Moral Outrage Moderates the Relationships Between System Perception, System Justification, and Intergroup Helping Behavior: A Multigroup Approach
type: CreativeWork
description: Helping behavior is proposed to be a universal experience where a wide range of behaviors are used to benefit another person or group (Aknin et al., 2013; Nadler, 2002). Often these behaviors are motivated by positive values or emotions (Dovidio et al., 2012). However, when social status is salient, the members of a group may shift their motivation to help others from recipient benefit to retaining power and status for themselves instead (Nadler & Chernyak-Hai, 2014). The intergroup helping as status relations (IHSR) model proposes that higher status group members are motivated to retain their groups’ higher status through specific helping behaviors directed toward those of lower status when the hierarchy is threatened (Nadler, 2002; Nadler & Halabi, 2006). According to the model, higher status group members are likely to give dependency-oriented help which solves the problem without transferring skill, rendering the lower status group members dependent in the future. Conversely, autonomy-oriented helping behavior that helps the recipient learn how to solve the problem and decreases dependency is often avoided being given by higher status group members so they can retain their position of power. Previous research has demonstrated that the motivation for maintaining status occurs as a function of system justification beliefs, such that the status quo should be defended, and social change avoided (Jost, 2018). Prosocial emotions were proposed as a way to disrupt this justification process (Thomas et al., 2009; Wakslak et al., 2007). Specifically, moral outrage, comprised of anger directed at systems, may attenuate the effects of system perceptions on system justification beliefs. As such experiencing moral outrage about socioeconomic inequality in the US should result in both decreases in dependency-oriented helping behavior and increases in autonomy-oriented helping behavior. The present two-study dissertation put forth a model investigating the moderating effect of …
abstract: Helping behavior is proposed to be a universal experience where a wide range of behaviors are used to benefit another person or group (Aknin et al., 2013; Nadler, 2002). Often these behaviors are motivated by positive values or emotions (Dovidio et al., 2012). However, when social status is salient, the members of a group may shift their motivation to help others from recipient benefit to retaining power and status for themselves instead (Nadler & Chernyak-Hai, 2014). The intergroup helping as status relations (IHSR) model proposes that higher status group members are motivated to retain their groups’ higher status through specific helping behaviors directed toward those of lower status when the hierarchy is threatened (Nadler, 2002; Nadler & Halabi, 2006). According to the model, higher status group members are likely to give dependency-oriented help which solves the problem without transferring skill, rendering the lower status group members dependent in the future. Conversely, autonomy-oriented helping behavior that helps the recipient learn how to solve the problem and decreases dependency is often avoided being given by higher status group members so they can retain their position of power. Previous research has demonstrated that the motivation for maintaining status occurs as a function of system justification beliefs, such that the status quo should be defended, and social change avoided (Jost, 2018). Prosocial emotions were proposed as a way to disrupt this justification process (Thomas et al., 2009; Wakslak et al., 2007). Specifically, moral outrage, comprised of anger directed at systems, may attenuate the effects of system perceptions on system justification beliefs. As such experiencing moral outrage about socioeconomic inequality in the US should result in both decreases in dependency-oriented helping behavior and increases in autonomy-oriented helping behavior. The present two-study dissertation put forth a model investigating the moderating effect of …
author: Knapp, Michael Edward
keywords: Helping behavior, Prosocial emotions, Social status, System justification, Social Psychology
date published: 2023-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:40:22Z
provider: Claremont Graduate University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Claremont Graduate University