Canada’s history with Indigenous peoples: do reminders of ingroup wrongs and ingroup identification influence collective guilt, moral shame, and reparation intentions?

Abstract

Research suggests historical accounts of past harm committed by an ingroup toward an outgroup have elicited emotions such as collective guilt and moral shame. The present experiment examined whether an explicit account regarding abuse committed against Indigenous peoples in the residential school system elicited collective guilt, moral shame, and reparation endorsement. Ingroup identification was assessed as a potential moderator of these predicted effects. 108 nonIndigenous students from Laurentian University were randomly assigned to excerpts derived from high school history textbooks were explicit or evasive and completed self-report questionnaires. Results showed ingroup identification was a significant moderator whereby high ingroup identifiers demonstrated greater levels of guilt and monetary support for Indigenous Canadians when exposed to the explicit text. Low ingroup identifiers had greater shame when exposed to an evasive text. Therefore, ingroup identification had an important influence on the moral emotions and reparation intentions following exposure to an explicit vs. evasive account of their group’s past wrongdoing. Implications are discussed in relation to promoting a sense of responsibility and intentions to repair ingroup wrongs, and how this might be facilitated in an educational context.