Quick Study: How Does Unpacking Groups Change Who Gets Blamed?

TL;DR

Breaking a group into smaller subgroups can significantly change who people blame for social conflicts. In experiments involving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, US racial tensions, and the gender wage gap, reframing one question shifted blame, by almost 30% in some experiments, and sometimes completely flipped which side received more blame. Read on to understand partition dependence, why unpacking affects moral judgment, and how educators or politicians might use it.

Transcript

[MUSIC] We live in a time where a lot of social conflicts are presented in moral terms. People wonder who is the perpetrator and who is the victim here? And the way we answer that question shapes the narrative that emerges. >> Once people decide who to blame, how easy is it to change their views? In our research, we discovered that we can actually ... Read More

Key Insights

• 👥 Unpacking groups and assigning blame to specific subgroups can significantly shift moral judgments in social conflicts.
• 🥳 Partition dependence, the cognitive process of assigning more importance to smaller parts of a category, plays a role in shifting blame.
• 🫵 Moral views are not as fixed as people may believe and can be changed through reframing one question.
• 🧑‍🏫 The research has implications for educators in teaching the malleability of social justice and for politicians in manipulating blame and fueling intergroup conflict.

Questions & Answers

Q: How does unpacking groups change who gets blamed?

Unpacking presents a group as several constituent subgroups rather than as one entity. This can lead people to assign more blame to the unpacked side because they give greater importance to a category when it is broken into smaller parts.

Q: How much did unpacking groups shift blame in the experiments?

The researchers changed who participants blamed by almost 30% in some experiments. They described these shifts as evidence that moralized views can change significantly when a single question is reframed.

Q: What happened when Israelis and Palestinians were unpacked into subgroups?

When the Palestinian side was unpacked into three political groups, participants assigned about two-thirds of the blame to the Palestinian side as a whole. When the Israeli side was instead unpacked into right-wing, left-wing, and center blocs, the result flipped and Israel received two-thirds of the blame.

Q: Why can unpacking make people more willing to blame their own side?

People can distance themselves from particular subgroups within their side and blame those groups without damaging their own moral self-regard. The researchers compare this reasoning to prosecutors or defense attorneys seeking to protect moral self-regard or avoid collective guilt.

Q: What is partition dependence?

Partition dependence is a cognitive process in which people assign more importance to a category when it is divided into smaller parts. The researchers identify it as one reason unpacking changes how blame is distributed.

Q: Did unpacking affect judgments about the gender wage gap?

Yes. Unpacking women into white women, Black women, and other ethnicities increased the blame assigned to women, while unpacking men into the same racial categories increased the blame assigned to men.

Q: Did the researchers find similar effects in other social conflicts?

Yes. Beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they ran similar experiments involving racial tensions in the US and the gender wage gap. In both areas, participants’ opinions about who was to blame could also be flipped.

Q: How could the findings about shifting blame be used positively or negatively?

Educators could use the findings to discuss the malleability of social justice with young people. Politicians could use the same tool negatively to intensify hate and intergroup conflict by manipulating how blame is framed.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Research shows that unpacking groups and assigning blame to specific subgroups can significantly shift moral judgments in social conflicts.

• In experiments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, racial tensions in the US, and the gender wage gap, participants' opinions on who is to blame were flipped when different subgroups were considered.

• Partition dependence, the cognitive process of assigning more importance to smaller parts of a category, plays a role in shifting blame.