Guilt, anger, and pride about in group environmental behaviour different emotions predict distinct intentions

Journal of Environmental Psychology 34 (2013) 18e26 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Environmental Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jep Guilt, anger, and pride about in-group environmental behaviour: Different emotions predict distinct intentions Nicole Syringa Harth a, *, Colin Wayne Leach b, Thomas Kessler a a b Department of Social Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Humboldtstr 26, 07743 Jena, Germany Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, USA a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Available online January 2013 The present research compared the in-group-focused emotions of pride, guilt, and anger as predictors of three environmental intentions In two scenario studies we manipulated the in-group’s responsibility for environmental damage or protection In-group responsibility for environmental damage increased participants’ guilt and anger, whereas in-group responsibility for environmental protection increased participants’ pride The three emotions mediated the links between in-group responsibility for environmental behaviour and three behavioural intentions In line with predictions, guilt predicted intentions to repair the damage and anger predicted intentions to punish wrongdoers Pride predicted intentions for in-group favouring environmental protection We discuss the role of group-based emotion in promoting different environmental behaviours Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved Keywords: Group-based emotion Guilt Anger Pride Responsibility Environmental behaviour Introduction Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing humanity This makes it important to understand what people make of damage to, and protection of, the environment Why some people get engaged in environmental protection, others ignore it, and others think that technology will provide a solution? Certainly, emotions play a major role here (Swim et al., 2009) For instance, environmental NGOs tend to make people feel guilty, highlighting humans’ responsibility for climate change; the media tend to fuel anger about environmental disasters, whereas politicians often try to invoke pride in the ecological and technological achievements that suggest optimism about the future Which of these emotional strategies works “best” in terms of promoting environmental awareness and accordingly, which of these emotions leads to which intention to act in ways that benefit the environment? We believe that it is of particular importance to ask how emotional reactions to climate change are associated with intentions for specific environmental behaviours Given that climate change results from collective behaviour and events, it is especially important to examine how individuals experience the environmental behaviour of their groups e cities, countries, and international bodies such as the United Nations Although individuals may have their own sense of personal responsibility for * Corresponding author Tel.: ỵ49 3641 945190; fax: ỵ49 3641 945252 E-mail address: n.harth@uni-jena.de (N.S Harth) 0272-4944/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2012.12.005 the environment, they also respond to their in-group’s responsibility for environmental damage and protection (Thomas, McGarty, & Mavor, 2009) This leads individuals to experience group-based emotions (see Iyer & Leach, 2008; Mackie & Smith, 2002; Parkinson, Fischer, & Manstead, 2005) In the present study, we investigate guilt, anger, and pride as emotional reactions to in-group damage or protection of the environment We expect each emotion to best predict the specific environmental intentions of repair of damage, punishment of wrongdoers, and in-group favouring environmental protection 1.1 The value of group-based emotions For quite some time, rational-choice-based models, such as the theory of planned behaviour (e.g., Ajzen, 1991) dominated explanations of environmental behaviour Perhaps as a result, little research has examined the role of emotions in environmental behaviour However, there is increasing attention to the role that emotions play in people’s responses to environmental issues (Kaiser, Schultz, Berenguer, Corral-Verdugo, & Tankha, 2008) So far, fear of environmental risks seems to attract the most attention (e.g., Böhm, 2003; Van Zomeren, Spears, & Leach, 2010) Apparently, fear about the consequences of climate change does not motivate people to conserve energy (Ferguson & Branscombe, 2010) Instead, fearful individuals seem to cope with the threat of climate change by relying on their group to engage in collective action (Van Zomeren et al., 2010) We suggest that, unlike fear, emotions focused on the N.S Harth et al / Journal of Environmental Psychology 34 (2013) 18e26 in-group’s active role in environmental outcomes may better motivate environmental behaviour Recent work has examined a wide variety of emotions that are relevant to what individuals intend to about in-group and outgroup behaviour (Mackie & Smith, 2002) Most of these studies examined a single emotion and a single intention (for reviews, see Iyer & Leach, 2008; Parkinson et al., 2005) For example, a good deal of research has examined guilt about in-group wrongdoing and its prediction of the intention to make restitution Guilt has rarely been compared to other in-group directed emotions, such as anger or pride In addition, as Ferguson and Branscombe (2010) suggested, more positive emotions such as pride should be examined in research on the role of group-based emotion in group-level behaviour Therefore, in this study, we compared in-group focused guilt to anger and pride because we wished to explain intentions regarding three distinct intentions regarding the environment e repair, punishment, and in-group favouring environmental behaviour Each emotion should have a special link to each behavioural intention Three emotions and three environmental intentions Responsibility appraisals determine how people feel about events (Weiner, 1995) Thus, they influence what people are motivated to on issues such as climate change (e.g., Kaiser & Shimoda, 1999; Nerb & Spada, 2001) Alternate framings of responsibility for environment outcomes should trigger different group-based emotions For example, when one’s country is framed as responsible for causing environmental damage, one should feel guilty and angry at the ingroup In contrast, in-group responsibility for environmental protection should evoke pride As responsibility is a key appraisal in in-group-focused emotions (Leach, Snider, & Iyer, 2002), we manipulated the degree to which participants’ in-group is responsible for environmental outcomes to show its causal role in the three emotions Whereas it is increasingly common to manipulate group-based appraisals (see Iyer & Leach, 2008 for an overview), few experiments have investigated the effects of appraisal manipulations on multiple emotions and subsequently, emotion specific effects on different behavioural intentions Thus, the present studies were designed to extend previous research on emotion about social and political issues As we discuss in more detail below, guilt should motivate intentions to repair environmental damage whereas anger at the in-group should motivate intentions to punish environmental sinners Pride should motivate intentions to engage in support of environmental behaviour that favours the in-group exclusively 2.1 Guilt and damage repair Guilt is a response to in-group responsibility for wrongdoing, particularly in cases of a violation of social standards People who experience guilt want to undo their actions, apologize, and be forgiven (see Parkinson et al., 2005) In the context of environmental issues, Ferguson and Branscombe (2010) showed that guilt about the in-group’s role in climate change facilitated mitigating behaviour Thus, in line with these authors, we expected that people would feel more guilt when their group is framed as responsible for climate change (Wohl, Branscombe, & Klar, 2006 for a review on guilt and responsibility) This guilt should be strongly linked to the goal of repairing the environmental damage As shown in previous work, group-based guilt is an emotional response to the in-group’s wrongful behaviour, focussing more on one’s own misdeed than on others’ suffering (for a review, see Iyer & Leach, 2008) As such, guilt calls for repairing the damage done by one’s wrongdoing, instead of eliciting pro-social reactions in general (Iyer, Schmader, & Lickel, 2007) Repairing the damage done seems to most directly provide redemption from the unpleasant feeling of guilt Thus, guilt should 19 not mediate the links between responsibility and punishment of environmental sinners or in-group favouring environmental protection Guilt about in-group environmental damage should be narrowly focused on repairing this damage (Iyer & Leach, 2008; Leach et al., 2002) 2.2 Anger and in-group punishment Typically, anger is directed at an agent appraised as responsible for wrongdoing Hence, if the responsibility for the damage is ascribed to the in-group itself, anger will be in-group-directed (Iyer et al., 2007; Leach, Iyer, & Pedersen, 2006) In this way, in-group-focused anger is similar to guilt However, anger is a state of agitation and thus has high “action potential,” whereas guilt is a state of dejection and thus has low action potential (Leach et al., 2006) As a result, in-group-focused anger and guilt are tied to different behavioural intentions Anger at the in-group results in confrontation of the in-group; actions are directed at the punishment of those who are responsible for the damage (Harth, Hornsey, & Barlow, 2011; for a discussion, see Thomas et al., 2009) This is consistent with the more general finding that group-based anger is linked to the impulse to move against the target of anger (e.g., Gordijn, Yzerbyt, Wigboldus, & Dumont, 2006; Kessler & Mummendey, 2001; Mackie & Smith, 2002) Along these lines, we expected that in-group responsibility for environmental damage will elicit anger at the in-group as well as guilt However, in contrast to guilt, anger directed at the in-group should predict the motivation to punish those in-group members most responsible for environmental damage Thus, anger should not predict intentions to repair environmental damage or in-group favouring environmental protection 2.3 Pride and in-group favouritism Pride is a positive, in-group-focused emotion that arises from appraised responsibility for a legitimate achievement (Tracy & Robins, 2007) Group-based pride can be based in viewing the ingroup as moral (e.g., Leach, Ellemers, & Barreto, 2007), as having a legitimate advantage over out-groups (e.g., Harth, Kessler, & Leach, 2008) or as succeeding in a competition (see Leach et al., 2002) Thus, in-group responsibility for environmental damage should lead to less pride, but greater guilt and anger However, ingroup responsibility for environmental protection should lead to greater pride and lesser guilt and anger Pride in environmental achievement, such as through developing new technologies that benefit the environment, has rarely been studied Nevertheless, pride may have important implications for intentions regarding environmental behaviour Consistent with the notion of pride as a rank-related emotion (Oveis, Horberg, & Keltner, 2010), recent work has found that individuals who are proud of their in-group’s achievements are not willing to share resources with dissimilar others (Harth et al., 2008; Leach et al., 2007); on the contrary, they tend to favour their in-group over out-groups (Harth et al., 2008) For instance, Harth et al (2008, Study 3) led university students to believe that they enjoyed a legitimate advantage in athletic facilities over immigrants of the same age Pride in this advantage led students to be less willing to share their facilities with the relatively disadvantaged immigrant out-group Extrapolating to the context of climate change, we expected that pride about the in-group’s environmental protection behaviour would motivate intentions for further protection of the in-group exclusively More specifically, we expected pride in the in-group’s achievement of environmental protection to predict in-group favouring intentions for further environmental protection of the in-group, such as investing in environmental technologies for the in-group exclusively or wanting financial reward to the in-group Pride should not predict doing 20 N.S Harth et al / Journal of Environmental Psychology 34 (2013) 18e26 more for the environment if this behaviour benefits an out-group Thus, we predict that the positive emotion of environmental pride will have the effect of motivating what may be seen as selfserving effort to protect the in-group from the damage of climate change As such, we not expect pride to predict intentions to repair environmental damage or punish environmental sinners The present research The main purpose of these studies was a systematic investigation of the specific effects of group-based guilt, anger, and pride about the in-group’s environmental behaviour on three different types of environmental behavioural intentions Based on the theorizing above, we hypothesized that the group-based appraisal of perceived responsibility for environmental damage would trigger group-based guilt and anger, whereas perceived responsibility for environmental protection would trigger group-based pride Most importantly, we expected specific effects of the three types of emotion on three types of environmental behavioural intentions Group-based guilt was expected to predict intentions to repair the environmental damage, but not the punishment of environmental sinners or in-group favouring environmental protection By contrast, anger at the in-group should predict the intention to punish environmental sinners, but not other intentions Moreover, we expected that pride in the in-group’s environmental accomplishments would only predict the intention of in-group favouring environmental protection We conducted two scenario studies in order to test these hypotheses However, we first conducted a pre-test to clarify whether scenarios were appropriate to manipulate responsibility for environmental damage versus protection Pre-test A pre-test with a student sample from a German University (N ¼ 28) was conducted to clarify whether the newspaper articles that we fabricated were an appropriate manipulation of responsibility, whether participants consider the article trustworthy, and if students view pro-environmental behaviour as normative for their group Participants were randomly assigned to a responsibility for environmental damage versus responsibility for environmental protection conditions Participants were told that they were taking part in an opinion poll on ecological issues They were asked to read an ostensible newspaper article about climate change In both conditions, the article described the global environmental situation with the same text The first passage discussed climate change In the next passage, responsibility for environmental outcomes was manipulated In one condition we portrayed the in-group as responsible for environmental damage, whereas in the other condition the in-group was portrayed as responsible for environmental protection More precisely, in the responsibility for damage condition it was stated that “Germany is one of the main polluters” Examples were given that highlighted the fact that Germans are among the main users of water and energy In the responsibility for protection condition it was said that “Germany provides a great contribution to environmental protection” Examples were given, like the amount of households changing to alternative energy systems with financial support from the German government Two items assessed participants’ appraisal that Germans, as a group, are responsible for climate change (“We Germans are responsible for climate change”, “We Germans are responsible for the fact that people have to suffer from climate change”, r ¼ 47, p ¼ 01) Participants indicated their agreement with these statements on 7-point scales (1 ¼ disagree, ¼ agree) Participants in the responsibility for environmental damage condition appraised Germans’ responsibility for damage as higher (M ¼ 4.64, SD ¼ 1.40) than those in the responsibility for protection (M ¼ 3.29, SD ¼ 1.10), F(1,26) ¼ 8.06, p ¼ 009, h2 ¼ 24 In addition, participants answered one item that stated “I trust the information in the article” (1 ¼ disagree, ¼ fully agree) Ratings of participants in the responsibility for damage condition (M ¼ 4.70, SD ¼ 1.30) did not differ from those in the responsibility for protection condition (M ¼ 5.00, SD ¼ 1.33), F(1, 26) < 1, p ¼ 39 Generally, participants trusted the information provided by the article, as mean trust was significantly above the scale midpoint (M ¼ 4.86, SD ¼ 1.30), t (27) ¼ 3.57, p ¼ 002 In addition, one item asked if participants attach importance to pro-environmental behaviour (1 ¼ not at all, ¼ very much) The ratings did not differ between the responsibility for damage (M ¼ 5.64, SD ¼ 1.64) and the responsibility for protection condition (M ¼ 5.50, SD ¼ 1.55), F(1, 26) < 1, p ¼ 82 Besides, the mean was significantly greater than the midpoint of the scale, t (27) ¼ 5.28, p < 001 That is, participants view pro-environmental behaviour as very important Given these results, the articles appeared to be appropriate manipulations of in-group responsibility for environmental outcomes Study 5.1 Method 5.1.1 Participants and procedure Seventy students in a German university volunteered to participate in the study Given that the in-group in the study is Germany, we only considered data from participants with German citizenship, resulting in a final sample of 67 participants (45% female, Mage¼ 21 yrs, range: 18e29 yrs) The students were recruited on campus and randomly assigned to one of two conditions of responsibility: environmental damage versus environmental protection First, participants were asked to read the fake newspaper article In order to increase the salience of the social category, we next focused participants’ attention on the role of their in-group by using a sentence completion task (Neumann, 2000) Participants were instructed to think about climate change as described in the article, especially about Germany’s contribution They were asked to briefly summarize the content of the newspaper article by completing a sentence starting with “We Germans.” Next, participants completed the measures as detailed below Then, they were thanked, given a candy bar for compensation and debriefed 5.1.2 Measures 5.1.2.1 Emotions Participants were asked to indicate their momentary emotional state on a scale from (not at all) to (very intense) The instruction read: “After reading the newspaper article, how you feel right now?” Based on previous research on group-based emotion (Ferguson & Branscombe, 2010; Harth et al., 2008, 2011), two items measured guilt (I feel guilty, I am regretful about Germans’ environmental behaviour, r ¼ 61 p < 001), two items measured anger (I am angry at Germans, I resent Germans’ environmental behaviour, r ¼ 28, p ¼ 03), and two items measured pride (I am proud of Germans’ environmental behaviour, I feel good about Germans’ environmental behaviour, r ¼ 62, p < 001) As expected, guilt and anger were positively correlated (r ¼ 53, p < 001), guilt and pride were negatively correlated (r ¼ À.25, p ¼ 04), and pride and anger were negatively correlated (r ¼ À.22, p ¼ 08) Table shows the means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations of all measured variables 5.1.2.2 Behavioural intentions Participants were presented with three different types of environmental behavioural intentions The item that measured peoples’ general goal to repair the damage 21 N.S Harth et al / Journal of Environmental Psychology 34 (2013) 18e26 Table Overall means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations of group-based emotions and environmental behavioural intentions in Study Means (SD) for the experimental conditions: Group-based guilt Group-based anger Group-based pride Repair tendencies Punishment tendencies In-group favouring tendencies Responsibility for damage Responsibility for protection 5.63 5.91 3.98 4.96 6.38 3.21 4.75 4.98 5.30 4.60 5.34 3.63 (1.59) (1.46) (1.78) (.91) (.85) (1.56) (1.75) (1.45) (1.48) (1.30) (1.22) (1.40) e 28* 29* e 15 e 53* À.25* 37* 36* 17 e À.22* 19 42* 049 e 04 À.23* 35* Note: *indicates