilt. One prominent contemporary framework of shame and guilt is provided by June Tangney and colleagues (see Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007, for a review). In Tangney’s work, two core themes distinguish shame from guilt: their associated cognitive appraisals and their behavioral motivations. In the following section, we present a basic framework for understanding group-based shame and guilt that is derived from Tangney’s work on personal (i.e., self-caused) shame and guilt. Appraisals that differentiate group-based shame and guilt Appraisals are a person’s perceptions of events, other people, and the self that influence the emotions he or she feels. In the case of shame and guilt, one core theme used to differentiate these emotions is how an event is perceived with respect to the self (Tangney et al., 2007). Shame is linked to what is perceived as a failure of the self, whereas guilt is more often restricted to a failure of one’s behavior. Framed in terms of attributions, shame is associated with attributing some wrongdoing to internal, global, and stable aspects of the self; whereas guilt is associated with attributions that are constrained to specific, controllable aspects of behavior (Tracy & Robins, 2006). Thus, in this view, you feel ashamed of who you are, but guilty for what you do. Until recently, shame and guilt have been studied only with respect to one’s own individual behavior and wrongdoing. But, it is increasingly clear that people often feel ashamed of others or to experience guilt for what someone else has done. In our initial framework of group-based shame and guilt (e.g., Lickel, Schmader, & Barquissau, 2004; Lickel, Schmader, Curtis, Scarnier, & Ames, 2005; Schmader & Lickel, 2006a,b), we argued that given shame’s focus on global attributes of the self and identity, people are most likely to feel ashamed for other people when it seems that by virtue of their wrongdoing, they tarnish not only the image of themselves but also, more broadly, the group identity shared in common. For example, both Whites and Hispanics report a strong sense of shame in response to other members of their ethnic ingroup who engage in behaviors that seem to confirm the negative stereotypes about their group (Schmader & Lickel, 2006b). Parents feel ashamed of their children to the degree that their children’s actions are seen as reflecting badly on parents’ own self-image (Scarnier, Schmader, & Lickel, 2009). And American and British university students reported a stronger sense of shame for their country’s occupation of Iraq when induced to think about this political event as a threat to their national identity (Iyer, Schmader, & Lickel, 2007). In none of these studies do appraisals of image threat relate to feelings of guilt. In contrast, group-based guilt is more likely to be evoked when the negative actions of others bring to mind some way in which we feel personally or collectively complicit in their blameworthy actions. For example, individuals’ feelings of guilt for the actions of other individuals are often tied to their sense of control over that person’s actions (Lickel 154 Group-Based Shame and Guilt a 2011 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5/3 (2011): 153–163, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00340.x Social and Personality Psychology Compass a 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd et al., 2005). Such issues of controllability often come to mind in relationships marked by a certain degree of interpersonal interdependence, but it seems to be the perceived lack of control that drives people to feel guilty for what someone else has done. For example, parents report feeling guilty for their children’s wrongdoings to the degree that they feel that they do not have the control over their children that they believe parents ought to have (Scarnier et al., 2009). Whereas our own research on guilt has focused more on group-based guilt in more immediate interpersonal contexts, research on collective guilt (i.e., guilt felt for the actions of the group at large) points to the role of perceived ingroup responsibility as the key appraisal that predicts guilt for broad-scale injustices in which our group is complicit (Mallett & Swim, 2007). Thus, when we identify our sense of self in terms of a larger social group, we can feel guilty to the extent that we acknowledge collective responsibility from some wrong enacted by or in the name of that social identity (Doojse, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 1998). Motivations that differentiate group-based shame and guilt A second core theme in the research on group-based moral emotions concerns the motivational orientations that differentiate shame and guilt. Because shame casts a broader negative spotlight on one’s global sense of self, people who feel ashamed often report a strong desire to shrink, hide, or escape from the situation and public scrutiny (Tangney & Fischer, 1995). In contrast, guilt has been construed as a signal to show that harm has been done to an important social relationship (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1994) and thus predicts a desire to repair that harm and restore a sense of equity. In other words, shame has been characterized in terms of avoidance tendencies (and is perhaps more self-focused), whereas guilt has been characterized in terms of approach tendencies (and is perhaps more other focused; Schmader & Lickel, 2006a). In their recent research, Sheikh and Janoff-Bulman (2010) characterize this distinction as the extent to which each emotion is linked to self and moral regulatory systems that focus either on approach or avoidance motivations. Shame is felt when we fail to avoid a proscribed behavior (doing something we ought not to have done), whereas guilt is felt when we fail to approach a prescribed action (failing to do something people are expected to do). Research on group-based shame and guilt also shows support for these approach ⁄ avoidance motivational distinctions. In fact, in some research, the motivational distinctions between shame and guilt are even more pronounced in group-based emotional experiences than in self-caused episodes (Schmader & Lickel, 2006a). Feeling guilty for the negative actions of one’s ingroup predicts greater support for affirmative action policies (Boeckmann & Feather, 2007), apology on behalf of the group (Doojse et al., 1998; Lickel et al., 2005), and reparations for past wrongs (Brown, González, Zagefka, Manzi, & Čehajić, 2008; Iyer, Leach, & Crosby, 2003; McGarty et al., 2005). These patterns extend to interpersonal relationships as well. Specifically, guilt felt for one’s child predicts a desire to apologize for his or her actions and engages in positive parenting practices that would prevent such behavior in the future (Scarnier et al., 2009). In shame, the predominant motivation is to distance oneself from the shame-inducing event. When you as an individual are the source of that shame, distancing is constrained to escaping public exposure or thoughts about the event. But when the source of shame comes from another person or group of people, the options for distancing are expanded including distancing from the event, the group member who committed the wrongdoing, or the group identity (Johns, Schmader, & Lickel, 2005; Schmader & Lickel, 2006b) Group-based shame may also have important consequences in intergroup conflicts that are more adaptive than denial or Group-Based Shame and Guilt 155 a 2011 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5/3 (2011): 153–163, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00340.x Social and Personality Psychology Compass a 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd merely psychologically distancing from the event. For example, in Iyer et al.’s (2007) study of U.S. and British students’ responses to their countries’ occupation of Iraq, shame predicted a desire to physically withdraw troops from the region (and did not predict making reparations or punishing the leaders who instigated the invasion). Broadening the Scope of Emotions Beyond Shame and Guilt The preceding discussion focused on the core themes of shame and guilt experiences and how these core themes are also found in group-based shame and guilt. We consider these core themes of shame and guilt to be central to understanding people’s reactions to the wrongdoing of their groups. However, recent research also indicates the need and the value of studying a broader range of appraisals, emotions, and motivational responses. One outcome of this broader perspective has been a more nuanced view of the assumed motivations underlying group-based guilt and shame and the extent to which guilt has strong positive effects (and that shame has uniformly negative effects) in intergroup contexts. To begin with guilt, our discussion of this emotion thus far paints a picture of its adaptive and prosocial function. Indeed, other theoretical frameworks of guilt are quite explicit in making the point that guilt signals efforts to repair damaged relationships (Baumeister et al., 1994; Tangney et al., 2007). However, recent research has become increasingly skeptical of the benefits of group-based guilt in promoting beneficial changes in intergroup relations. According to this view, guilt is an aversive state that focuses attention on your own or your group’s responsibility for wrongdoing and can thus be distinct from feeling empathy or sympathy for those who have been harmed. For example, Iyer et al. (2003) manipulated Whites’ perception of either unfair White advantage relative to Blacks, or Blacks’ unfair disadvantage relative to Whites. The White advantage framing caused guilt and led to support for limited redress policies, whereas the Black disadvantage framing caused sympathy and support for more sustentative policy changes. Thus, growing evidence suggests that although guilt does have a link to motivations to repair intergroup relationships and to make amends to harmed outgroups, the goal of these actions seems to be to reduce one’s own feelings of guilt. Thus, the beneficial effects of guilt may be quite limited relative to the effects of sympathy-based emotions that are in essence more other focused (Thomas, McGarty, & Mavor, 2009). Our earlier discussion of shame and its link to distancing from shame-inducing events highlights the core motivation of shame to protect one’s self-image from being tarnished by the negative actions of one’s group or a fellow-group member. In many respects, this framing of intergroup shame echoes the generally negative evaluation of shame as less adaptive than guilt in the intrapersonal context (Tangney, Wagner, Hill-Barlow, Marschall, & Gramzow, 1996). However, some researchers have suggested that shame may promote more adaptive behavior than has traditionally been assumed (e.g., de Hooge, Breugelmans, Zeelenberg, 2008; 2010). Furthermore, from within the group-based emotions literature, it is increasingly clear that shame-based threats to identity can also be addressed with a wider range of behavioral and motivational responses than denial or distancing (Lickel, Schmader, & Spanovic, 2007; Schmader & Lickel, 2006b). In particular, shame may promote proactive attempts to repair the tarnished image of one’s group. Thus, in situations where the group identity is particularly valuable to the individual, we might see greater interest in compensatory behaviors designed to restore a sense of group integrity. For example, in response to a sense of shame stemming from the stereotypical behavior of other group members, individuals report a stronger desire to engage in actions that could disconfirm the stereotype (Schmader & Lickel, 2006b). Furthermore, 156 Group-Based Shame and Guilt a 2011 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5/3 (2011): 153–163, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00340.x Social and Personality Psychology Compass a 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd shame sometimes predicts support for reparations to harmed outgroups, although the underlying motivation for this support seems to be to repair the image of the ingroup (Brown & Cehajic, 2008; Brown et al., 2008). Taken together, it is clear that shame promotes efforts to protect and repair one’s personal and group identity, but more research is needed to identify when and why different shame-based strategies, ranging from distancing to image repair, will be utilized. Furthermore, researchers have recently become increasingly interested in distinguishing between different kinds of shame in the intergroup context: one based on a concern that the group is flawed in some essential way, and one based on a concern about the public reputation of the group (Brown & Cehajic, 2008). This distinction can be construed as an updating of an older debate as to the exact role the publicity plays in shame. Tangney’s appraisal-based model of shame largely rejected the idea that shame can only occur when one’s flaws are made public, and suggested instead that a feeling of public exposure is a byproduct of (rather than a necessary cue to) feeling ashamed (Tangney & Fischer, 1995). However, later evidence demonstrated that shame can be increased by privately imagining what public opinion to one’s behavior might be (Smith et al., 2002). Thus, one resolution to this debate is that shame can stem from either the appraisal that ‘‘I am ⁄we are bad’’ or ‘‘I am ⁄we look bad.’’ Although more work is needed to validate and explore these possible differences, we speculate that this distinction might be relevant to the action evoked from shame. Those who feel ashamed of what they see as the essential character of the group may be more likely to make efforts to change the group, but if this is not possible they may choose to exit the group and distance themselves from the shame-eliciting event rather than try to repair the group’s image. In contrast, if an event tarnishes a group’s reputation in a way that is discrepant with one’s own (positive) belief about the nature of the group, then we might predict greater motivation for positive image repair and public censure of those responsible but once these acts have the desired effect, this form of shame may not promote a motivation to change the actual nature of the group. In addition to a deeper understanding of the range of responses that may be evoked by shame and guilt, other emotions (particularly ingroup-directed anger and moral outrage about injustice) have been identified as possibly even more potent motivators for social change and restoring intergroup relations (Thomas et al., 2009; see also Harth, Kessler, & Leach, 2008). For example, in the Iraq attitudes study mentioned earlier (Iyer et al., 2007), ingroup-directed anger predicted support for political actions to compensate Iraqis and confront supporters of the occupation in addition to withdrawal from Iraq. Although guilt was correlated with supporting reparations for the Iraqi people, this relationship was eliminated when the effect of anger was statistically controlled. In similar research, ingroup guilt of European Australians for the mistreatment of indigenous Australians predicted abstract reparation goals, but only anger directed at the ingroup predicted support for real political action to rectify the situation (Leach, Iyer, & Pedersen, 2006). Moving forward, a key question for research on group-based anger is to differentiate between the different forms of anger. Thomas et al. (2009), for example, provide a strong theoretical distinction between anger focused at the ingroup (what they refer to as selffocused anger) and that of moral outrage which they argue is based more in perceptions of illegitimacy of the system of inequalities rather than blame of the ingroup for illegitimate advantage. There is, however, little research that empirically tests the distinctions between these forms of anger. We would also note that ingroup-directed anger, in addition to potentially fostering action on behalf of harmed outgroups, can also take the form of derogation of ingroup members who are perceived to be the cause of (or defenders of) Group-Based Shame and Guilt 157 a 2011 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5/3 (2011): 153–163, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00340.x Social and Personality Psychology Compass a 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd the unjust, blameworthy act that induced anger. In much of our own research, anger and shame are often highly correlated and together predict a motivation to derogate ingroup members who engage in negative actions that tarnish the image of the group (e.g., Johns et al., 2005). Thus, just as with our earlier discussion regarding shame, some instances of ingroup-directed anger (and perhaps moral outrage) may result in efforts to defend or repair one’s personal and group image in ways that have little direct benefit to harmed outgroups. Defensive Reactions: Avoiding Shame and Guilt Shame and guilt can be very aversive emotions to experience. At the group level, these emotions can be painful because they may indicate that one’s group has a tainted identity and has committed harmful acts toward others. Not surprisingly, people are motivated to avoid the experience of shame and guilt not just for their own actions but also for the actions of the group. Those who feel the strongest degree of identification with their group may be most likely to be threatened by these negative characterizations of their social identity. On the one hand, having one’s identity tied strongly to a group raises the stakes and importance of potentially shameor guilt-inducing events related to that group identity. On the other hand, this identification can lead people to have moral blinders with regard to their group’s wrongdoing and also be motivated to find ways of exonerating their group from wrongdoing. One of the earliest indications of this relationship comes from Doojse et al. (1998), who examined Dutch guilt about their country’s history of colonialism. In their research (see Study 2), they used a framing manipulation to describe the history in a positive, negative, or ambiguous light. Regardless of their level of national identification, Dutch participants generally felt guiltier when reminded of only the negative outcomes of colonization than when reminded of only the positive outcomes of colonization. However, national identification shaped people’s emotional experiences when both positive and negative outcomes were presented. In this ambiguous framing of their country’s history, being highly identified with one’s national identity predicted significantly less guilt, presumably the result of selectively focusing on the positive outcomes as a means of justifying the more negative aspects of their country’s past. We observed a similar pattern in Americans’ feelings of shame for incidents of anti-Arab prejudice after 9-11 (Johns et al., 2005). For events that were unambiguously negative, greater group identification amplified feelings of shame for the prejudicial behavior of one’s ingroup, but for events that were less severe, those who reported stronger identification reported significantly less shame. These two papers are examples of how one’s overall level of identification can be linked to feelings of group-based shame and guilt. However, as we discussed in earlier papers (Lickel et al., 2007; Schmader & Lickel, 2006b), identification with a group can have several different meanings, one of which relates to the definition of one’s self-concept and the other related to one’s attachment and commitment to the group. For example, we (Schmader & Lickel, 2006b) examined shame reactions among Latinos when another member of their ethnic ingroup had acted in a way that was consistent with negative stereotypes of Latinos. Using Luhtanen and Crocker’s (1992) Collective Self-Esteem Scale, we also measured different facets of ethnic identification, including the extent to which people rated ethnicity as an important aspect of their personal identity and the extent to which they felt pride for their ethnic ingroup. Although these two aspects of identification were positively correlated, they had different relationships to shame. 158 Group-Based Shame and Guilt a 2011 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5/3 (2011): 153–163, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00340.x Social and Personality Psychology Compass a 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Specifically, when Latinos were asked to consider the stereotypic behaviors of other ingroup members, they reported greater shame to the degree that they saw ethnicity as an important aspect of identity, but reported less shame to the degree that they were proud of their ethnic heritage. Roccas, Klar, and Liviatan (2006) conducted research that not only differentiated between different aspects of identification, but also examined the processes by which identification can lead to the amplification and attenuation of group-based guilt. Their research examined Israeli feelings of guilt for historical events in which Israelis had committed harm against Palestinians. They measured two aspects of national identification: namely, attachment to the group identity and glorification of the country. Although these measures of identification were correlated, they had very different relationships to feelings of guilt, with attachment having a positive relationship to guilt and glorification a negative relationship to guilt. Roccas and colleagues also assessed people’s defensive cognitions to the event that might exonerate, explain, or justify the Israeli actions. They found that these exonerating cognitions mediated much of the relationships between the measures of identification and guilt, with higher use of exonerating cognitions among those high in glorification, but less use of them in those high in attachment. Exonerating cognitions may play a particularly important role in conflicts and groups in which there is a history of harm and oppression directed at the blameworthy group itself. This historical narrative provides a basis for members of the group to frame any current offenses in ways that are protective of the group identity. If fact, research suggests that reminding people of their group’s own victimization reduces feelings of guilt for intergroup conflict. For example, in research by Wohl and Branscombe (2008), when Americans were reminded of their own victimization on September 11 and the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, they reported a reduced sense of guilt for America’s involvement in Iraq. Thus, although shame and guilt can be powerful emotions that aid in regulating social behavior and reducing intergroup conflict, the cyclical nature of intergroup conflict can lead to the construction of a conflict narrative that promotes justification rather than acknowledgment of harm against other groups. Dynamic Processes in Group-Based Shame and Guilt The research on the complex links between group identification, exonerating cognitions, and group-based shame and guilt points to a final issue that is emerging in this area of research. Increasingly, we see evidence for a more dynamic view of group-based emotion whereby emotions themselves, felt by oneself or expressed by others, lead to subsequent re-appraisal processes that can alter one’s emotional reaction. This dynamic view of group-based shame and guilt fits within a more contemporary view of emotion whereby initial, fast, affective reactions become more cognitively and affectively elaborated over time (Baumeister, Vohs, DeWall, & Zhang, 2007; Russell, 2003). Furthermore, there is a need for greater recognition that the social context and reactions of others can have a strong reciprocal influence on what emotions are experienced and the behavior the emotion elicits. One important issue in this new dynamic perspective relates to the link between identification and group-based shame and guilt. Earlier, we discussed how identification can moderate the extent to which one feels group-based shame or guilt. However, adopting a dynamic perspective to these issues highlights the possibility that emotions can affect identification itself, which might (over time) feed back to affect the extent to which people feel guilt or shame to subsequent transgressions. Thomas et al. (2009) note that at Group-Based Shame and Guilt 159 a 2011 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5/3 (2011): 153–163, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00340.x Social and Personality Psychology Compass a 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd present, little group-based emotions research has examined these reciprocal influences of emotion on appraisals and ingroup identification. One particularly interesting exception to this gap in research is provided by Kessler and Hollbach (2005), who directed East Germans to recall times when they felt either happy or angry about East Germans and times when they felt angry or happy about West Germans. Kessler and Holbach measured identification before and after the emotion induction and found that identification decreased after people were induced to feel anger against their ingroup. Interestingly, many of these instances were times in which other members of the ingroup confirmed negative stereotypes of East Germans. In our past research examining related issues (Schmader & Lickel, 2006b), we found that shame predicted disidentification from one’s ethnic identity after negative stereotype confirmation by ingroup members. Thus, rather than just being a product of identification, group-based shame and guilt has the ability to shape people’s identification with their group. Indeed, much of the ‘defensive processing’ findings that we discussed in the preceding section can be in part viewed as motivated efforts to avoid the consequences of guilt, shame, and ingroup-directed anger of the sort discovered by Kessler and Hollbach. The final issue that we highlight in this dynamic perspective concerns the reciprocal processes that play out between what are often described as perpetrator and victim groups. Given that behaviors induced by group-based shame and guilt are often designed to restore a positive relationship with a harmed group or avoid the negative identity consequences of past bad acts, the reactions of those who are harmed are important to consider. A recent theoretical advance, the needs-based model of reconciliation developed by Shnabel, Nadler, and colleagues (e.g., Shnabel & Nadler, 2008; Shnabel, Nadler, Ullrich, Dovidio, & Carmi, 2009; see also Shelton, Richeson, & Vorauer, 2006; Bergsieker, Shelton, & Richeson, 2010, for a similar perspective), is useful because of its focus on the different needs of victim and perpetrator groups. Members of victim groups have a particular need for empowerment and respect, whereas members of perpetrator groups have a particular need for acceptance. In a setting in which victim and perpetrator groups are looking to the other group for signals of empowerment and acceptance, emotional processes are best thought of as dynamic and reciprocal processes that play out over time and which depend in part of the reactions of the other group. Given the theoretical context provided by the needs-based model of reconciliation, recent research by Giner-Sorolla, Castano, Espinosa, and Brown (2008) takes on particular importance. These authors found that expressions of shame increased the acceptance of reparation from a harmed outgroup compared to expressions of guilt. Although expressions of guilt signal the acceptance of responsibility, the self-abasement of expressing shame probably does more to equalize the status between the parties than guilt. Likewise, although guilt might be a more reliable predictor of the motivation for apology and reparation than shame, the admission of shame to a harmed outgroup is likely to be a better signal of respect than expressions of guilt. Clearly though, responses of the victim group can also affect reactions of the perpetrator group. There is a tension for victimized groups between the gains from reconciliation and social cooperation with the perpetrator group and the (potentially foregone) gains from collective action and more confrontational strategies to gain equality and justice (Dovidio, Saguy, & Shnabel, 2009; Saguy, Pratto, Dovidio, & Nadler, 2009; Thomas et al., 2009; Wright & Lubensky, 2008). One challenge facing victimized groups is that raising the bar ‘too high’ with regard to social change, reparations, or other forms of redress from the perpetrator group can affect the emotions, such as guilt, which may induce the perpetrator group’s motivation for reparation. Indirect evidence for this comes 160 Group-Based Shame and Guilt a 2011 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5/3 (2011): 153–163, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00340.x Social and Personality Psychology Compass a 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd from Schmitt, Miller, Branscombe, and Brehm (2008; see also Berdsen & McGarty, 2009) who experimentally manipulated the difficulty in making reparations and found that when it was very difficult to make amends, feelings of guilt actually dropped compared to when making amends was moderately difficult. In an instance in which the demands of a victim group are ‘too high’, members of a perpetrator group may ‘turn off’ their guilt response and as a result become less motivated to try to repair the intergroup relationship. The interplay between emotional reactions (and behavior) of perpetrator and victim groups is clearly complex. Although just at its start, this line of questioning is one of the most interesting and important in scholarship on group-based shame and guilt.