Reports Social identity and perceptions of torture: It's moral when we do it ☆ Mark Tarrant a, ⁎, Nyla R. Branscombe b , Ruth H. Warner c , Dale Weston d a Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Exeter, UK b University of Kansas, USA c Saint Louis University, USA d University of Exeter, UK abstract article info Article history: Received 23 May 2011 Revised 21 September 2011 Available online xxxx Keywords: Social identity Morality Torture Harm doing Confirmatory injustice standards Two studies examined the effects of social identity concerns on the moral justification of torture. British and American nationals read a media report concerning the torture of a terrorist suspect that they were led to believe had been perpetrated either by members of their own nation's security services or by another nation's security services. When the torture was perpetrated by the ingroup, participants described it as more morally justified than when the torture was perpetrated by the other nation's security services. This effect was medi- ated by participants' decreased empathy for the ingroup's torture victim (Study 1), as well as increased victim blame and perceiving the perpetrators as prototypical of their national group (Study 2). We consider how social identity concerns enable moral justification of harm doing. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Inc. Introduction The governments of Great Britain and the United States are legally committed to international law concerning the use of torture (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). Yet, in recent years, details have emerged concerning human rights violations by these governments' security services, most notably during the military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both governments have gone to considerable lengths to deny that they authorize torture, or else to le- gitimize its use. For example, politicians have attempted to avoid ac- knowledging responsibility for acts of torture by placing blame for its occurrence on individual perpetrators (“bad apples”: e.g., Blair, 2004), and by minimizing the degree of harm caused to torture victims (see Hooks & Mosher, 2005). In the US, the Bush administration sought to legitimize the use of torture by redefining behaviors commonly regarded as torture (e.g., “water-boarding”), and also defending such techniques as necessary for national security (Hooks & Mosher, 2005). Reports suggesting that a government has approved or authorized the use of torture have the potential to undermine the moral stature of government, and the nation it serves. Because of this, attempts to justify torture are unlikely to be restricted to those who are most closely involved (e.g., military and government leaders), but may also be employed by people across the nation who have played no role in the torture. By virtue of the group membership they share with the perpetrators, reports of torture are likely to be perceived as threatening to social (national) identity, and we argue that this will motivate strategies aimed at offsetting that threat. We consider one such defensive response in the current research by examining peo- ple's differential justification of torture depending on their relation- ship to the perpetrators of it. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that when torture is perpetrated by members of their own national (in)group, people will describe that torture as more morally accept- able than when it is perpetrated by members of a group to which they do not belong. We also consider different pathways (e.g., victim empathy and blame; perceptions of perpetrator prototypicality) by which defense of the ingroup's morality is achieved. Our research builds upon the idea that social group membership structures the ways in which people respond to acts of intergroup harm doing (Miron & Branscombe, 2008). Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) holds that group members are motivated to perceive their group in a positive light. Evidence that one's ingroup has harmed another group can undermine this goal and promote identity-protective behaviors amongst group members. When reminded of their group's harmful behavior toward others, ingroup members often shift the standard used to judge the behavior such that more evidence is required to determine that it actually is unjust (Miron, Branscombe, & Biernat, 2010). While acknowledging that one's group has harmed another group is a necessary first step toward experiencing collective guilt and making reparations for the suffering that the harm caused (Branscombe, Doosje, & McGarty, 2002), by shifting standards of justice, guilt and reparations are less likely to Journal of Experimental Social Psychology xxx (2011) xxx–xxx ☆ Preparation of this article was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Health Service, the NIHR or the Department of Health. ⁎ Corresponding author at: Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX1 2LU, UK. E-mail address: mark.tarrant@pcmd.ac.uk (M. Tarrant). YJESP-02782; No. of pages: 6; 4C: 0022-1031/$ – see front matter © 2011 Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.10.017 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Experimental Social Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jesp Please cite this article as: Tarrant, M., et al., Social identity and perceptions of torture: It's moral when we do it, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2011), doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.10.017