Who Sees Our Mistreatments? The Impact of Ingroup Transgression Visibility on Solidarity With Outgroup Victims

Abstract

As ingroup transgressions against outgroups could be negatively perceived, transgressor group members may be concerned about their group's external image, experience related emotions and consequently express solidarity with victims. This process is especially pronounced among those who strongly identify with transgressor ingroups. In the current research, we argue that third-party visibility (vs. ingroup visibility) is sufficient to induce a similar process. Two preregistered experiments (N_total = 894) focused on the relationships between Dutch citizens and asylum seekers. Study 1 demonstrated that third-party (global) visibility (compared to national visibility) of the Dutch government's alleged mistreatment towards asylum seekers increased Dutch citizens' outgroup solidarity through increased group-based image concerns and image-related emotions. This association was moderated by political orientation, but not Dutch national identification, possibly because the government rather than citizens transgressed. Study 2, which examined mistreatment by Dutch citizens, yielded similar results; yet, both political orientation and Dutch national identification now moderated the associations. Transgression visibility consistently predicted only non-radical solidarity intentions via increased group-based image concerns and image-related emotions among high-identifiers (and right-wingers) but not low-identifiers (and left-wingers). The same pattern was not observed for radical action intentions, pointing to the strategic nature of highly identified transgressor group members. Implications were discussed.