The Role of Empathy and Collective Guilt in Predicting
Negative Attitudes Toward Indigenous Australians.

The sustained discord between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians has been well noted throughout Australia’s national history. Over recent times there has been a notable increase in interest regarding the social-psychological factors that may contribute to this sustained disharmony (Bretherton, Balvin, & SpringerLink, 2012). In particular, social psychologists have shown explicit interest in the role of empathy and collective guilt as predictors of negative attitudes held by non-Indigenous Australians towards Indigenous Australians. This report deliberates upon what research tells us about the effects of these emotional responses on social attitudes and broadens these findings to include the relevant social-psychological theories of social Identity, Self Categorisation and Social Dominance and how these theories may offer further insight into these attitudinal responses. The report subsequently explores some of the limitations of the applied social-psychological theories and concludes how further social-psychological investigations can assist in the enhancement of the desired reconciliation between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians.

Empathy in common terms indicates the ability to comprehend the experience of another’s situation from their perspective. It suggests the emotional understanding of another’s feelings ("empathy. (n.d.) ", 2015). According to Pedersen, Breven, Walker and Griffiths (2004) there are two kinds of empathy that require specific consideration when addressing Indigenous issues, one being Empathetic Concern and the other being Perspective Taking. Empathetic Concern indicates an individuals specific tendency to be concerned with the feelings of others while Perspective Taking on the other hand denotes a person’s ability to perceive another’s explicit challenges rather than their particular emotional experience (Pedersen, Beven, Walker, & Griffiths, 2004). Miller (2009) submits there is substantial evidence derived from social-psychological research indicating the presence of ‘global helping traits’. Miller (2009) suggests these ‘helping traits’, which includes empathetic expression, emerge to evoke peoples impulse to assist those in need (Miller, 2009, p. 248). Miller (2009) broadens on these ‘helping motivators’ stating numerous studies indicate that raised feelings of guilt and embarrassment correspondingly increase the likelihood of ‘ helping behaviours’.

Several Australian research studies have established the significant relationship between feelings of empathy and subsequent attitudes towards Indigenous Australians. These studies have founded the correlation between empathy and attitude suggest the more empathetic one is towards another the more likely their attitude towards that person or group will be constructive, congruently where there is little or no empathy experienced the less accommodating the attitude will be (Pedersen et al., 2004). One important factor to consider when defining empathy is to understand empathy as distinct from sympathy. Sympathy is an emotion expressed as a feeling of concern for another persons welfare and is experienced from a third person perspective, on the contrary empathy is experienced from a first persons perspective and is perceived subjectively by the sensing of the estimated emotions being experienced by another. It is also important to note that empathetic emotions need only be similar in kind to those of the observed sufferer (Miller, 2009).

While research on the role of empathy as a predictor of attitude has shown significant correlative results, comparably research into the effects of collective guilt have achieved the same. Collective guilt can be defined as a cognitive and or emotional response to a sense of responsibility for the undesirable actions undertaken by members of a group to which one belongs. Collective guilt is often experienced by those who have not been directly engaged in the specific behaviour or actions that relate to the guilt response (McGarty et al., 2005). Collective guilt specifically in regards to the feeling a guilt felt by non-Indigenous Australians towards Indigenous Australians is based upon the guilt of the substantial mistreatment of Indigenous Australians during after the colonisation of Australia in 1788 (Halloran, 2007). McGarty et al. (2005) suggests that the group-based guilt experienced by non-Indigenous Australian results in the perceived advantage of non-Indigenous Australians over Indigenous Australians. Halloran (2007) reiterates this finding affirming that non-Indigenous Australians concede that there was in fact extensive mistreatment of Indigenous Australians in the past and that as a result of this mistreatment they have been significantly disadvantaged. Numerous empirical studies have shown the significance of both collective guilt and perceived advantage as predictors of attitudes (McGarty et al., 2005). As was the case with the correlative relationship between empathy and attitude the relationship between collective guilt and attitude as experienced by non-Indigenous Australians in regard to the mistreatment of Indigenous Australians has been found to be significant. The relationship implies that the more substantial the experience of collective guilt the more positive the attitudinal response will be towards Indigenous Australians, conversely the inverted response would apply where minimal or no collective guilt was experienced by non-Indigenous Australians. McGarty et al. (2005) goes further to suggest that qualitative studies have found that a substantial number of non-Indigenous Australians in fact reject the notion of feelings of collective guilt with many correspondents eliminating the assumption of guilt due to the conclusion that current generations can not be held accountable for the faults of previous generation. McGarty et al. (2005) assigns this reaction to an avoidance response. McGarty et al. (2005) explains that the experience of guilt is emotionally upsetting and thus it is expected that it would be instinctively evaded. Given the correlative findings between collective guilt and attitude the assumption could be made that the avoidance of collective guilt might consequentially lead to non-Indigenous Australians engaging in negative attitudes towards Indigenous Australians.

A considerable amount of social psychological theory has originated from the theoretical model of social identity theory. Derived from much of Henri Tajfel’s work on self categorisation, social identity theory is based on the understanding that an individual may establish their identity through group membership (Nelson, 2009). Belonging to a group can assist both in establishing a sense of social identity as well as a positively enhanced sense of self through the association of the self with a larger group (Vaughan & Hogg, 2014). In order to achieve its purpose of increased esteem the group in which one associates with must be deemed as an advantageous relationship from which the individual derives greater sense of self worth. For this reason the in-group with which one is connected must be understood as greater than the out-groups with which it compares itself. It is within this framework that prejudice and discrimination become the necessary facilitators of these required conditions (Nelson, 2009). Similarly the previously discussed rejection of collective group by a substantial number of non-Indigenous Australian affirms the social identity assumption that it is the nature of the in-group member to protect the in-groups reputation so as to not impede the valuable standing of the group. Conversely the resulting negative attitude towards Indigenous Australians positively supports the social identity requirement of keeping out-groups at a disadvantage (Nelson, 2009).

Miller (2009) suggests that empathy may have several motivational functions with one in particular described as Empathy-specific punishment. Empathy- specific punishment relates to the motivation to help those in need in order to avoid negative consequences for not helping. Conversely Miller suggests that empathy-specific rewards may act as a motivating factor for pro-social behaviour. The achievement of such positive rewards may result in social benefits and thus advantage both the individuals and group to which they are associated. This theorised phenomenon may occur in alignment with social identity theory in that it avoids the negative associations and maintains the positive esteem of the social group that is identified with.

Self-categorisation theory as an extension of Self-identity theory and premised upon the concept that in order to assume a group identify one must first categorise ones own character traits as being consistent with the groups general character typecast (Nelson, 2009). Gomersall, Davidson and Ho state that the “identification with other like persons has been describes as a function of one’s own categorisation of individuals into groups” (Gomersall, Davidson, & Ho, 2000, p. 125). It is within this context that it is assumed that when a person is categorised as being part of a group that they will in turn assume the stereotypical behaviours of that group. In the case of collective or group based guilt despite the possibility of no personal involvement in the injustice itself there is a perceived ‘guilt by association’. By the nature of being an in-group members the guilt is inextricably attributed the individual as well. It is this dimension of the collective guilt phenomenon that fits persuasively into self-categorisation theory (McGarty et al., 2005).

While social identity and self categorisations theories appear to dominate social psychological evaluations there does appear to be relevant application for social dominance theory in the prediction of social attitudes. Several studies have implied that excessive focus on social dominance can predict negative attitude responses in particular regard to racism (Hutchinson, 2014). Social dominance emphasises the maintenance of social groups stability through social hierarchies. Empirical evidence regarding Australia’s social dominance persuasion indicate an elevated level of egalitarian values within the Australian culture (Halloran, 2007). Halloran (2007) also presented pioneer findings suggesting the predictive relationship between egalitarian values and attitudes towards reconciliation. While these results cannot be deemed as conclusive due to limited other research findings these results would at minimum suggest that the general egalitarian persuasion of Australians would predict a positive attitude affect as apposed to a negative one.

It appears that the vast majority of research in regards to non-indigenous attitudes towards Indigenous Australians has been aimed at assessing the level of acceptance regarding the justification of an official apology to Indigenous Australian for the past mistreatments. While social psychological findings have been valuable in this area the limited focus poses the question as to the transferability of these studies to more generalised attitudes towards reconciliation (Halloran, 2007). Likewise little research appears to be available regarding the inverse attitudes held by Indigenous Australians towards non-Indigenous Australians. These limitations would suggest the need for further investigations in these areas.

While the majority of socio-demographic evidence collected as a part of the related empirical research suggests the limited predictive effects of socio-demographic variables there has been supportive evidence for the predictive role of education levels in determining attitude (Pedersen et al., 2004). These finding suggest that the higher the level of education the more likely the attitude response will be positive. These findings are further verified by evidence suggesting that a higher level of education is associated with an increased perception of group advantage which has been correspondingly shown to predict attitudes (McGarty et al., 2005).

To conclude, in assessing how further social-psychological investigations can assist in the enhancement of the desired reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, the findings expressed in this report appear to advocate for the inducement of empathy as a tool to persuade more positive attitudes towards Indigenous Australians. The underlying commonality that people seek to evade negative feelings would suggest that Collective Guilt, whilst still showing high correlation as a predictor of attitude, may not be as effective in informing future education and awareness campaigns around this issue. There is now doubt that the imperial evidence around social-psychological factors as predictors of guilt is vital to understand in any effective analysis of this issue but in reality the most effective way to enhance attitudes and encourage reconciliation moving forward is to apply an understanding of the social-psychological dynamics of Empathy in any future strategy.

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