Loyalty Increases Perceptions of Harm

Authors:

Abstract: Loyalty can influence how harmful an action appears to be. Four studies showed that the more people are loyal to an object (e.g., friend, team, institution), the more they are likely to perceive the same negative action (e.g., a foul or brutally honest advice) as harmful. The more students were loyal to a basketball team, the more they saw actions from the competing team as harmful, underhanded, or unsportsmanlike (Studies 1-2). The effect held even controlling for related group constructs, such as group identification (Studies 1-2), and related moral constructs, such as disgust and belief in a just world (Study 1). Rather than differences in memory recall or general negative perceptions of an outgroup, this effect appeared to be due to loyalists amplifying the perceived harm inflicted (Study 2). Loyalty and harm perception can backfire, however. Not only are people more willing to lie for their object of loyalty, like a close friend when the friend has done something wrong (Study 3).

Track: ORG

Keywords: loyalty, perceptions, morality, harm