Collective guilt for harming future ingroup members: The case of American identity and global warming

Abstract

Three studies address whether people can experience collective guilt for present-day behavior that harms ingroup members in the future. In a correlational study, collective guilt mediated the relationship between perceived harm to future ingroup members on willingness to engage in behaviors that mitigate global warming. An experimental study extended these results by showing similar effects for actual behavior and pro-environmental attitudes. A final experiment extended the other studies by showing similar effects on political conservativism, particularly when global warming was seen as having only a minor impact. These studies suggest that shifting the emphasis from collective for past harm to collective guilt for future harm has important implications for research on collective emotions and pro-environmental behavior.