Why Individuals Protest the Perceived Transgressions of Their Country

TLDR

The study examined whether emotions predict opposition to policies and actions perceived as illegitimate by citizens. Two studies surveyed American and British citizens’ anger, guilt, and shame responses to perceived harm from their countries’ occupation of Iraq. The studies found that a threat to national image increased shame but not guilt, with shame predicting withdrawal intentions, anger predicting compensation, confrontation, and withdrawal, and guilt showing no predictive power.

Abstract

The present research examined emotions as predictors of opposition to policies and actions of one's country that are perceived to be illegitimate. Two studies investigated the political implications of American (Study 1) and British (Study 2) citizens' anger, guilt, and shame responses to perceived harm caused by their countries' occupation of Iraq. In both studies, a manipulation of pervasive threat to the country's image increased participants' shame but not guilt. The emotions predicted political action intentions to advocate distinct opposition strategies. Shame predicted action intentions to advocate withdrawal from Iraq. Anger predicted action intentions to advocate compensation to Iraq, confrontation of agents responsible, and withdrawal from Iraq. Anger directed at different targets (ingroup, ingroup representative, and outgroup representative) predicted action intentions to support distinct strategies (Study 2). Guilt did not independently predict any political action intentions. Implications for the study of political action and emotions in intergroup contexts are discussed.