Verification of ingroup morality promotes willingness to participate in collective action for immigrants’ rights

Three experiments tested whether verification of ingroup morality increases engagement in collective action in favor of immigrants’ rights. To that end, participants were exposed to (a) verifying, (b) negatively discrepant, (c) enhancing, or (d) no feedback about the morality of their group in general (Studies 1–2) or specifically in matters of corruption (Study 3). Results show that those who received verifying feedback of their group’s morality were more willing to engage in collective action than those who received negative or no feedback. These effects seemed to be mediated by increased anger over immigrants’ disadvantage and positive attitudes towards them. Critically, enhancing feedback exerted similar effects as verifying feedback, although the latter yielded more stable and consistent results across the studies. These results suggest that appeals to collective ingroup morality can be effective to promote immigrants’ rights, especially when members of the host society feel that others consider them as moral as they perceive themselves.