Group Membership
It has been found that moral credentials can be obtained vicariously. That is, a person will behave as if they themselves have moral credentials when that person observes another person from a group they identify with making an egalitarian decision. In research that draws on social identity theory it was also found that group membership moderates the effectiveness of moral credentials in mitigating perceptions of prejudice. Specifically, it was observed that displays of moral credentials have more effect between people who share in-group status.
Read more about this topic: Moral Credential
Famous quotes containing the words group and/or membership:
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)