Abstract
In two studies, the influence of victim sensitivity, defined as individual differences in the extent to which people react emotionally when confronted with injustice to their own disadvantage, on intergroup emotions in potentially exploitative intergroup situations was examined. Using a cross-lagged design embedded in the German reunification context (N = 451), it was found that West Germans high in victim sensitivity felt more anger toward East Germans and angst for their ingroup’s future vitality 2 years later. In a second experimental study (N = 63), the effect of victim sensitivity on intergroup anger and intergroup angst was shown to be dependent upon perceived exploitation by an outgroup and explained unique variance over and beyond ideological variables (social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, political orientation). Taken together, these results suggest that victim sensitivity is an important variable to consider in potentially exploitative situations, not only on the interpersonal, but also on the intergroup level.
“Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.”
The bailout of Greece in the Euro crisis is still a matter of highly emotionalized public discourse all over Europe. Up to now, the bailout amounts to a total sum of about 110 billion Euros, and a majority of the financial aid is currently shouldered by those European countries that have suffered to a lesser extent from the Euro crisis, such as Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, or Germany. Germany’s role as a financial supporter is important: Its investment during 2013 and 2014 will most likely be associated with liabilities of more than 1 billion Euros—billions that are, to a large part, guaranteed for with German tax payers’ money. Given these enormous amounts and the largely unpredictable consequences for the German national economy, it is not surprising that Germany’s past, current, and future role in the Euro crisis is emotionally debated in the parliament, in the media, but also in the general discourse. Whereas some individuals view the financial aid as an act of European solidarity, others consider it an exploitation of their nation. 1 How can these individual differences in people’s reactions toward potential acts of intergroup solidarity be understood, described, and explained? The idea that we will put forward in the present article is that people’s emotional reactions towards potential acts of intergroup solidarity can be uniquely explained by a personality variable that has—up to now—been mainly investigated on the interpersonal level: victim sensitivity. We hypothesize that people high in victim sensitivity are more likely to experience intergroup anger (at the outgroup in need) and intergroup angst (toward the ingroup) than those low in victim sensitivity, particularly when there is reason to believe that the outgroup might exploit the ingroup’s goodwill.
The remainder of the article is organized as follows: We briefly review the relevant literature on victim sensitivity and connect it to research addressing exploitative intergroup situations. Our predictions are tested in two studies, the first being a longitudinal panel study, and the second an experiment. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
Victim Sensitivity: An Overview
Most people care strongly about issues of justice. Whereas a number of psychological and sociological theories can account for people’s general interest in and need for justice (such as equity theory, Adams, 1965; deprivation theory, Crosby, 1976; or procedural fairness theory, Thibaut & Walker, 1975), research in these diverse arenas has also revealed considerable variability between persons concerning their perceptions and reactions to unjust events. Such interindividual differences in the sensitivity toward experiences of unfairness are captured by the concept of justice sensitivity (Schmitt, Gollwitzer, Maes, & Arbach, 2005). Furthermore, whether an individual will recognize an unjust incident for what it is and respond to it accordingly might strongly depend upon the role he or she features in it. Hence, Schmitt and Mohiyeddini (1996) differentiated between a victim, observer, and beneficiary perspective with regard to justice sensitivity. Whereas being sensitive to (and feeling troubled by) unjust events that one observes (i.e., observer sensitivity) or from which one profits (beneficiary sensitivity) seem to reflect a general concern for justice, victim sensitivity—the extent to which one is sensitive to being the victim of injustice—is a more self-directed concern for justice that involves a latent fear of being exploited by others. Accordingly, although all three perspectives are positively correlated, the relationship between observer and beneficiary perspective is considerably stronger than the relationship between victim sensitivity and the other two perspectives (Schmitt et al., 2005; Schmitt, Baumert, Gollwitzer, & Maes, 2010). Moreover, the three perspectives have asymmetrical effects on pro- and antisocial behavior. Whereas beneficiary sensitivity results in more pro- and less antisocial behavior, victim sensitivity shows the reverse pattern (Gollwitzer, Schmitt, Schalke, Maes, & Baer, 2005).
According to the sensitivity to mean intentions (SeMI) model (Gollwitzer & Rothmund, 2009; Gollwitzer, Rothmund, & Süssenbach, 2013), victim-sensitive individuals are specifically tuned to contextual cues that are associated with meanness, recklessness, and untrustworthiness. As a result, in social dilemma situations—that are typically characterized by some degree of uncertainty concerning one’s partners’ intentions—victim-sensitive individuals fear that they will be exploited and thus tend to defect (Gollwitzer, Rothmund, Pfeiffer, & Ensenbach, 2009). Hence, the uncooperative and antisocial behaviors displayed by people high in victim sensitivity can be understood as a means to protect oneself from (assumed) victimization. In cases in which people are indeed being exploited by, for example, an egoistic partner in an experimental game, individuals with high victim sensitivity report more anger, moral outrage, and annoyance than people low in victim sensitivity (Gollwitzer & Rothmund, 2011). Importantly, this response is specifically triggered by the exploitative action of the partner and does not unfold when the same outcome is brought about by bad luck or is merely observed from a neutral perspective (Rothmund, Gollwitzer, & Klimmt, 2011).
So far, past research mainly focused on victim sensitivity’s position in the personality space (addressing assessment and validity issues amongst others), or studied its effects on pro- and antisocial behavior at the interpersonal level (using vignettes, experimental games, or panel studies). In the first line of research, victim sensitivity’s relation to other constructs such as jealousy, just-world beliefs, or Machiavellianism (Schmitt et al., 2005) as well as the Big Five personality traits (Schmitt et al., 2010) has been examined. With regard to the second line of research, victim sensitivity has been demonstrated to lead to less accuracy in the judgment of others’ trustworthiness (Gollwitzer, Rothmund, Alt, & Jekel, 2012), less forgiveness in interpersonal relationships (Gerlach, Allemand, Agroskin, & Denissen, 2012), more reactance and resistance to personally relevant political reforms (Traut-Mattausch, Guter, Zanna, Jonas, & Frey, 2011), increased sensitivity to cues of untrustworthiness in experimental games (Gollwitzer et al., 2009), and less trust in new interaction partners following a victimization experience (Rothmund et al., 2011). In sum, victim sensitivity notably influences a number of interpersonal inter- and transactions. However, little is known about its effects in intergroup contexts. Considering that noncooperation is driven by the same motives at both levels (i.e., greed, fear of being exploited, as well as a combination of both; Schopler & Insko, 1992) but far more likely at the intergroup relative to the interpersonal level (individual–group discontinuity effect; Wildschut, Pinter, Vevea, Insko, & Schopler, 2003), victim sensitivity might well prove relevant also in a group context.
Group-Level Exploitation
In line with Vohs, Baumeister, and Chin (2007), we argue that feeling exploited (or “duped”) at an interpersonal level is the aversive experience of being taking advantage of in a social context that people are keen to avoid. The appraisal that one is the loser in an unfair social transaction is furthermore likely to trigger corresponding emotional reactions (such as anger, see Gollwitzer & Rothmund, 2011; or possibly self-blame, Vohs et al., 2007). Concerning exploitation at the group level, intergroup emotion theory (E. R. Smith & Mackie, 2008) posits that individuals—although not necessarily personally concerned—may appraise a situation from the perspective of their ingroup which likely leads to the subsequent experience of group-based emotions as well as the expression of corresponding behavior: For example, Mackie, Devos, and Smith (2000) demonstrated that individuals’ appraisals and emotions are sensitively tuned to manipulations regarding the intergroup situation at hand. Furthermore, such specific group-level appraisals seem to relate to specific intergroup emotions that, in turn, foster behavioral intentions (Harth, Kessler, & Leach, 2008; Mackie et al., 2000), possibly as an evolutionary adaptive response (Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005). Thus, most likely people are motivated to avoid that the groups they belong to are taken advantage of and are vigilant for potentially exploitative groups (see Cosmides & Tooby, 1989, for the argument that human evolution involved the development of a cheater detector designed to spot untrustworthy individuals). Exploitative intergroup relationships might be considered a form of fraternalistic deprivation (Runciman, 1966)—since one’s ingroup receives less than it should due to an outgroup’s actions (Pruitt, 1998) with a different outcome being conceivable given a different interdependent relationship (Kelley & Thibaut, 1978). Importantly, it is group-based but not individual (or “egoistic”) deprivation that relates to intergroup variables (such as prejudice) and motivates collective action (H. J. Smith & Ortiz, 2002; see Pettigrew et al., 2008, for a demonstration in the area of prejudice).
With regard to potentially exploitative intergroup relationships, we adopt a Person × Situation perspective and propose that victim-sensitive individuals are more likely to feel that their group is being taken advantage of in such situations resulting in a stronger experience of (relevant) intergroup emotions.
As any individual differences variable, victim sensitivity naturally shares variance with other constructs that might as well be meaningful in an intergroup context. One of these constructs is rejection sensitivity: People differ in the extent to which they are sensitive to being rejected by others both on the individual level (Downey & Feldman, 1996) and on the group level (Mendoza-Denton, Purdie, Downey, Davis, & Pietrzak, 2002). Rejection sensitivity and victim sensitivity share a number of psychologically relevant features (for a more detailed discussion, see Gollwitzer & Rothmund, 2009): In both cases, people’s sensitivity (towards rejection and towards injustice) is rooted in the fear that other people’s action might threaten important personal needs: the need for affiliation (in the case of rejection sensitivity) and the need to trust others (in the case of victim sensitivity). In both cases, a high sensitivity is dysfunctional: Being sensitive to individual rejection predicts low self-esteem, substance abuse, or even symptoms of a borderline personality (Ayduk et al., 2008), and being sensitive to group-based rejection (for instance, due to one’s ethnic affiliation) leads to lower well-being and declining achievements (Mendoza-Denton et al., 2002). That said, it is important to note that victim sensitivity and rejection sensitivity differ with regard to the particular need or motive that is under scrutiny: The need for affiliation (i.e., the need to believe that one is accepted by others) or the need for trust (i.e., the need to believe that others are trustworthy). Both needs are conceptually different (see, e.g., Fiske, 2009). Not all instances of rejection are threats to the need for trust and vice versa. Importantly, in the present context we focus on instances of intergroup exploitation that represent threats to the need for trust, but—most presumably—not threats to the need for affiliation.
The Present Research
Our research aim was to investigate the influence of victim sensitivity on the experience of intergroup emotions in potentially exploitative intergroup relationships. Concerning the question which intergroup emotions should be affected, we assume that especially anger and angst will be higher among victim-sensitive individuals. Because anger is intimately tied to perceptions of unfairness (e.g., Averill, 1983; Feather, 2006), lies at the core of feeling relatively deprived (H. J. Smith, Pettigrew, Pippin, & Bialosiewicz, 2012), and is evolutionarily aimed at overcoming obstacles to attain valued goals (Averill, 1982; Plutchik, 1980), perceiving one’s ingroup as being exploited by an outgroup should foster this emotional reaction. Furthermore, since exploitation directly diminishes the ingroup’s resources, we assume that victim sensitivity leads to increased angst concerning the ingroup’s future vitality (cf. Wohl, Squires, & Caouette, 2012). Thus, whereas we assume that victim sensitivity is specifically related to intergroup emotions suited to activate behavior that is likely to stop an ongoing exploitation, victim sensitivity should not—or even negatively—be associated with emotions that foster prosocial intergroup behavior (such as sympathy with the outgroup or feelings of collective guilt for the ingroup’s privileged position).
Study 1
Following the German reunification in 1990 until 2009, an estimated 1.3 to 1.6 trillion Euros have been transferred from Western to Eastern Germany in order to minimize disparities in living conditions between both parts of Germany. Although East Germans felt collectively deprived and were (and still are) objectively disadvantaged, not few West Germans felt that their part of Germany was taken advantage of and that the degree to which East Germans profit from “solidarity transfers” paid by the Western part was largely undeserved (see Schmitt & Maes, 2002). Fairness issues revolving around these transfers were heatedly debated during the decade following the German reunification (see, e.g., Montada, 1995). Thus, we think that this decade is particularly interesting for our research purposes since it represents a real-world intergroup situation that was considered “potentially exploitative” by many West Germans. Using a longitudinal design with two measurement occasions (1996 and 1998), we tested our assumption that victim sensitivity predicts higher anger vis-à-vis the outgroup (i.e., Eastern Germany) and more angst regarding the ingroup’s (i.e., Western Germany) future in a potentially exploitative intergroup situation. More specifically, we predicted a positive cross-lagged effect of victim sensitivity on intergroup anger and angst.
Method
The data we used for testing our hypotheses were collected as part of a longitudinal survey on the psychological consequences of the German reunification (for other studies using the same data set see Gollwitzer et al., 2005; Maes & Schmitt, 1999; Schmitt & Maes, 1998, 2002).
Design, measurement, and participants
Data were collected in 1996 and 2 years later in 1998. A total of 3,170 German citizens drawn by registration offices of 18 German cities and from the electronic telephone register participated in the study. They received questionnaires via mail and answered anonymously. The scales for measuring the constructs of the current study were embedded in other sets of items measuring variables that are not of interest here. The main focus of the survey was on life quality in united Germany. The present analysis is based on a West German subsample of participants who had never lived in Eastern Germany. Of those, 451 participants took part on the first as well as on the second occasion. Mean age of this subsample was M = 46.58 years (SD = 16.06; min = 14; max = 84) at the first measurement occasion. The proportion of males was 63%.
Materials
Victim, observer, and beneficiary sensitivity
The three justice sensitivity perspectives were measured with 10 items each (Schmitt et al., 2005). Example items are “It bothers me when others receive something that ought to be mine” for victim sensitivity; “I am upset when someone is undeservingly worse off than others” for observer sensitivity; and “I feel guilty when I receive better treatment than others” for beneficiary sensitivity. Each item was rated on a 6-point response scale ranging from 0 = not at all true, to 5 = absolutely true.
Intergroup emotions
On single-item measures, participants indicated the extent to which they felt compassion (“I feel sorry for the people in the other part of Germany because they have worse chances in their professional life”), guilt (“I feel guilty because I have much better career chances than people in the other part of Germany”), anger (“It upsets me that the people in the other part of Germany have developed so little initiative when it comes to their professional life”), and angst (“I am afraid that in our part of Germany career chances will worsen”) in face of the current situation regarding Eastern and Western Germany. Each item was rated on a 6-point response scale ranging from 0 = not at all, to 5 = very strongly.
Results and Discussion
Inspection of means
Table 1 provides descriptive statistics for all variables at both measurement times (T1 and T2). An inspection of mean changes shows that whereas victim sensitivity remained relatively stable, observer and beneficiary sensitivity slightly decreased. Similarly, most intergroup emotions (with the exception of angst) showed significant mean decreases (see Table 1).
Descriptive findings for the study variables (Study 1).
Note. The last column provides Cohen’s d as an effect size for the observed mean difference between the two measurement occasions (positive values indicate a decrease over time).
Cross-lagged effects of victim sensitivity on intergroup emotions
Table 2 displays the correlations of the justice sensitivity perspectives and intergroup emotions at both measurement occasions. A cross-lagged panel model was used to analyze the longitudinal causal effect structure of the scrutinized variables (Finkel, 1995). Two types of paths are estimated in such a model: Autoregressive paths that reflect the interindividual stability of a measure over time, and cross-lagged paths that reflect the influence of a variable at Time 1 on the residual of the other variable at Time 2 when the autoregressive effect is controlled for. Thus, whereas autoregressive paths estimate the stability of variables, cross-lagged effects reflect “causal” influences as a variable measured at a prior occasion predicts changes in another variable (see Figure 1 for a graphical representation of the present model).
Zero-order intercorrelations of study variables.
Note. N = 397. **p < .01, *p < .05.
Cross-lagged effects of victim sensitivity on anger and angst.
Here, we report the results of a path analysis in which the three justice sensitivity perspectives and the four intergroup emotions at Time 1 served as predictors for the same measures at Time 2. Because we did not restrict any paths, the model is fully saturated. As hypothesized, victim sensitivity at Time 1 predicted anger at East Germans at Time 2, β = .12, t(419) = 2.43, p < .05, and angst for one’s group economic perspective at Time 2, β = .16, t(419) = 3.12, p < .01. No other cross-lagged path significantly predicted anger or angst at Time 2. However, angst at Time 1 had a significant influence on victim sensitivity at Time 2, β = .16, t(419) = 3.92,p < .001, suggesting reciprocal causality. Victim sensitivity’s influence on intergroup emotions was restricted to anger and angst and had no influence on compassion with East Germans or feelings of guilt for being better off, both ps ≥ .64. Feelings of guilt at Time 2 were, however, predicted by beneficiary sensitivity at Time 1, β = .14, t(419) = 2.36, p < .05, thereby adding to the differential validity of the constructs.
The results of this first study support the hypothesis that higher victim sensitivity feeds into emotions related to a perceived exploitation. As predicted, victim-sensitive West Germans reported higher anger at East Germans as well as higher angst concerning their ingroup’s future vitality 2 years later. Interestingly, ingroup-focused angst in turn predicted victim sensitivity at the second measurement occasion. This surprising finding is encouraging for two reasons: Firstly it clearly suggests that victim sensitivity is motivated by a fear component. Secondly it corroborates the present research idea aimed at connecting victim sensitivity with an intergroup perspective since it is a group-focused fear that exerts an influence on individuals’ self-focused sensitivity toward potential exploitation. As assumed, victim sensitivity was not related to more prosocial intergroup emotions such as sympathy or guilt (however, the more prosocial beneficiary sensitivity did predict feelings of guilt, see also Gollwitzer et al., 2005). Although the longitudinal nature of this study rather favorably supports our causal assumption concerning victim sensitivity’s effects on intergroup emotions, an additional experimental proof would further corroborate our reasoning that victim sensitivity predicts intergroup anger and angst specifically in potentially exploitative situations. To that end, we conducted a second study in which we manipulated the alleged motives of an outgroup that takes advantage of ingroup resources.
Study 2
Most industrialized nations attract members of different outgroups for various reasons. Whereas some of these reasons are perceived as legitimate by a vast majority of people such as fugitives fleeing from war-torn countries, other reasons for seeking permanent or temporary residence in another nation elicit a more ambiguous echo. Take, for example, economic migration: Following the enlargement of the European Union in 2004 many Poles sought to improve their financial situation by finding employment in the United Kingdom, thereby making Poles the second biggest ethnic minority in Britain today. Whereas some consider such movements a legitimate transformation process, others fear that British workers are not able to compete with Poles and feel that their ingroup is being exploited in the wake. On a similar note, many outgroup members (such as asylum seekers or economic migrants that worked for some time in their host nation) are entitled to some forms of welfare benefit. In many cases, members of the host society consider the reception of such benefits as unjustified and exploitative.
In the present study, we focus on an outgroup that seeks asylum in Germany, and we experimentally manipulate the alleged motives of outgroup members to seek asylum in Germany. Depending upon condition, these motives are either justified (due to political tensions in their home country) or apparently driven by the desire to receive financial support (and thus exploitative). In light of the proposed Person × Situation perspective, we propose that especially individuals high in victim sensitivity react to exploitative motives with more intergroup anger and intergroup angst. Furthermore, we will show that these effects persist after controlling for variables that have been shown to powerfully predict intergroup attitudes such as right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and political orientation (Duckitt, Wagner, du Plessis, & Birum, 2002; Whitley, 1999).
Method
Participants
In total, 92 first-year psychology students voluntarily took part in an online study that supposedly investigated their opinion toward a current societal issue. Students were invited via a mailing-list after they had had the opportunity to take part in two separate mass-testing sessions 6 and 4 weeks prior to the online experiment. In the first testing session, participants completed a questionnaire including scales assessing the ideological attitudes of RWA and SDO as well as an item asking for their political orientation. Two weeks later, the same cohort could take part in an unrelated mass testing session in a different lecture for course credit. The second mass testing questionnaire included the justice sensitivity scales. Using a personalized code, data from both mass-testing sessions and from the online experiment could be matched for 63 participants (68%). Participants’ (48 females, 15 males) ages ranged between 17 and 29 years (M = 20.60, SD = 2.56).
Procedure
In the online experiment, participants were asked to read the alleged screenshot of a newspaper article that was featured on the online edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a major and nationwide German newspaper. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two versions of the article. Both articles were of equal length and focused on a recent dramatic increase concerning the number of asylum seekers from Serbia and Macedonia. 2 In both articles the seeking of asylum of Serbs and Macedonians is described as unwarranted as they are not persecuted or threatened in their home countries, invariably leading to a refusal of the application for asylum. Importantly, the reasons for Serbs and Macedonians to seek asylum in the first place varied between conditions. In the control condition (n = 28), the motives of Serbs and Macedonians to leave their countries were stated to be caused by an “alienation of government and citizenship” with possible human rights infringements resulting in a situation in which many Serbs and Macedonians “see no perspective in their countries.” In the experimental condition (n = 35), the motives to seek asylum were said to be exploitative in nature and “an apparent abuse of asylum laws”: Serbs and Macedonians apply for asylum to receive the mandatory financial support that the German state is required to pay them until their application has been examined. After reading the article, participants’ emotional reactions were assessed.
Materials
First mass test: Ideological attitudes and political orientation
Six weeks prior to the online experiment, participants’ right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and political orientation were assessed. RWA was measured with 12 items (Funke, 2005) that address different aspects of authoritarian thinking: (a) authoritarian submission (“The real keys to the ‘good life’ are obedience, discipline, and virtue”); (b) authoritarian aggression (“What our country really needs instead of more ‘civil rights’ is a good stiff dose of law and order”); and (c) conventionalism (“The withdrawal from tradition will turn out to be a fatal fault one day”). Each item was rated on a 7-point response scale ranging from 1 = completely disagree, to 7 = completely agree (descriptive statistics and internal consistencies are reported in Table 3). Participants completed a German 12-item version (Six, Wolfradt, & Zick, 2001) of the SDO scale (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) that was presented after the RWA scale. Again, all items were rated on a 7-point response scale ranging from 1 to 7. Agreement with the items reflects either a hierarchy-enhancing (e.g., “Inferior groups should stay in their place”) or hierarchy-attenuating preference (e.g., “Social equality should increase,” reverse-coded). Finally, participants were asked to indicate their political orientation on a single-item scale running from 1 = left, to 7 = right.
Descriptive findings for the study variables (Study 2).
Note. Response scales vary across measures (for details, see Methods section).
Second mass test: Justice sensitivity perspectives
Four weeks prior to the online experiment, participants’ victim, observer, and beneficiary sensitivity were assessed with 10 items each using the same scales as in Study 1 (Schmitt et al., 2005). Each item was rated on a 6-point response scale ranging from 0 = not at all true, to 5 = absolutely true (see Table 3).
Online experiment: Intergroup emotions
After having read the newspaper article, participants’ intergroup emotions were assessed. Participants indicated the extent to which they felt compassion (three items: e.g., “I feel sorry for the people from Serbia and Macedonia”), guilt (three items: e.g., “I feel guilty because I am much better off than people from Serbia and Macedonia”), anger (four items: e.g., “It upsets me that the people from Serbia and Macedonia try to come to Germany”), and angst (three items: e.g., “I am afraid that Germany’s prosperity will suffer because of the increase of asylum seekers coming from Serbia and Macedonia”). Each item was rated on an 8-point response scale ranging from 1 = not at all, to 8 = very strongly.
Results and Discussion
To test our prediction that victim-sensitive individuals respond with increased angst and anger when an outgroup exploits their ingroup, hierarchical regression analyses were conducted. Separate hierarchical regression analyses for each intergroup emotion were conducted with ideological attitudes (i.e., RWA, SDO, and political orientation) entered in Step 1, justice sensitivity perspectives (i.e., victim, observer, and beneficiary sensitivity) as well as condition (0 = control, 1 = experimental condition) entered in Step 2, and the Condition × Victim Sensitivity interaction term entered in Step 3. Table 4 presents the results of these regression analyses. According to our reasoning, the Condition × Victim sensitivity interaction effect should explain unique variance in anger and angst.
Results of hierarchical regression analyses on intergroup emotions.
Note. N = 60. Three participants did not indicate their political orientation, thus the smaller sample size. Not controlling for political orientation (or the other covariates) yields the same results. Standardized regression coefficients (betas) are reported. Higher values on political orientation reflect a more conservative orientation. R2 refers to the uniquely explained variance in the respective step.
p < .05, **p < .01, †p < .10.
As expected, the interaction effect was significant on anger and angst, but not on compassion and guilt (see Table 4). Conditional effects were probed with Hayes’s (2013) PROCESS macro. For people high in victim sensitivity (1 SD above the sample mean), anger was significantly higher in the experimental than in the control condition, B = 1.66, t(59) = 3.85, p = .0003, whereas for people low in victim sensitivity (1 SD below the sample mean), this effect was not significant, B = 0.46, t(59) = 1.09, p = .28, (see Figure 2, left panel). Stated differently, victim sensitivity predicted anger in the experimental condition, B = 0.68, t(59) = 2.02, p < .05, but not in the control condition, B = −0.24, t(59) = −0.77, p = .44.
Interaction of condition and victim sensitivity on anger and angst.
On intergroup angst, the effect of condition was significant among individuals high (+1 SD) in victim sensitivity, B = 1.33, t(59) =2.48, p = .02, but not among individuals low (−1 SD) in victim sensitivity, B = −0.29, t(59) = −0.55, p = .58, (see Figure 2, right panel). Unexpectedly, levels of angst among low victim sensitive individuals—though not different between experimental and control condition—were surprisingly high, yielding a significant negative relationship between victim sensitivity and angst in the control condition, B = −0.78, t(59) = 2.01, p = .05, and a positive, yet nonsignificant, relationship in the experimental condition, B = 0.40, t(59) = 1.04, p = .30. Thus, whereas findings were straightforward for intergroup anger, the pattern of results for intergroup angst is not as clear, since we expected a positive correlation between victim sensitivity and angst within the experimental condition in addition to the significant effect of the exploitation manipulation among high victim sensitive individuals.
The aim of the second study was to experimentally demonstrate that victim-sensitive individuals respond with intergroup anger and angst to an exploitative intergroup situation. As predicted, victim-sensitive individuals do not react to any intergroup situation in which an outgroup profits from their ingroup. Instead, they are specifically sensitive to cases in which their ingroup might become the victim of an outgroup’s exploitative actions. Notably, this interactive effect survived a control for variables such as RWA, SDO, and political orientation that have been shown to powerfully predict intergroup attitudes in prior research. In fact, victim sensitivity was the only predictor that proved sensitive to the exploitation manipulation, all other interaction terms had ps > .20.
General Discussion
The present research examined effects of victim sensitivity on intergroup emotions in (potentially) exploitative intergroup situations. To this end, we studied West Germans feelings toward East Germans longitudinally in the naturalistic context of the German reunification process in a first study. We then went on to experimentally investigate victim sensitivity’s effects on intergroup emotion in a second study, in which the alleged motive for an outgroup to use ingroup resources was manipulated (Study 2). Consistently across both studies, victim-sensitive individuals reported feeling both anger at the outgroup as well as angst for the ingroup when the situation at hand could be interpreted as exploitative. This emotional reaction is perfectly in line with intergroup emotion theory that predicts elicitation of anger and fear in situations that pose a threat to a group’s possessions and its economic security. The primary action tendencies associated with these emotions are to attack and aggress in order to reclaim possession and control (Neuberg & Cottrell, 2002).
One could ask whether the observed sensitivity to potential exploitation is a good or a bad thing. On the up side, the reduction or avoidance of exploitation is functional (Cosmides & Tooby, 1989) and victim sensitivity could accordingly be regarded an evolutionary adaptive defense against exploitation (Buss & Duntley, 2008). On the down side, victim sensitivity might pose a hindrance to positive interpersonal as well as intergroup cooperation as potential exploitation might be seen lurking around every corner, thereby leading to a system of noncooperation and mutual mistrust (see Gollwitzer et al., 2013). Recurring to our introductory quote, if indeed (some degree of) exploitation in interpersonal and intergroup settings were the norm rather than an exception, an overly strong fear of being exploited could very well be socially dysfunctional. Recent research demonstrating that victim-sensitive individuals are less accurate in social judgments due to a systematic underestimation of others’ cooperativeness (Gollwitzer et al., 2012), suggests that the latter—more negative aspect concerning victim sensitivity’s functionality—might weigh more heavily.
Future research on victim sensitivity’s role in intergroup situations is warranted on a number of issues: For one, the effects presented here of victim sensitivity on intergroup emotions are likely to be moderated by participants’ identification with their ingroup (Devos, Silver, Mackie, & Smith, 2002). It is plausible to assume that victim sensitivity predicts anger and angst in potentially exploitative situations especially among highly identified group members. Furthermore, structural aspects of the intergroup situation should be considered. In the present research, we focused on how members of a high-status group react upon exploitation by a less powerful group. Whether victim sensitivity predicts intergroup emotions similarly among members of lower status groups needs to be addressed empirically. Likewise, the nature of the exploitation is likely to be relevant. Whereas massive and obvious exploitation by an outgroup probably triggers feelings of anger and angst across the board, especially in situations with more ambiguous and milder forms of exploitation should victim sensitivity be relevant (cf. Gollwitzer & Rothmund, 2011).
The present studies focused on emotional reactions in contexts in which intergroup solidarity might be warranted. Of course, this perspective needs to be complemented by research focusing on the downstream consequences of such emotions, especially in light of intergroup emotions’ presumed privileged relationship with group-based behavior (e.g., Maitner, Mackie, & Smith, 2006).
We believe that introducing victim sensitivity to the study of intergroup processes will help explain a number of real-life phenomena such as opposition to solidarity with an outgroup (e.g., Euro crisis) or mistrust in a negotiating partner (e.g., Israeli–Palestinian conflict) and provide first evidence in that regard. Taken together, the present research is the first to show that victim sensitivity—a variable so far only studied at the interpersonal level—predicts individuals’ intergroup emotions in exploitative intergroup situations.
Footnotes
Funding
The authors would like to thank Manfred Schmitt for sharing the data used in the first study and for which he received funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Schm 1092/1-1, Schm 1092/1-2, Schm 1092/1-3).