Justice Sensitivity in Intergroup Contexts: A Theoretical Framework

Across the four facets of the JS perspectives, JS captures individual differences in the readiness to perceive injustice, the intensity of cognitive and emotional reactions to perceived injustice, and the resulting motivation to restore justice (Schmitt, 1996). Depending on the perspective, these components of JS play out in qualitatively different ways.

The bulk of the literature on JS has been focused on individual-level processes and interpersonal contexts. Nevertheless, there are several papers in which authors have addressed the relevance of the JS perspectives in political contexts and for group-level processes (e.g., Gollwitzer et al., 2021). Here, we selectively review those studies that shed light on the roles that the JS perspectives might play in intergroup contexts.

Regarding group positionalities, past work addressing JS in intergroup contexts has focused exclusively on advantaged groups. For example, Rothmund and colleagues (2020*) investigated the correlations between the JS perspectives and preferences for populist radical-right politicians or parties among White individuals in the USA and Germany. They found that victim sensitivity consistently predicted endorsement of right-wing populist agents, and that this relationship was mediated by heightened anti-immigration attitudes. By contrast, the other-regarding JS perspectives were negatively related to anti-immigration attitudes.

In a longitudinal study in the context of the German reunification, beneficiary sensitivity predicted continued willingness among West Germans to transfer tax money to former East German parts of the country (Gollwitzer et al., 2005). Victim sensitivity, by contrast, was predictive of relative increases in group-based anger among West Germans (experienced toward East Germans) and worry about the future of their group (Süssenbach & Gollwitzer, 2015). In the context of the Euro crisis that had unfolded starting in 2010, Rothmund et al. (2017) found that, among Germans, observer sensitivity correlated with enhanced empathy toward, and support for solidarity with European countries in need of financial transfers. By contrast, victim sensitivity was associated with less support for solidarity, mediated by heightened nationalistic concerns and resentment toward debtor countries, and lower empathy toward them.

Complementing these correlational findings with experimental approaches, Süssenbach and Gollwitzer (2015) and Rothmund et al. (2017) found consistent evidence that victim-sensitive individuals reacted particularly negatively to news reports stressing potential exploitative intentions among groups seeking support from the participants’ own group. Such news framing in the context of the Euro crisis led to increased nationalistic concerns and reduced solidarity among victim-sensitive (compared to less victim-sensitive) persons, but did not diminish the positive association of observer sensitivity with solidarity. Similarly, news reports claiming exploitative intentions among asylum seekers triggered strong anger reactions among highly victim-sensitive (compared to less victim-sensitive) Germans. Observer sensitivity, by contrast, retained a positive relation with compassion, independent of the news report framing.

Taken together, these findings suggest that individual differences in the JS perspectives might be relevant for how individuals construe and react to relationships between their group and other groups. Among arguably advantaged group members, these studies revealed meaningful relations between the JS perspectives and intergroup attitudes (e.g., anti-immigration attitudes), emotion (e.g., group-based anger and fear), and behavioral inclination (e.g., solidarity in terms of support for tax transfers or financial credits).

In addition to the reviewed studies, there is emerging interest in how the JS perspectives relate to the endorsement of radical or violent means for political goals. This line of research is relevant for intergroup contexts as well, as it touches on conflict between opposing groups in society, and the ways in which group members approach these conflicts. However, results are quite mixed. For instance, in a heterogeneous sample of the Dutch population, victim sensitivity was related to feelings of personal and group-based relative deprivation (fraternal deprivation, Runciman & Runciman, 1966, and other risk factors of radicalization), and these in turn were associated with support for violent political organizations (Macdougall et al., 2018). Among German adolescents (Jahnke et al., 2020), victim sensitivity was also related to stronger endorsement of violence as a means to achieve political goals generally, and specifically as a means to achieve right-wing group goals. In this sample, observer sensitivity was negatively related to such endorsements. In a further study with young adult and mostly left-wing activists, participants were asked to indicate a political group that they strongly identified with, and then to report their intentions to engage in different kinds of activism on behalf of this group. Notably, in this study, observer (and not victim) sensitivity was related to legal as well as radical activism intentions. Taken together, these studies suggest that there exists a relationship between the JS perspectives and group-based radicalization processes, albeit the nature of this relationship is still far from conclusive.

In our framework, we assume that group positionalities, including the relative standing of social groups with regard to status, power, and other resources, can provide relevant situational affordances and demands for group-level experiences and behavior (e.g., Crosby, 1976; Merton & Kitt, 1950; Walker & Smith, 2002). Furthermore, we take a social identity perspective and assume that, when a person identifies strongly as a group member, their group’s circumstances are self-relevant, independent of any individual concerns that might be affected or not. As such, their group’s circumstances pose relevant contextual demands that the person has to cope with. This notion is fully in line with the reasoning underlying the dynamic dual-pathway model of approach coping with collective disadvantage (von Zomeren et al., 2012). Indeed, the authors state: “… structural discrimination (e.g., based on gender, race, or ethnicity) and other collective disadvantages (e.g., higher taxes, environmental issues) are important contextual demands with which people cope” (p. 184). However, while the dynamic dual-pathway model is specifically concerned with coping with collective disadvantage, we extend this notion to encompass relative advantage of an in-group (Leach et al., 2002) as well as a group’s bystander status relative to other groups’ disadvantages or conflicts (e.g., Saab et al., 2015) as contextual demands.²

As stated above, we consider identification with a social group to be a key boundary condition that determines whether and to which extent group circumstances are psychologically relevant for an individual. For people who identify strongly as members of a group, their group’s positionalities are self-relevant as contextual demands. For individuals who do not identify or only weakly identify with a group, their appraisals and reactions will depend on how their individual interests or personal concerns are affected in a particular situation, rather than on their group’s circumstances per se (von Zomeren et al., 2012). In that sense, we posit that identification with a group “shifts” psychological processes from the individual level to the group level.

Since the relevance of the JS perspectives for individual-level processes is relatively well researched (see our review above), we propose a framework that helps understand the various ways in which the JS perspectives might become relevant at the group level. Based on the social identity perspective, we focus on how the JS perspectives might shape processes among people who are strongly identified with their group. This is not to say that the JS perspectives should be irrelevant among persons who only weakly identify with their group, but for such people, the decisive factor is likely to be the way that they perceive a potential injustice to affect or relate to them as individuals (rather than as group members).

To the extent that a person identifies as a member of a social group, they will engage in group-level social comparison and appraise their group’s standing relative to other groups as self-relevant (Runciman & Runciman, 1966). Drawing on appraisal theories (e.g., Mikula, 2003; see Scherer et al., 2001), we know that perceptions of injustices result when situations are perceived as illegitimate (i.e., entitlements or rights are seen to be violated) and when blame is attributed (i.e., an intentional agent, self or other, is seen as responsible for and under control of the circumstances, or no justifications are accepted; Alicke, 2000; Shaver, 1985). While appraisal theories often focus on individual-level processes in interpersonal contexts, they can inform our thinking about group-level appraisals (for a similar argument, see van Zomeren et al., 2012). Independent of how they are affected as individuals, people can perceive intergroup relations as illegitimate and attribute blame to certain groups or group representatives (including their own).

As spelled out in intergroup-emotion theory (e.g., Mackie et al., 2008; Smith & Mackie, 2015), group-level appraisals can trigger group-based emotions, meaning emotions experienced by group members on behalf of their group, independent of any personal concerns (Iyer & Leach, 2008). While the subjective experiences and psychological consequences regarding arousal and information processing are thought to be similar between such group-based emotions and individual-level emotions, group-based emotions are specific due to their group-level appraisal patterns, as well as to their group-relevant behavioral consequences. Indeed, an important function of group-based emotions is the regulation of intergroup behaviors, such as intergroup discrimination, solidarity, or protest.

Qualitatively different group-based emotions with their specific inherent behavioral tendencies have been investigated among disadvantaged, advantaged, and (albeit less so) bystander groups (e.g., Li & Leidner, 2019). For instance, among disadvantaged groups, anger has been identified as a critical emotion that fuels collective action against disadvantage (e.g., Smith et al., 2008; van Zomeren et al., 2004; Walker & Smith, 2002). Among advantaged groups, collective guilt (i.e., guilt experienced on behalf of one’s group’s wrongdoings or complicities) has attracted scientific attention (e.g., Leach et al., 2006), together with processes of cognitive disengagement that work against experiences of collective guilt (Leach et al., 2002). Bystander groups have received less attention, but some studies point to moral outrage and sympathy as emotional responses among bystander group members, that are predictive of intergroup solidarity (Saab et al., 2015).

In our framework, we emphasize that the emotional experiences resulting from perceived injustices at the group level should critically depend on how the individual group member construes the relation of their group to other groups. Clearly, the contextual demands of disadvantaged, advantaged, and bystander groups diverge substantially (Turner et al., 1987). Moreover, as proposed by intergroup-emotion theory, certain group-level emotional experiences can become part of the group identity, so that rather stereotypical emotions might be expressed by identified members of one group (“emotional self-stereotyping,” Mackie et al., 2008, p. 1871). Despite these potential restrictions on individual differences, individual members who identify with the same social group could still largely differ in their group-level social comparisons, and the subsequent appraisals that they engage in. For example, some members of disadvantaged groups have been found to engage in downward social comparisons, when they care about groups that might be worse off or equally disadvantaged as their group, when they worry about losing privileges that their group holds as opposed to other groups (e.g., Ball & Branscombe, 2019), or when they downplay their group’s disadvantage (e.g., Jost et al., 2002). Among advantaged group members, Leach et al., (2002) have spelled out the various patterns of group-level appraisals that could give rise to qualitatively very different emotional experiences. For example, advantaged group members could feel anxious and worry about the possibility of losing their group’s privilege, or they could feel guilty, depending on whether they perceive their group as being in control of the circumstances or not.

We propose that when individuals identify strongly with a social group, individual differences in JS come to play a role in how their group’s circumstances relative to other groups are appraised. Generally speaking, higher (compared to lower) scores on any of the JS perspectives should result in a greater readiness to perceive group constellations as unjust. According to our framework, group-level appraisals should be jointly shaped by contextual demands and the JS perspectives. Beyond the individual readiness to perceive injustice, further core components of JS are the intensities of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to perceived injustices (Schmitt, 1996). Therefore, in intergroup contexts, when individuals identify strongly with their group, the JS perspectives should also modulate how strongly these group members react to perceived group-level injustice.

More specifically, each JS perspective should entail a characteristic pattern of group-level social comparisons and appraisals, and shape specific emotional and behavioral responses, depending on the contextual demands posed by disadvantaged, advantaged, or bystander group positionalities. Next, we will spell out how these group-level processes might be shaped by the JS perspectives. For each JS perspective, we start with the group positionality that most directly matches it (see Table 1 for an overview).

Parallel to individual-level processes, victim sensitivity should involve heightened concerns for justice for the in-group. Thus, among persons who identify strongly with a social group, persons with high (compared to lower) victim sensitivity should readily perceive or anticipate illegitimate disadvantages for their in-group, attribute blame to out-groups, reject justification of their perceived disadvantages, and resist conciliatory efforts from the adversarial group.

Since the contextual demands of disadvantaged groups afford perceptions of past and/or ongoing unjust victimization, we propose that victim sensitivity should be predictive of such perceptions (i.e., experience of fraternal deprivation) among highly identified members of disadvantaged groups. Furthermore, among disadvantaged groups, highly identified members with high (compared to lower) victim sensitivity should react with more intense anger to perceiving their in-group as unjustly victimized, and they should be inclined to engage in protest and aim to redress the injustice. In other words, victim sensitivity might be a personality predictor of engagement in collective action among the disadvantaged. However, it seems plausible that victim-sensitive group members will engage in action on behalf of their group, and be reluctant to fight in solidarity on behalf of other disadvantaged groups (Noor et al., 2017), in line with notions of exclusive or competitive victim beliefs. Since victim sensitivity is associated with legitimizing cognitions regarding own norm violations at the individual level (Gollwitzer et al., 2005), it could foster endorsement of non-normative means (e.g., use of violence) to achieve group goals among highly identified disadvantaged group members.

For advantaged group members, in contrast, contextual demands may afford the anticipation of future unjust disadvantage or loss of subjectively legitimate privilege (e.g., Nelson et al., 2018), and accordingly, we hypothesize that victim sensitivity should be predictive of anticipation of injustices toward the advantaged in-group, among highly identified members. For example, when advantaged groups are confronted with calls for reparation or punishment, victim-sensitive (as opposed to less victim-sensitive) individuals who identify with their group should readily perceive these calls as illegitimate and anticipate unjust victimization of their group. In addition to angry reactions toward out-groups’ claims for reparation or punishment, victim sensitivity should also predict more intense fear of exploitation, refusal of solidarity, and rejection of any other steps that could threaten one’s group’s standing. The results reported by Süssenbach and Gollwitzer (2015) and Rothmund and colleagues (2017, 2020) provide the first evidence in this direction. Furthermore, among advantaged group members, victim sensitivity could involve an inclination to legitimize their own group’s advantages as legitimate, through the use of exonerating cognitions (e.g., Roccas et al., 2006) and the rejection of any responsibility for disadvantaged groups’ circumstances.

So far, our theorizing has been guided by the general assumption that the psychological processes that are involved in how victim sensitivity plays out in interpersonal contexts, become relevant in parallel ways in intergroup contexts, when persons construe themselves as members of a social group and appraise the relationships of their group with other groups. Now, we want to address the possibility that, specifically for victim sensitivity, processes at group and individual levels might be in conflict. In other words, victim sensitivity could entail a conflict between personal and group-based concerns. We know that at the individual level, persons with higher (compared to lower) victim sensitivity tend to fear being exploited and therefore avoid making themselves dependent on the decisions of others (such as in cooperative settings, e.g., Maltese et al., 2016). In group contexts, victim sensitivity could similarly heighten such a personal concern about the possibility that fellow in-group members might exploit one’s engagement on behalf of the group, through free-riding (e.g., Stroebe & Frey, 1982). This personal concern and resulting emotions, such as fear, could counteract the group-based perception of injustices, such that victim-sensitive persons could be torn between wanting to act against injustices inflicted on their group, and wanting to avoid their personal engagement being exploited by others.

These considerations can be debated, since personal concerns might be outweighed by concerns about the in-group when individuals strongly identify as group members. Indeed, in-group mistrust has been found to play less of a role among highly identified (compared to less identified) group members (Gollwitzer et al., 2021). Future research can fruitfully address this stimulating question. For example, a psychological conflict between personal and group-level concerns among victim-sensitive group members could manifest such that victim sensitivity correlates with group-based anger and endorsement of collective action, but also with reluctance to become active oneself, especially if taking action would mean bearing personal costs or risks.

Despite the apparent usefulness of our framework to inform a comprehensive set of hypotheses regarding the JS perspectives in intergroup contexts, the framework represents an (over-)simplification in various regards. We would like to mention some ways in which we anticipate that future research findings might inform extensions or modifications of our framework. For instance, in our framework, we take into account three group positionalities–disadvantaged, advantaged, and bystander groups—that arguably involve distinct contextual demands and affordances for group members. Clearly, more fine-grained distinctions are possible. Notably, differentiating between more direct and indirect roles of advantaged groups could allow us to spell apart consequences of perpetrator and beneficiary sensitivities, the two JS perspectives that we treated in common subchapters.

As another limitation of the presented framework, we have worked out predictions exclusively for individuals who are strongly identified with their group (Table 1). Because of our focus on the relevance of the JS perspectives for group-level processes, we did not spell out predictions for those weakly identified with their group. As a consequence, the role of identification as a moderator remains underspecified. This role is most likely a complex one, because, for those weakly identified, the consequences of the JS perspectives should depend on the ways in which individual concerns are affected by the potential injustices, whereas for those strongly identified, group positionalities should be (more) relevant. Accordingly, one important avenue for future research will be to explore the extent to which identification is a crucial moderator of the differently hypothesized links between the JS perspectives and their downstream correlates.

Relatedly, as it currently stands, our framework is explicitly symmetrical, in that it assumes that high identification with the relevant group is equally important across the different group positionalities (i.e., disadvantaged, advantaged, bystander) that we discuss. It is, however, conceivable that identification is a less crucial factor among members of disadvantaged groups. Drawing on Self-Categorization Theory (Turner et al., 1987), we believe it is plausible that for members of disadvantaged groups, the relationships between the JS perspectives and the different resulting appraisals, emotions, and behaviors exist for both high and low identifiers. This is because the disadvantage or victimization of the in-group potentially poses such strong contextual demands that psychological identification with the group is not necessary for individuals to respond to them at the group level (see Schmitt et al., 2013). Indeed, in line with van Zomeren et al.’s (2004) observation, while the social identity approach posits identification as a precursor for perceptions of collective disadvantage, severe disadvantage itself may draw attention to group-level outcomes and generate group-level appraisals and behaviors (Tajfel et al., 1979).

In a similar vein, future research should scrutinize another proposed symmetry of our model; namely the assumption that the JS perspectives play equally important roles across the different group positionalities. In parallel to the previous note on identification among disadvantaged groups, and as Süssenbach and Gollwitzer (2015) have speculated, it is possible that victim sensitivity, specifically, will be less determining of group-level appraisals among members of victimized groups. The logic remains the same; severe disadvantage potentially neutralizes the effects of this interindividual difference variable, and cedes way for more uniform appraisals among group members, who might react homogeneously as if they were all high on victim sensitivity. In other words, severe group-based disadvantage might provide contextual demands that can be characterized as strong situations, as conceptualized by Mischel (1973) and Schmitt et al. (2013). This question can of course further be extended beyond the particular victim JS perspective and the disadvantaged positionality, to a broader pondering in line with person-in-context approaches to personality and social psychology. Specifically, we can ask under what circumstances group influences are strong enough to homogenize individual differences in sensitivity to injustice, through material and/or normative mechanisms which flatten the role of personality. These are empirical questions that we argue should be explored.

Lastly, with our framework, we have started to spell out how and under which conditions the JS perspectives should shape group-level experience and behavior. Conversely, group-level experiences might also impact individual dispositions in ways that are retained over time and generalized across situations (e.g., Mendoza-Denton et al., 2002). Research on personality development has clarified that life experiences can impact personality in enduring ways. Similarly, significant events at the group level that are experienced as self-relevant by strongly identified group members could have such impact as well (Li et al., 2021). We therefore believe that integrating intergroup research with research on personality development promises exciting avenues.

To conclude, JS as a personality construct has stimulated fruitful theorizing and research on individual differences in the processing of and reactions to injustices at the interpersonal level. With our framework, we hope to provide the basis for a comprehensive understanding of the JS perspectives in intergroup contexts. As such, our framework can help clarify the mixed findings in the literature, and provide promising directions for future research on the experiences of and reactions to injustices at the group level.