Does Identity Cloud Judgment?

Leading up to World War II, Hitler gained massive support from the German population. Large crowds responded fervently to his impassioned speeches, where he claimed the Treaty of Versailles and the Jews were the center of Germany’s problems. Most are horrified by the claims Hitler and the German populace purported, but it may be that, under similar circumstances, most humans would respond as they did. Recent experiments suggest that humans become angry when a group they associate with is offended and that that anger leads to a tendency to be less discerning when evaluating arguments. (Claypool et al., 1141)

These experiments are based on intergoup emotion theory, a new psychological perspective on how people act in groups. Inergroup emotion theory proposes that when people see themselves in terms of a group, they view the world from the perspective of that group. (Claypool et al., 1142) The person, in a sense, forgoes their individual perspective and focuses on how the events affect on the group instead of how those events may affect themselves. This can lead to anger in individuals when a group with which they associate is offended, even if the offense has no bearing on them as individuals. Professors Heather Claypool, Diane Mackie, Angela Maitner, Melissa Ryan, Robert Rydell, and Eliot Smith take this theory further, and propose that anger stemming from group relationships can affect an individuals’ ability to discern arguments. They theorize and experimentally verify that offenses to a group can cause members of that group to become angry and as a result, become less able to discern the quality of arguments. (Claypool et al., 1141)

In their first experiment, these professors tested how an insult to a group would affect an individual in that group. Students from the University of California were randomly assigned into four groups based on two variables, threat or praise to a group and whether or not the subjects were given a possible outside reason for their reactions to the group praise or threat. (Claypool et al., 1443) Participants were instructed to evaluate future testing materials by reading an essay written ostensibly by a foreign exchange student. This essay either presented a positive or negative view of America. Before they read the essay, some of the participants were told that the testers were interested in how the testing environment affected their mood. Students given the negative essay were told that others had complained of the small cubical making them irritable, while students given the positive essay were told that others found the cubicles to be serene and soothing. After reading the essay, all students were instructed to answer a questionnaireabout their experience.

As the graph shows participants reported noticeably more anger and dissatisfaction with the essay after having read the negative essay. The data also reveals that those given a source to misattribute their emotions felt less negative towards the essay and its writer. This data demonstrates that people who associate with a group are likely to become angry when a threat is made to their group, even if the threat has little to no affect to them individually. (Claypool et al., 1144)

In their second experiment, the researchers randomly assigned 118 students to 4 groups hinging on two variables, whether their group was threatened and whether they were given a strong or weak argument. Students were given essays almost identical to those used in the first experiment. The only change made was that no positive essay was given; it was replaced by a neutral essay which gave no positive or negative judgments of America. Participants were then given one of two essays. One contained weak, unfounded arguments while the other contained more grounded arguments. Students then evaluated the essay on the validity of the arguments and how convincing the essay was. ” (Claypool et al., 1145-1146)

Students given the neutral essay supported the strong argument much more than the weak one. However, students given the negative essay supported both arguments almost equally. (Claypool et al., 1146) This data suggests that people who are angered by offenses to their group are less able to evaluate the strength of arguments and therefore are more likely to be persuaded by weak arguments.

These experiments support intergroup emotion theory and provide a new perspective on the German nationalism before and during World War II. Though still responsible for their actions, it may be that under the circumstances, the German populace was more conditioned to accept weak arguments for solutions to their problems. Since, theoretically, this conditioning is possible in all groups, this data should cause individuals to examine how they define themselves and how intergroup perspectives can distort their view of the world.

Sources

Claypool, Heather; Mackie, Diane; Maitner, Angela; Ryan, Melissa; Rydell, Robert; and Smith, Eliot. “Arousal, Processing, and Risk Taking: Consequences of Intergroup Anger.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Vol. 34, 2008. (p. 1141- 1152)

The greaph was created by Brock more with information from the aritcle “Arousal, Processing, and Risk Taking: Consequences of Intergroup Anger.”