In three studies, we examined how racial/ethnic majority (i.e., White) and non-Indigenous minority participants in Canada responded to reparations for Indigenous peoples in Canada. Our goal was to understand whether and why there may be intraminority solidarity in this context. In Study 1, with a large, national survey (N = 1,947), we examined the extent to which participants agreed the government should be responsible for addressing human rights violations committed by previous governments as well as whether the government has done enough to address the wrongs committed against Indigenous peoples in Canada. With a sample of undergraduate students in Study 2 (N = 144) and another community sample in Study 3 (N = 233), we examined possible mediators of the relationship between ethnic status and support for reparations. Taken together, the results of three studies suggest that, compared to White majority Canadians, non-Indigenous minority Canadians were more supportive of providing reparations to Indigenous peoples through a complex chain of collective victimhood, inclusive victim consciousness, continued victim suffering, and solidarity.
From government apologies to commemorative events, and from memorials to financial compensation, historically-harmed groups are increasingly demanding reparations (
Even when significant harm and intent is clear, reparations are often hard won (
This reluctance to provide reparations is not unique to the context of Residential Schools or Canada. Rather, governments and citizens worldwide are often slow and resist redressing ugly pasts (
Social psychological research suggests many factors affect public support for reparations to harmed outgroups. Some refer to the state or experiences of the perpetrator group member. For example, perpetrator group members are more likely to endorse both symbolic and material reparations if they take a guilty physical posture (vs. a prideful or neutral one;
Other researchers have examined strategies aimed at increasing support for reparations among groups who are neither members of perpetrator nor victim groups.
Several individual differences also impact support for reparations. For example, support for outgroup reparations is associated with lower levels of both modern racism (
In this research, we extend the literature on determinants of support for reparations by investigating the impact of another factor: Ethnic majority versus minority status (henceforth referred to as “status” or “ethnic status”). Interested in Canadians’ attitudes about the Government of Canada providing reparations to Indigenous peoples in Canada, we compared the opinions of White and non-Indigenous racial/ethnic minority Canadians. White Canadians constitute both the population majority and tend to have higher social status, whereas non-Indigenous minority Canadians tend to have lower social status (
Consistent with other scholars in social psychology, we use the term “intraminority” here, but others prefer the term “interminority” to describe the same phenomenon. While hoping that scholars will in time agree on one term, readers should be aware that two terms exist to refer to the same phenomenon. We chose intraminority because “minority” itself is a diverse group; there are many groups within this superordinate category.
We also sought to understand some reasons why intraminority solidarity could affect support for reparations. We focused on four variables: collective victimhood, inclusive victim consciousness, political solidarity, and perceived outgroup suffering. In what follows we describe the rationale for the role of each of these variables as well as our hypotheses.
How groups experience harm will vary. It may be physical or structural, historical or ongoing, and experienced by either the individual (directly) or their ancestors (indirectly). Compared to majority group members, we propose that minority group members are more likely to report that their group has suffered harm; that is, to have a sense of collective victimhood. Importantly, though, we also acknowledge that even majority group members may have some sense of collective victimhood, as we explain briefly below.
There are at least three reasons why majority group members may experience some degree of collective victimhood. Certainly, one is that all people have multiple identities woven together in the self, such as ethnic status, religion, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and gender, each of which may be attached to differing levels of social privilege. Due to these intersecting identities, then, a person who belongs to one majority or privileged group could simultaneously belong to other minority or underprivileged groups (
Relatedly, historically dominant groups may also have a sense of collective victimhood due to a loss of status and power over time. Some suggest a sense of loss of White privilege within the United States was partly responsible for the election of Donald Trump in 2016 (
Finally, some subgroups within the “White” majority also have a clear history of or are presently struggling with collective victimization. Especially in cases where that victimization is widely acknowledged within and outside the subgroup, group members may also have a sense of collective victimhood. In Canada, though the first to settle were English and French colonialists, the “White” majority today includes White settlers from elsewhere (
Acknowledging the above, compared to majority group members, we nonetheless expect members of visible minority groups are more likely to have accessible feelings of collective victimhood, because so much of large scale and day-to-day victimization has centered around ethnic status. Though such acts are not consistent with Canada’s multicultural, inclusive identity (
Once a person sees themselves as a collective victim, there are various ways in which they can construe that victimhood (for a review, see
We also expected collective victimhood would positively predict perceived outgroup suffering. Past research suggests reminders of collective victimhood may negatively affect intergroup relations with an adversarial group (cf.
Finally, we considered the possibility that collective victimhood would also directly affect support for reparations and, on balance, thought that the effect would be negative. Though we describe the effects of collective victimhood as positive above, it may also be that, in the absence of factors such as inclusive victim consciousness and the capacity to perceive privity, collective victimhood could manifest as exclusive victimhood construals (e.g., competitive victimhood, siege mentality), which are negatively associated with outgroup support (
A growing body of literature suggests that one consequence of an inclusive victim consciousness is solidarity with other victimized groups in the same society.
We expected political solidarity would positively predict support for reparations directly. We share
Groups seeking reparations are more likely to be successful if they can make a case that the past continues to cause harm in the present, though privity can be difficult to establish. Legal scholars note that the ability to establish a causal connection between the past harm and present suffering in court often results in the denial of reparations claims (
Others have demonstrated that perceptions of privity affect whether outgroups will support a group’s call for reparations. As mentioned earlier,
Subsequently,
We propose that political solidarity may explain the relationship between perceived outgroup suffering and support for reparations. The more a person sees an outgroup’s present disadvantage as resulting from an historical harm, the more they might feel that social change must occur for that group, which may manifest as support for reparations.
To summarize, in this project we focused on the effects of ethnic status on public support for reparations. We studied this in the context of racial/ethnic minority and majority Canadians’ support for their government providing reparations to Indigenous peoples in Canada, an important yet little-studied context in social psychology (for notable exceptions, see
ethnic status (i.e., minority, majority) would affect
people who have a stronger sense of collective victimhood would be more likely to both have a sense of
people who have a sense of inclusive victimhood and perceive continued outgroup suffering would be more likely to express political solidarity (paths
political solidarity (path
With all the above paths specified, we considered that the direct effect of collective victimhood could be negative. Our rationale for this is that a sense of collective victimhood may also predict other types of victim beliefs, such as exclusive victim consciousness or competitive victimhood (cf.
Although the psychological processes we are studying are not new, no prior research has examined all processes simultaneously. Thus, a contribution of this research is that it helps clarify how these important variables work together.
Hypothesized path model representing the effects of ethnic status on support for reparations. All effects are positive except for
In Study 1, we evaluated how majority and minority participants living in Canada responded to two questions about reparations from a large, national survey. To our knowledge, this is the first study to compare minority versus majority group support for reparations using such a sample (see
The Trudeau Foundation Human Rights in Canada Today national survey (
Importantly, at the time of the survey the most widely accepted umbrella term describing the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples in Canada was “Aboriginal.” Among many groups, the preferred term has since become “Indigenous;” some still use the terms interchangeably, but it is noteworthy that even the Government of Canada has recently changed “National Aboriginal Day” to “National Indigenous Peoples Day” (
Of those participants who were called by phone and answered, 93% agreed to participate and less than 1% terminated the interview mid-way. The aim of the Trudeau Foundation survey was to evaluate the state of human rights in Canada, the impact of the
Variable | |
---|---|
Ethnic Status | |
Majority (White) | 1,794 (90.5) |
Non-Indigenous Minority | 137 (9.5) |
Gender | |
Male | 951 (47.7) |
Female | 980 (52.3) |
Education | |
Less than secondary school | 233 (10.2) |
Secondary school graduate/no post-secondary education | 292 (14.1) |
Some post-secondary education | 337 (17.3) |
Post-secondary diploma or degree | 1,019 (56.1) |
Income | |
Lower income | 370 (18.1) |
Lower middle income | 378 (19.2) |
Upper middle income | 381 (21.0) |
High income | 334 (19.1) |
Marital Status | |
Single, never married | 360 (21.2) |
Married/living common law | 1,183 (61.4) |
Separated/divorced | 193 (9.3) |
Widowed | 164 (6.4) |
Environics Categories | Majority ( |
Minority ( |
---|---|---|
Canadiana | 600 | 0 |
English, Irish, Scottish, or Welsh | 571 | 0 |
Other European (Russian, German, Scandinavian, Polish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Spanish, Hungarian) | 349 | 0 |
French | 147 | 0 |
Italian | 59 | 0 |
Portuguese | 13 | 0 |
Americana | 11 | 0 |
Greek | 4 | 0 |
Jewish | 4 | 0 |
African (Black) | 0 | 30 |
West Asian, Middle Eastern or Arab (Armenian, Egyptian, Afghan, Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Turkish, Saudi) | 0 | 29 |
Chinese | 0 | 25 |
West Indian (Caribbean, Jamaican) | 0 | 24 |
East Indian (India) | 0 | 20 |
Southeast Asian (Vietnamese, Cambodian, Malaysian, Filipino) | 0 | 20 |
South or Latin American (and Guyanese) | 0 | 18 |
Pakistani | 0 | 11 |
Sri Lankan | 0 | 4 |
Japanese | 0 | 2 |
Korean | 0 | 1 |
aThe results were identical whether or not we included or excluded “Canadian” and “American” in “majority” group.
There were many ethnic and cultural groups that comprised the minority and majority groups. As coded by Environics, the largest groups within the majority group were “Canadian,” “English, Irish, Scottish, or Welsh in origin,” “Other European (Russian, German, Scandinavian, Polish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Spanish, Hungarian),” and “French.” Within the minority group, there were no dominant groups; the first few largest groups were “African (Black),” “Chinese,” and “West Asian, Middle Eastern or Arab (Armenian, Egyptian, Afghan, Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Turkish, Saudi).”
Of the larger set of questions, we chose to analyze responses to two questions on views on human rights. The first was a question on human rights violations in Canada: “Do you believe that a current Canadian government, should, or should not, be responsible for addressing human rights violations committed by previous Canadian governments from generations ago?” Although this question does not explicitly reference Indigenous peoples, answers to other questions in the same survey suggest respondents were primarily thinking about Indigenous peoples’ disadvantage and history of victimization. In particular, participants most frequently listed “Aboriginal Canadians” in two open-ended questions, which respectively asked who is most vulnerable in Canada and who should receive an apology or some form of restitution from the Government of Canada for past human rights violations.
The other question we analyzed explicitly asked participants about their support for reparations for Indigenous peoples in Canada:
As you may know, over the past few years the federal government has formally acknowledged the wrongs committed against Canada’s Aboriginal People. This acknowledgement has included a formal apology in Parliament in 2008, and the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the legacy of the Residential School system which separated many Aboriginal children from their families and communities. Do you feel the federal government has now done enough to address the wrongs committed against Aboriginal peoples in Canada, or do you feel that the government needs to do more?
Participants could respond to the questions by answering “the Federal government has done enough,” “the Federal government needs to do more,” “do not know,” or “depends.” In our analyses, we excluded those who endorsed “do not know” and “depends” (
We used unweighted
Overall, the majority of participants (
As expected, however, majority/minority status moderated support for reparations. After adjusting for sociodemographic variables, logistic regressions indicated that minority (vs. majority) status was significantly associated with increased odds of agreeing the government should be responsible for addressing human rights violations and do more to address wrongs committed against Aboriginal peoples. Specifically, for the human rights question, 81.0% (
Using data from a national survey, in this study we examined the relationship between majority and minority ethnic status and support for reparations for Indigenous peoples in Canada. As hypothesized, compared to majority Canadians, minority Canadians were more likely to agree that the Government of Canada should address harms committed by past governments and do more for Indigenous peoples. Also as hypothesized, minority (vs. majority) Canadians were more likely to agree that the Government of Canada should address harms committed by past governments and do more for Indigenous peoples. These data provide important preliminary evidence that minority (vs. majority) groups may be more willing to support reparations for other minorities. This effect is likely to replicate given the large, national sample—a significant strength of this study is its external validity. At a time when there is widespread concern about the reliability of social psychological (and other) research (
One limitation of this study, however, is that we were bound to the questions in the survey. Consequently, we were unable to test for possible mechanisms of these findings. It was also unclear whether participants were indeed thinking about Indigenous peoples when answering the question about the current government’s responsibility to address human rights violations of previous governments; participants could have been thinking about other groups. We conducted Study 2 to address these issues.
In Study 2, we again evaluated support for reparations for Indigenous peoples among majority and non-Indigenous minority participants living in Canada, but this time with a university student sample. Aside from replicating our findings, we also had two other reasons for conducting this study. First, we wanted to demonstrate that people in Canada typically think about Indigenous peoples as the prototypical victim group in the case of Government-perpetrated harms, to augment the internal validity of Study 1. Second, and more importantly, we wanted to understand why majority and non-Indigenous minority Canadians differentially support reparations for intergroup harms. As
Study 2: Hypothesized mediation model. Ethnic status is conceptualized as 0 = majority, 1 = minority.
Participants were 144 undergraduate students (35 men, 109 women) with an average age of 19.71 years (
Participants attended an in-person, small group experimental session to participate in a study on “attitudes toward specific social issues.” After providing informed consent, participants started a survey on a computer that lasted up to 25 minutes.
Participants completed the measures in the order below. All rating scales used a 7-point scale. Except where specified, the scale labels were 1 =
In Study 1 we assumed participants were thinking about Indigenous peoples when answering the question about the current government’s responsibility to address human rights violations of previous governments; however, it was unclear whether this was the case. To address this limitation and understand who Canadians think of most frequently as a harmed group, we asked participants, “Of the following groups, which do you believe has suffered the most human rights violations committed by the Canadian government?” Excerpted from the Trudeau Foundation survey (described in Study 1) and presented in random order, participants were required to select one of the following: (1) women, (2) visible minorities/people of color, (3) specific racial/ethnic group other than Aboriginal, (4) immigrants, (5) refugees, (6) Aboriginal peoples (First Nations, Métis, Inuit), (7) persons with disabilities, (8) senior citizens, (9) youth, (10) minority language speakers, (11) prison inmates/felons/convicted of crimes, (12) members of religious groups, (13) gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered individuals, (14) other (specify), (14) none, and (15) don’t know.
Participants self-reported their attitudes toward reparations for harms committed by the Canadian government by rating their agreement with two statements that paralleled the questions in Study 1. Participants first responded to the single item, “The Canadian government should be responsible for addressing human rights violations committed against Aboriginal peoples by previous governments from generations ago” (we later refer to this as the “government responsible” item). Participants then read the following passage:
As you may know, over the past few years the federal government has formally acknowledged the wrongs committed against Canada’s Aboriginal peoples. This acknowledgement has included a formal apology in Parliament in 2008 and the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the legacy of the Residential School system that separated many Aboriginal children from their families and communities.
Immediately after reading the passage, participants rated their agreement or disagreement with the following statement: “I feel the federal government has now done enough to address the wrongs committed against Aboriginal peoples in Canada” (reverse scored; we subsequently call this the “government done enough” item). After verifying that responses to these two items correlated significantly, Spearman’s
Participants rated their agreement or disagreement with a one-item measure of solidarity: “I feel a sense of solidarity with Aboriginal peoples.”
Instructed to imagine how Aboriginal peoples are doing today, participants rated their agreement or disagreement that “as a result of human rights violations committed by the Canadian government, Aboriginal peoples are still suffering: (1) physical harm, (2) psychological harm, (3) cultural harm, and (4) financial harm.” We computed a perceived outgroup suffering composite by averaging ratings to these four statements (Cronbach’s α = .79).
Approximately 51% of participants listed “Aboriginal peoples (Métis, First Nations, Inuit)” as the group that has suffered the most human rights violations committed by the Canadian government. Next in frequency was “gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered individuals” with approximately 12% endorsement and “immigrants” with approximately 9% endorsement. To understand whether majority and minority Canadians were equally likely to list Aboriginal peoples as the most harmed group, we conducted a chi-square test. The endorsement of Aboriginal peoples was equivalent across the two groups (majority = 47%, minority = 56%), χ2(1) = 1.02,
Next, we tested for differences between majority and minority Canadians’ reactions to reparations for Aboriginal peoples and reports of solidarity and perceived outgroup suffering. We conducted
Measure | Ethnic Status |
Cohen’s |
||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Majority ( |
Minority ( |
|||||||
95% CI | 95% CI | |||||||
Support for Reparations | 3.66 | 1.22 | [3.38, 3.93] | 4.45 | 1.34 | [4.13, 4.77] | 3.72* | 0.62 |
Government responsible | 4.28 | 1.61 | [3.92, 4.64] | 5.04 | 1.52 | [4.67, 5.40] | 2.88* | 0.48 |
Government has done enough | 4.97 | 1.42 | [4.65, 5.29] | 4.13 | 1.66 | [3.74, 4.54] | -3.23* | 0.55 |
3.86 | 0.98 | [3.64, 4.08] | 4.22 | 1.11 | [3.95, 4.49] | 2.03* | 0.36 | |
4.22 | 1.44 | [3.89, 4.55] | 4.83 | 1.25 | [4.52, 5.13] | 2.68* | 0.46 |
To test possible reasons for the different reactions of majority and minority Canadians, we used
Antecedent | Consequent |
|||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0.36 | 0.18 | .04 | 0.61 | 0.23 | < .01 | 0.50 | 0.20 | .02 | ||||
0.23 | 0.09 | .02 | ||||||||||
0.35 | 0.08 | < .01 | ||||||||||
Constant | 3.86 | 0.12 | < .01 | 4.22 | 0.16 | < .01 | 1.29 | 0.49 | .01 | |||
Both solidarity,
Conceptually replicating the findings of Study 1, minority Canadians were more supportive of reparations for Indigenous peoples than were majority Canadians, even though both groups were equally likely to think of Indigenous peoples as the group the Government of Canada has harmed most. Specifically, minority Canadians were more likely to agree that the Canadian government should be responsible for harms against Aboriginal peoples perpetrated by past governments; they were also more likely to agree that the Canadian government has
Given that correlational findings tend to stabilize and be more accurate with larger sample sizes (
Together, the results of Studies 1 and 2 suggest an effect of minority (vs. majority) ethnic status on support for reparations, and that solidarity and perceived outgroup suffering may explain this effect. In this study, we sought to provide evidence for the full
Participants were 478 community respondents living in Canada, recruited through Qualtrics Panels for a larger study entitled “Perceptions on Reconciliation.” Of the total 478 respondents, 124 (26%) were White majority, 109 (23%) were non-Indigenous minorities, and 245 (51%) were Indigenous. Using Statistics Canada’s reporting classifications (e.g.,
We primarily focus on the subsample of majority and non-Indigenous minority participants, which included 110 men and 123 women with an average age of 43.77 years (
Demographic Characteristic | Ethnic Status |
|||
---|---|---|---|---|
Majority |
Minority |
Indigenous |
All |
|
49.12 (16.24) | 37.68 (13.79) | 36.71 (14.31) | 40.15 (15.63) | |
Gender | ||||
Male | 62 (50.0%) | 48 (44.0%) | 80 (32.7%) | 190 (39.7%) |
Female | 62 (50.0%) | 61 (56.0%) | 164 (66.9%) | 287 (60.0%) |
Other | 0 | 0 | 1 (0.4%) | 1 (0.2%) |
Education | ||||
Some elementary (Grades 1-6) | 0 | 0 | 1 (0.4%) | 1 (0.2%) |
Completed elementary (Grades 7-8) | 0 | 1 (0.9%) | 2 (0.8%) | 3 (0.6%) |
Some high school (Grade 9-11) | 2 (1.6%) | 1 (0.9%) | 32 (13.1%) | 35 (7.3%) |
Completed high school | 28 (22.6%) | 16 (14.7%) | 66 (26.9%) | 110 (23.0%) |
Community college, vocational, trade school, commercial, CEGEPa | 37 (29.8%) | 19 (17.4%) | 80 (32.7%) | 136 (28.5%) |
Some university | 13 (10.5%) | 18 (16.5%) | 31 (12.7%) | 62 (13.0%) |
Completed university | 29 (23.4%) | 43 (39.4%) | 30 (12.2%) | 102 (21.3%) |
Post-graduate university/professional school | 15 (12.1%) | 11 (10.1%) | 3 (1.2%) | 29 (6.1%) |
Income | ||||
Under $30,000 | 29 (23.4%) | 19 (17.4%) | 107 (43.7%) | 155 (32.4%) |
$30,000-$60,000 | 32 (25.8%) | 31 (28.4%) | 65 (26.5%) | 128 (26.8%) |
$60,000-$80,000 | 25 (20.2%) | 21 (19.3%) | 34 (13.9%) | 80 (16.7%) |
$80,000-$100,000 | 14 (11.3%) | 19 (17.4%) | 20 (8.2%) | 53 (11.1%) |
$100,000 and over | 24 (19.4%) | 19 (17.4%) | 19 (7.8%) | 62 (13.0%) |
Born in Canada | ||||
No | 23 | 44 | 5 | 72 (15.1%) |
Yes | 101 | 65 | 239 | 405 (84.9%) |
aCEGEP = General and vocational college.
After providing informed consent, participants completed the survey online. Participants completed the same measures, with two exceptions. In this study, Indigenous participants did not complete measures of inclusive victimhood or political solidarity, as these items referred to Indigenous peoples themselves.
Unless specified otherwise, rating scales were the same across measures (i.e., 1 =
Participants first read, “Thinking about your racial/ethnic identity, using the scale below, please rate your agreement or disagreement with the following statements.” They then responded to four statements we created: (1) “I have had difficult personal experiences because of my racial/ethnic group membership,” (2) “Life is hard for members of my racial/ethnic group,” (3) “I belong to a racial/ethnic group that has been or continues to be discriminated against,” and (4) “I feel a sense of victimization when I think of my racial/ethnic identity.” The results of a maximum likelihood factor analysis (delta = 0) indicated one factor represented these items, as the often-significant chi-square goodness of fit test was not significant in this case, χ2(2) = 2.56,
The preamble read, “People belong to a variety of social groups based on characteristics such as race/ethnicity. Thinking about your racial/ethnic identity, using the scale below, please rate your agreement or disagreement with the following statements.” Participants then indicated their agreement with two statements: (1) “Indigenous peoples in Canada have experienced similar kinds of suffering as my group has,” and (2) “The oppression my group has experienced is similar to that endured by Indigenous peoples in Canada.” These two items, which we adapted from
Participants self-reported feelings of political solidarity by rating their agreement or disagreement with nine statements (e.g., “I stand united with Indigenous peoples”) from the Political Solidarity Measure (
Participants first read, “Please imagine how Indigenous peoples are doing today. Once you have an idea of how the typical or average Indigenous person is doing today, using the scale below, please rate your agreement or disagreement with the following statements.” Participants then responded to four statements we created: (1) “As a result of human rights violations committed by the Canadian government, Indigenous peoples are still suffering physical harm,” (2) “As a result of human rights violations committed by the Canadian government, Indigenous peoples are still suffering psychological harm,” (3) “As a result of human rights violations committed by the Canadian government, Indigenous peoples are still suffering cultural harm,” and (4) “As a result of human rights violations committed by the Canadian government, Indigenous peoples are still suffering financial harm.” The results of a maximum likelihood factor analysis (delta = 0) indicated one factor represented these items. The chi-square goodness of fit test was significant, χ2(2) = 6.34,
To assess support for reparations, we asked participants questions from a more recent Environics Institute poll entitled “Canadian public opinion on Aboriginal Peoples” (
As
Measure | Ethnic Status |
η2p | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Majority ( |
Minority ( |
Indigenous ( |
||||||||||
95% CI | 95% CI | 95% CI | ||||||||||
Ingroup Victimhood | 2.85a | 0.13 | [2.60, 3.10] | 4.43b | 0.14 | [4.16, 4.69] | 4.98c | 0.09 | [4.80, 5.16] | 94.18 | < .001 | .28 |
Inclusive Victim Consciousness | 3.52a | 0.15 | [3.23, 3.81] | 4.56b | 0.16 | [4.25, 4.86] | - | - | - | 62.61 | < .001 | .09 |
Perceived Outgroup Suffering | 4.75a | 0.12 | [4.51, 4.99] | 5.22b | 0.13 | [4.97, 5.47] | 5.57c | 0.09 | [5.40, 5.74] | 14.86 | < .001 | .06 |
Political Solidarity | 4.71a | 0.10 | [4.52, 4.92] | 5.05b | 0.11 | [4.84, 5.27] | - | - | - | 5.15 | .020 | .02 |
Support for Reparations | 2.88a | 0.06 | [2.76, 3.00] | 3.12b | 0.07 | [2.99, 3.25] | 3.46c | 0.04 | [3.38, 3.55] | 32.21 | < .001 | .12 |
We included six variables in our mediation and path analyses: majority or minority ethnic status, collective victimhood, inclusive victim consciousness, perceived outgroup suffering, political solidarity, and support for reparations.
Variable | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Ethnic Status | - | .47** | .29** | .18** | .14* | .13* |
2. Collective Victimhood | .71** | .20** | .19** | .15* | ||
3. Inclusive Victim Consciousness | .14* | .30** | .25** | |||
4. Perceived Outgroup Suffering | .63** | .63** | ||||
5. Political Solidarity | .66** | |||||
6. Support for Reparations |
*
To assess the plausibility of our mediational model, we used
As
*
Though we did not hypothesize all the indirect effects listed in
Effect | Predictor | Mediator(s) | Outcome | Bootstrapped |
Bootstrapped 95% CI | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Ethnic Status | Collective Victimhood; Inclusive Victim Consciousness; Perceived Outgroup Suffering; Political Solidarity | Support for Reparations | 0.14 | 0.07 | [-0.01, 0.28] |
2 | Ethnic Status | Collective Victimhood | Support for Reparations | -0.13 | 0.06 | [-0.25, -0.02] |
3 | Ethnic Status | Inclusive Victim Consciousness | Support for Reparations | -0.01 | 0.02 | [-0.05, 0.01] |
4 | Ethnic Status | Perceived Outgroup Suffering | Support for Reparations | 0.05 | 0.05 | [-0.03, 0.15] |
5 | Ethnic Status | Political Solidarity | Support for Reparations | 0.02 | 0.04 | [-0.05, 0.09] |
6 | Ethnic Status | Collective Victimhood; Inclusive Victim Consciousness | Support for Reparations | 0.09 | 0.04 | [0.02, 0.19] |
7 | Ethnic Status | Collective Victimhood; Perceived Outgroup Suffering | Support for Reparations | 0.06 | 0.03 | [< 0.00, 0.13] |
8 | Ethnic Status | Collective Victimhood; Political Solidarity | Support for Reparations | -0.04 | 0.02 | [-0.09, < 0.01] |
9 | Ethnic Status | Inclusive Victim Consciousness; Perceived Outgroup Suffering | Support for Reparations | < 0.01 | 0.01 | [-0.005, 0.02] |
10 | Ethnic Status | Inclusive Victim Consciousness; Political Solidarity | Support for Reparations | -0.01 | 0.01 | [-0.03, 0.01] |
11 | Ethnic Status | Perceived Outgroup Suffering; Political Solidarity | Support for Reparations | 0.03 | 0.03 | [-0.02, 0.09] |
12 | Ethnic Status | Collective Victimhood; Inclusive Victim Consciousness; Perceived Outgroup Suffering | Support for Reparations | -0.02 | 0.02 | [-0.07, 0.02] |
13 | Ethnic Status | Collective Victimhood; Inclusive Victim Consciousness; Political Solidarity | Support for Reparations | 0.06 | 0.02 | [0.02, 0.11] |
14 | Ethnic Status | Collective Victimhood; Perceived Outgroup Suffering; Political Solidarity | Support for Reparations | 0.04 | 0.02 | [< 0.01, 0.08] |
15 | Ethnic Status | Inclusive Victim Consciousness; Perceived Outgroup Suffering; Political Solidarity | Support for Reparations | < 0.01 | < 0.01 | [-0.003, 0.01] |
16 | Ethnic Status | Collective Victimhood; Inclusive Victim Consciousness; Perceived Outgroup Suffering; Political Solidarity | Support for Reparations | -0.01 | 0.01 | [-0.04, 0.01] |
*
As we also illustrate in
ethnic status → collective victimhood → inclusive victim consciousness → support for reparations;
ethnic status → collective victimhood → perceived outgroup suffering → support for reparations;
ethnic status → collective victimhood → inclusive victim consciousness → political solidarity → support for reparations;
ethnic status → collective victimhood → perceived outgroup suffering → political solidarity → support for reparations.
Model | Variable and Role |
|||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ethnic Status | Collective Victimhood | Inclusive Victim Consciousness | Perceived Outgroup Suffering | Political Solidarity | Support for Reparations | |
1 | X→ | M→ | M→ | Y | ||
2 | X→ | M→ | M→ | Y | ||
3 | X→ | M→ | M→ | M→ | Y | |
4 | X→ | M→ | M→ | M→ | Y |
As Process 3.0 does not report measures of model fit, but such indices are customarily reported for models such as ours, we also evaluated the fit of an identical path model in AMOS (version 22.0.0) using maximum likelihood and 10,000 bootstrapped samples. To assess model fit, we focused on the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), and test of close fit. For CFI, values greater than .95 are desirable. For RMSEA, values between .08 and .10 indicate marginal model fit, values between .05 and .08 indicate acceptable model fit, and values below .05 indicate excellent model fit. A non-significant
In this study we again found that non-Indigenous minority Canadians, who we call the ethnic status minority, supported reparations more than did White Canadians, and we found further explanations for this pattern. As we hypothesized, a sense of collective victimhood helps to explains this difference. Though we do not have experimental evidence to know whether this effect is a causal one, we propose that a sense of collective victimhood, to the extent that it engenders an inclusive victim consciousness and the ability to perceive ongoing suffering for another group, increases political solidarity and support for reparations. Importantly, however, our findings also demonstrate that a sense of collective victimhood may not necessarily be associated with greater support for reparations. That collective victimhood had a negative direct, but several positive indirect effects, on support for reparations corroborates prior work that demonstrates how people perceive their victimization is important (e.g.,
Importantly, we also tested several other models to assess possible alternatives. For example, in one alternate we included an additional direct effect of ethnic status; the path was not significant and the model fit more poorly. We also tested an alternate model that represented moderated mediation and this also fit more poorly. Thus, the model we present represents the data most validly and fits best.
In three studies, we found that compared to majority participants, minority participants were more supportive of reparations for Indigenous peoples in Canada; we also developed a model of intervening psychological variables to explain this relationship. Given that we demonstrated the findings across both university student samples and community samples—including one that was large and national (and nearly nationally representative)—and used items representing different conceptualizations of reparations, we are confident that these effects are reliable.
First, and most importantly, our findings suggest that victim groups seeking reparations are likely to find support for their cause among members of other minority groups. Campaigns for reparations may therefore do well to target such groups first and, through their networks, change subjective norms and attitudes about the issue (
Like any research, the findings and implications of this paper should be considered in light of its limitations. One set of limitations relates to our conceptualization and measurement of the “minority” category. We distinguished between minority and majority Canadians consistent with
Relatedly, although conceptualizing “minority” as “non-Indigenous minority Canadians” yielded a more statistically powerful approach than would have a more nuanced conceptualization, each study nonetheless has unequal sample sizes of majority and minority groups. The difference was most pronounced in Study 1, which had 1,794 majority participants and 137 minority participants. For many analyses, such unequal sample sizes might invalidate results; however, equal sample size is not an assumption of our main analysis in Study 1, which was binary logistic regression (
Study 2 has another potential limitation related to its sample. This sample consisted of undergraduate university students, whose demographics were not representative of the Canadian population; consequently, the sample’s opinions may not be nationally representative, either. Recall, however, that the results from Study 2 map on to those of Studies 1 and 3, which had larger, non-student adult samples—and in the case of Study 1, the sample was approximately nationally representative. That we find similar patterns in the student and non-student samples should increase confidence in the conclusions presented in this paper.
Other suggestions for future research are to pursue questions that emerge from our findings. The first set of questions relates to prior research that finds people are more inclined to support reparations framed as feasible (
Second, is a common disadvantaged racial/ethnic minority identity necessary for inclusive victim consciousness and perceptions of suffering? Our findings contribute to the understanding of inclusive victimhood specifically (e.g.,
Third, and relatedly, is similarity in harm necessary for the experience of inclusive victim consciousness? Given the diversity of our minority groups, we suspect that similarity in harm is not necessary for the experience of inclusive victim consciousness. Conceivably, a person could understand that their group has experienced harms that differ from harms inflicted against another group, across a number of characteristics, such as duration (e.g., one day or decades), perpetrator group (e.g., local government or another ethnic/racial minority group), or violence type (e.g., structural violence or armed conflict), but still acknowledge that these distinct harms resulted in similar suffering. With that caveat, we nonetheless expect inclusive victim consciousness to be higher when the ingroup and outgroup harms or consequences of the harms are similar, and strongly suggest that advocacy groups find ways to frame harms to promote a sense of inclusive rather than exclusive victimhood. An exclusive victimhood construal is said to occur when a victim views their group’s suffering as unique, either in quantity (“We have suffered the most”), quality (“No one has suffered like we do”), or both. Unlike inclusive victimhood construals, which predict positive or prosocial intergroup outcomes, exclusive construals can give rise to intraminority competition (e.g.,
A fourth direction for future research is to take a more nuanced approach to the “minority” category. Though we believe that ethnic status is one of the primary ways in which people construe “minority,” there are certainly other ways to conceptualize this category, including gender, religion, sexual orientation, or lower levels of status and power (
Whether a person belongs to a minority or a majority ethnic group can affect their support for outgroup reparations. Compared to the White majority, the minority groups in Canada were more likely to support reparations for an outgroup (Indigenous peoples), because of their collective experiences of victimization, which were associated with feelings of inclusive victim consciousness and perceptions of continued group suffering—factors that affected their political solidarity. As population demographics change in Canada, Indigenous peoples may find more support for reparations as a result of this intraminority solidarity. Though our research is set in a Canadian context, intraminority solidarity in reparations may occur anywhere multiple groups possess a sense of collective victimhood.
This project was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Standard Research Grant and a University of Manitoba University Research Grants Program grant to the first author.
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
We thank Environics as well as the Centre for Human Rights Research of the University of Manitoba for giving us permission to re-analyze their data. We also thank Erin Braun-Janzen and Leora Strand for their assistance with this project.