From BLM to ANTIFA. Do All Groups Corrupt People’s Morality?
By: Adrian Paris
Tags: Groups, Corruption, Social Psychology, BlackLivesMatter, Morality

The Impact of Social Categorization Membership

Following the shocking media portrayal of the rape and death of Kitty Genovese at a busy neighbourhood located in New York City in 1964, social psychologists have studied the effects of social influence on the phenomenon known as the bystander effects. Many factors have been found contributing to whether an individual witnessing a potentially harmful situation will intervene or simply become a bystander. Studies such as that conducted by Levine & Crowther, utilized data from four experiments focusing on group size, social categorization and bystander behaviour, finding that bystander effect was more important when there was no group-level social relationship between participants and the targets. Also, findings showed that social category membership and group size only promoted intervention (helping) when the victim in need was identified as a member of the in-group (exclusive group of people who share the same interests or identity). Results even revealed that factors such as gender could have an effect on bystander intervention, showing women were less likely to intervene in the presence of men, and male participants were more likely to intervene in the presence of female participants. As a result, explaining the lack of intervention during potentially dangerous situations involving other individuals can be largely due to the effect of pertaining to a group and the morally corruptive influence that may be embedded in its members. Social categorization to groups can lead to members neglecting to intervene in out-group situations, even when such situations become dangerous and require help from out-group victims.

Neuropsychological research focusing on group influence and bystander effects have also deonstrated important evidence. Findings from fMRI research on young adults show that while brain regions involved in attention and visual processing increased in activity as group size increased, regions associated with action in motor regions showed decreased activity as group size increased. Moreover, brain areas associated with daily helping behaviour and the regulation of emotional states of oneself and others showed a decrease in activity with increase in group size. In other words, group influences such as group size are shown to trigger neural responses and activate certain brain areas that link to a decrease in helping behaviour.

Understanding the Costs and Rewards of Intervention

On the other hand, studies challenging the assumption of group influence on the negative impact on people’s morality should also be noted. Evidence from a series of experiments by von Bommel et al. suggested that when participants increased their public-self-awareness (i.e. presence of a camera), this was enough to make them help more when in the presence of other bystanders. Therefore, individuals who are in the presence of audience and become more publicly self-aware may be more likely to be motivated to help due to the concerns of being held accountable for their own behavioural actions by other bystanders. In other words, group influence for the bystander effect can be reversed if individuals become aware of the reputational costs and rewards for their intervention and are thus more publicly self-aware.

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One vs. Many

Similarly, research on bystander effects have also revealed that the requirement of interdependence can affect the helping behaviour of individuals. For example, findings from a study conducted on Austrian university students showed that when the study required only one helper participants were less likely to help if more bystanders are available to also help compared to when many helpers are required, participants will be more likely to intervene. These results can explain the reversal of bystander effects by making the suggestion that individuals use rational considerations when judging whether to intervene in a situation or not and such rationalities may increase helping behaviour. As a result, this could mean that individuals may be more influenced to help when the assistance of many people are required, even if other bystanders are already present, due to their rational processes rather than group influence itself.

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The Role of Empathy

Empathy can be defined as the “ability to understand and share others’ emotion, which plays a key role in social behaviours”. A number of models and hypotheses view empathy as an emotional state which can have individuals display altruistic behaviour (remember this? selfless helping behaviour), such as the empathy-altruistic hypothesis. Subsequently, empathy has been utilized by social psychologists as evidence when investigating the corruptive nature of groups. This can be illustrated through studies such as that by Stürmer et al. After conducting two separate experiments focusing on empathy and helping behaviour between in-group and out-group members using Muslim and non-Muslim German university students, it was found that empathy was a strong indication of helping intentions when the target and participants were of a similar cultural background (in-group) compared to when both were of different backgrounds (out-group). Also, findings showed that the more intragroup (within the same group) similarities found between the participant and the target affected the impact of empathy on the target. Therefore, such evidence suggests that members of a group tend to be less empathetic as well as altruistic towards out-group individuals. This can be viewed as evidence for the potential corruptive influence groups may have on its members morality as the lack of empathy towards other out-group individuals tends to be characteristic of group normality.

Research focusing on racial group membership effects on neural responses of empathy have found similar results. Findings from a study conducted using fMRI and behavioural surveys on Chinese and Caucasian college students while watching clips of racially similar (in-group) or racially dissimilar (out-group) individuals either receiving painful or non-painful stimulation show that brain-specific empathic responses decreased significantly when viewing out-group faces. This establishes the assumption that group influence can have a significant impact on neural activation in the brain which can lead to morally questionable behaviour such as decreased empathy for non-similar races.

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Yet, findings from studies focusing on empathy and group influence can provide evidence to also suggest that showing empathic behaviour to other groups can in fact increase the helping of the group overall. Research conducted on American university students using a fund allocation task found that participants who were induced to feel empathy (i.e. ‘imagine how the person feels’) towards a drug addicts interview had reported more positive attitudes toward people addicted to drugs (an overall stigmatized group) and were even more likely to allocate more student funding to agencies helping drug addicts than those who were not induced. Similar, but less significant findings were found when participants were told that the scenario was fictional. This would suggest that it is clearly possible for groups to use empathy as a technique to increase altruistic behaviour towards other stigmatized groups and change attitudes of stigmatized groups overall rather than corrupting the moral behaviour of its members.

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The Danger of Parochial Altruism

Another method for investigating the corruptive effects of group influence on an individual’s morality can be evident through the observation of changes in altruistic behaviour. Parochial altruism can be defined as “a person’s self-sacrifice to benefit their own group (in-group love) and to derogate, hurt and sabotage competing out-groups (out-group aggression)”. This type of altruism can give researchers insight into the impact which groups may have over its members moral behaviour towards others. For example, studies focusing on parochial altruism and in-group prosociality (behaviours to benefit others of the same group)through the use of a version of the public goods game on undergraduate students found that many participants in the aggression condition chose option ‘Project B’, which required them to invest 1 monetary unit (MU) in order to gain double the amount as well as take away a MU from the victimization group. Participants in this condition also chose option ‘Project C’, whereby the participants would sacrifice a MU in order to take away a MU from the victimization group. The behaviour found in this study are consistent with that of parochially altruistic behaviour, demonstrating members acting in a sacrificial manner to benefit their in-group, while showing hostility and aggression to the out-group. This suggests that having a membership to a group can have an influence on a person’s behaviour towards other people outside the group, which in some cases, can include morally corruptive behaviour such as hostility and aggression.

Further studies highlight the importance of biological components that can trigger parochial altruistic behaviour in an individual when the in-group confronts a perceived threat from a competing out-group. A series of experiments conducted on male participants and using the prisoner’s dilemma found that individuals who were given oxytocin (a peptide hormone produced in the brain and playing a role in social bonding), compared to a placebo, had displayed higher levels of in-group trust as well as in-group love. These individuals also showed “defensive forms of out-group aggression when out-group threat was eminent”. This demonstrates that the humans have evolved predisposition to be able to promote one’s social life as well as defend and protect one’s group against external threats. As a result, being part of a group can increase the likelihood of triggering an individual’s biological mechanisms such as increased levels of oxytocin to display in-group prosocial behaviour and even defensive behaviour towards out-group individuals, reinforcing the assumption that members of a group are more likely to display morally corruptive behaviour such as parochial altruism.

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Suceptible but not Definitive

However, studies on individuals under group influence have also shown altruistic behaviour towards out-group individuals as an effect of group membership. Researchers studying social influence and parochial altruism in Chinese students aged 4–15 years found that when told to participate in a dictator-game experiment, students tended to adjust the number of stickers they would allocate to a different-class recipient (target) based on the information they were given on how much a same-class recipient (reference) gave to the target, increasing their giving to the target when the reference was seen as more generous. Such findings imply that although individuals can be susceptible to in-group influence to behave in accordance with the group, individuals also adjust their helping behaviour to in-group and out-group individuals based on how they treat each other. In other words, being part of a group does not suggest that individual members are bound to behaving in a demoralized manner, but can instead follow the altruistic behaviour exemplified by other members towards out-group individuals.

Author’s Opinions and Conclusions

The aim of this article has been to investigate the different reasons for the corruption of individual morality through group pressure and social influence. Using scientific evidence, a number of key aspects of social behaviour were highlighted to provide explanations for the possibility that being under group influence could lead to decreased empathy towards out-group members, the lack of intervention in dangerous scenarios and the emergence of parochial altruism. The evaluation of contradictory findings was also utilized to emphasize the criticism of the use of evidence concerning the social behaviour attributes as valid explanations for group corruption of morality. Based on the evidence gathered, it could be concluded that various factors exist that explain morally corruptive behaviour and should be considered when combining with the influence of groups.

This partcular piece was written a few years back and having found it again, I could not help but to find the relevance of this article to the current state of societal issues happening now. At a time where we are unsure of which groups to support, which groups are having a negative influence on society and overall how our own morals are being affected by all the intense social influence occurring, it is important to evaluate the arguments of groups and understand the manner in which they treat other out-group members. Movements such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) are so extensive and have awoken a worldwide response that it is easy to lose yourself in what is being reported about the group and the cause compared to how the movement may actually respond to others. The next time you truly want to evaluate the motives and genuine behaviour of certain groups such as BLM and ANTIFA to distinguish corruption and helpful behaviour, focus on the level of empathy the group shows, the level of intervention during dangerous situations and whether parochial altruism is present.