They’re All the Same, Sometimes: Prejudicial Attitudes toward Muslims Influence Motivated Judgments of Entitativity and Collective Responsibility for an Individual’s Actions

Abstract

Are groups responsible for the actions of individual members? Previous research suggests that people use judgments about the entitativity of an outgroup when judging its collective responsibility for the actions of its members. But do these judgments of outgroup entitativity change when outgroup individuals engage in positive vs. negative deeds? We argue that people make motivated judgments of outgroup entitativity based on their pre-existing attitudes toward the outgroup and the valence of outgroup members' actions. In both a first study and a pre-registered replication, we find that when people have positive attitudes toward Muslims, they judge Muslims to be lower in entitativity following a Muslim's negative action and higher in entitativity following a Muslim individuals' positive action, thus holding Muslims responsible for positive, but not negative individual actions. We also find a weaker mirror pattern of effects for those who have negative attitudes toward Muslims.