Group's Past Research Articles

Motivated perception of leaders when perceived political party continuity is low: The mediating role of self‐uncertainty

AbstractGroup members often view their leaders as agents of continuity because leadership can help maintain group history and core values despite inevitable changes. Previous research suggests a connection between group continuity (i.e., a sense of connection between a group's past, present, and future) and a preference for autocratic leadership. However, whether group members' perception of the current state of group continuity influences the way they perceive leaders whom they have already supported has not been investigated. In the current study, we hypothesized that self‐uncertainty mediates the effect of perceived continuity on perceptions of leaders. Specifically, lowered perception of group continuity triggers self‐uncertainty, which motivates people to perceive the leaders they support to be more autocratic because these leaders often provide effective means to reduce feelings of self‐uncertainty. Additionally, as people might differ in their long‐term desire for group continuity, we hypothesized that the desire for group continuity moderates the path from perceived group continuity and self‐uncertainty. To test the hypothesized moderated mediation model, we collected data from Democrats and Republicans in the United States (N = 515) after the 2022 midterm elections. Analyses showed a significant moderated mediation effect, index = −0.02, 95% CI [−0.04, −0.002]. Specifically, perception of continuity within one's political party positively correlated with self‐uncertainty, and this correlation was stronger among those who displayed greater levels of desire for group continuity. Increased self‐uncertainty, in turn, positively correlated with the perception that the gubernatorial leader that one voted for during the midterm elections was autocratic.

How do members of a perpetrator group negotiate multiple past ingroup transgressions? A German case study

How members of perpetrator groups engage with their ingroup’s negative history has received increasing attention over the past years. Yet, little research has addressed how people psychologically negotiate multiple past ingroup transgressions. Across two studies ( n = 362), we exposed German participants to information about two ingroup transgressions, the Holocaust and the colonial genocide in former South West Africa, to test ideas of a multidirectional memory (= one memory productively informs another) versus a competitive memory (= memories stand in competition) effect. Along six indicators of memory (negativity and significance, acknowledging responsibility, collective guilt and shame, willingness to make reparations), we find that people build small memory hierarchies when given the opportunity. Overall, however, it seems that most people show similar levels of history engagement for different transgressions. We discuss how our findings relate to the public discourse on multiple memories.

Dynamic stereotypes of African, Latinx, and White Americans.

Two studies examined how young adults from historically advantaged (Study 1) and disadvantaged (Studies 1 and 2) racial groups perceived agentic and communal traits of their group over time. Consistent with previous research on dynamic stereotypes of gender, disadvantaged groups were expected to perceive significant gains in agentic traits from the past to the present. This tendency was expected to increase with ethnic identification. In Study 1, White American (n = 226) and African and Latinx American (n = 60) students at a predominantly White private college in the Midwestern United States participated in an online survey. In Study 2, African American (n = 137) and Latinx American (n = 167) young adults were recruited primarily via an online platform (www.prolific.co) to complete an online survey. In both studies, African and Latinx Americans attributed significantly lower levels of agency to past ingroup members than to present members. Although ethnic identification was not correlated with the difference between present and past agencies, it was more strongly correlated with present agency than with past agency for both groups. These patterns were not observed among White Americans. Similar to women, African and Latinx Americans perceived significant gains in agentic traits of their group members from the past to the present. These perceptions may serve the needs of historically disadvantaged groups for a positive social identity by affirming how far the ingroup has come. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Towards a Narrative Understanding of Victimhood: The Perception of Intergroup Conflicts in Light of Past Ingroup Victimization

The present study explores the role of linguistic compositional characteristics in transmitting collective victimhood beliefs. Experimentally manipulated excerpts of history textbooks were used to examine the perception of the victim position of national outgroups and its intermediary social psychological processes with Hungarian (N = 415) and Finnish (N = 116) participants. The results reveal that the narrative composition of the victimhood narrative had a significant effect on the perception of the target groups' victimhood position. The evaluation of the groups changed according to which variant of the story was introduced. The results demonstrate that the perception of a perpetrator group can be changed purely by means of narrative construction and that their actions can acquire a "victim tone". This effect is present in both the Hungarian and Finnish samples, suggesting that narrating an event of victimhood has certain universal characteristics, although their effect is partially dependent on the national-historical-cultural context.

Throwing off the dark legacy when going down: Experience of status loss undermines reparation intentions prompted by narratives of the ingroup's past wrongdoings.

Two experiments tested whether group members' reparation intentions towards victims of the ingroup's past wrongdoings depend on their experience of relative status change. We manipulated born-free White South Africans' experience of accessibility of memories of past ingroup wrongdoings and their current experiences of status loss. For participants believing in the ingroup's responsibility for past wrongdoing towards Black South Africans during Apartheid, status-loss experiences reduced reparation intentions prompted by the experience of memorizing examples of such wrongdoing as easy (Experiment 1, N = 193), and the ease to remember wrongdoing examples increased reparation intentions only if participants were reminded of status stability, but not if they were reminded of status loss (Experiment, N = 126). We conclude that the implications of narratives referring to past ingroup wrongdoings are contingent upon their relational function in ongoing social change processes.

Harmful Memories—Present Dynamics: The Heroic Helper’s Effect on Collective and Individual Responsibility and Prejudice

This study was aimed at testing if exposure to a narrative about a heroic helper, can increment responsibility—taking about past ingroup wrongdoings and reduce prejudice and intergroup hostility in the present. We used the narrative of a Hungarian hero in an experiment who acted for targets of the Holocaust in Hungary, and measured if this narrative might increase collective responsibility for the Holocaust, decrease Hungarians’ hostile attitudes towards the Jewish minority, and this effect could be expanded to ongoing conflicts with other minorities. We used an experimental group (N = 99) exposed to the narrative, and a control group (N = 101) that was not. Both groups completed a test-battery measuring national identification, empathy, responsibility-taking, and prejudice. Data were analyzed with SPSS, and open-ended questions were content—analyzed by four independent coders. Results show that learning about a heroic helper increased acceptance of responsibility for the Holocaust and empathic abilities, whereas these effects were not generalized to current intergroup relations.

Fostering trust and forgiveness through the acknowledgment of others’ past victimization

The present work examines the acknowledgment of past ingroup victimization by adversary outgroup leaders as an effective means to promote intergroup trust. More specifically, through an experimental study we demonstrated that Israeli-Jewish participants who were exposed to Palestinian leaders’ messages acknowledging the Jews’ suffering from anti-Semitic persecutions (past victimization condition) displayed more trust toward outgroup leaders than participants who were exposed to messages acknowledging the Jews’ sufferings from the ongoing conflict (present victimization condition) and participants who were exposed to a control message condition. Further, trust mediated the relationship between acknowledgment of past victimization by rivals and forgiveness toward the outgroup as a whole. The implications of these results for restoring fractured intergroup relations are discussed.

Nostalgia for America's past can buffer collective guilt

AbstractThis research examined when, and for whom, American collective nostalgia can relieve feelings of collective guilt. In the Pilot Study, path analyses revealed that national glorification is associated with collective nostalgia, and collective nostalgia is associated with lower collective guilt. Our experimental studies test the role of these variables in determining responses to the elevated salience of past ingroup harm doing. Collective nostalgia was associated with lower collective guilt especially after reminders of America's harm doing in Study 1. In Study 2 we predicted and showed that reminders of American harm doing would evoke spontaneous collective nostalgia for participants high in national glorification. The remaining studies tested the hypothesis that collective nostalgia serves to buffer collective guilt. Collective guilt was lower after reminders of past harm doing for participants who engaged in collective nostalgia (Study 3), and this was especially pronounced for participants high in national glorification (Study 4).

Does remembering past ingroup harmdoing promote postwar cross‐group contact? Insights from a field‐experiment in Liberia

AbstractIn the aftermath of the Liberian civil wars, we investigated whether it is possible to systematically influence how people construe their group's role during the conflict and how this affects intergroup emotions and behavioral intentions. In a field experiment, 146 participants were randomly assigned to think about incidents of violence during the war that were either committed by fellow ingroup members (perpetrator‐focus) or against fellow ingroup members (victim‐focus). Adopting a perpetrator‐focus led to greater willingness to engage in cross‐group contact, greater need for acceptance, and greater intergroup empathy. The focus manipulation did not affect participants' need for empowerment.Key message: Appraising the ingroup as “victim” or “perpetrator” after conflicts with reciprocal harmdoing is largely a matter of psychological construction. A promising avenue for promoting positive cross‐group contact consists in widening the ingroup's victim role by also remembering the harm that the ingroup inflicted upon others. This amplifies the need of acceptance, which leads to greater intergroup empathy and greater willingness to engage in cross‐group contact. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The past as a determinant of the present: Historical continuity, collective angst, and opposition to immigration

AbstractWe propose that the perceived continuity between a group's past and present can be a psychological resource that provides confidence in the group's future vitality, thereby reducing the need to preserve identity. In two studies, English participants were told that there was continuity or discontinuity between England's past and present. Both studies showed that higher identifiers (but not lower identifiers) experienced more collective angst (i.e., concern for the group's future) and were more opposed to immigration when English history was presented as discontinuous compared with continuous. Importantly, collective angst mediated the effect of the historical continuity manipulation on opposition to immigration. We conclude that, particularly among those higher in group identification, perceived discontinuity of the group's past can undermine the perceived vitality of the future, thereby increasing the need to preserve current collective identity. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Crimes of the Past: Defensive Temporal Distancing in the Face of Past In-Group Wrongdoing

Relegating past in-group transgressions to ancient history might deflect threat to collective identity. Germans (but not Canadians) judged the Holocaust to be more subjectively remote in time when they read only about German-perpetrated atrocities than when this threat was mitigated. Greater subjective distance predicted lower collective guilt, which, in turn, predicted less willingness to make amends (Study 1). Distancing under threat was more pronounced among defensive Germans who felt unjustly blamed by other nations (Study 2). In Study 3, the authors examined the causal role of subjective time. Nondefensive Germans induced to view the Holocaust as closer reported more collective guilt and willingness to compensate. In contrast, defensive Germans reported less collective guilt after the closeness induction. Taken together, the studies demonstrate that how past wrongs are psychologically situated in time can play a powerful role in people's present-day reactions to them.

Dehumanization and Guilt as Distinct but Related Predictors of Support for Reparation Policies

In two studies, we predicted that support for reparation policies would be influenced positively by feelings of group‐based guilt and negatively by dehumanization of the outgroup. We also hypothesized that a valence manipulation of the ingroup's behavior would cause differences in such support which would be mediated by guilt. In the first study, we manipulated the valence of past ingroup behavior and assessed guilt, dehumanization, and reparation support. As expected, guilt predicted positively and dehumanization negatively participants' support. In addition, guilt partially mediated the manipulation effects on policy support. Consistent with previous research, guilt and dehumanization were unrelated. In Study 2, we assessed individual differences in dehumanization before the manipulation and examined their associations with guilt and reparation support. Initial analyses replicated Study 1. In addition, guilt partially mediated the influence of dehumanization on reparation support. Results suggest that the presence of guilt motivates support for reparation policies, while the absence of guilt explains in part why individual differences in dehumanization inhibit such support.

Psychoanalysis and Diplomacy Part II: Large-Group Rituals

This paper focuses on the predominant repetitive activities in which a large group engages to maintain and/or repair its identity. These repetitive activities constitute large-group rituals and can be divided into two general categories: (1) rituals that occur within a society that do not involve an active relationship with a contemporary “other” large group; and (2) rituals that occur through and depend upon the interaction with an opposing or enemy large group, usually a neighbor. Because “others” are used as reservoirs for unwanted parts, both at individual and group levels, and are needed to support aspects of identity and a shared sense of sameness, the first type of ritual may also include reference to shared images of “others” from the large group's past. They therefore may not be strictly domestic or indigenous. Furthermore, the intensity and content of both types of rituals occur across a spectrum depending on whether a large group is at peace, in a “hot” conflict with an enemy group, or otherwise destabilized due to crises.

Exploring temporal aspects of social identity: the concept of possible social identities

In the social identity model of reactions to negative social identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1979, 1986), the concept of cognitive alternatives focuses on individual and group perceptions of the possibility of changing group memberships or improving existing ones. In the current paper, the under-researched concept of cognitive alternatives is expanded so as to better encompass issues relating to the temporal dimension of social identity maintenance. Markus and Nurius' (1986) possible selves perspective is used as a starting point for exploring the manner in which social identity maintenance is influenced by cognitions about, and social representations of, a group's past and possible future. It is proposed that the concept of cognitive alternatives be expanded to incorporate possible social identities, which represent individual and shared cognitions about possible past group memberships, possible future group memberships, and perceptions of the possible past and future for current group memberships. The consequences of perceiving positive and negative possible social identities are examined, and methodological issues which might facilitate their empirical study addressed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The remembrance of things past: on the collection and recollection of ingredients useful in the treatment of disorders resulting from unhappiness, rootlessness, and the fear of things to come.

Lack of hope for future change is hypothesized as a distinguishing factor between suicidally depressed young adolescents and other young people who are also objectless, the developmentally dispossessed. Methods by which the affective reserve of hope and self-love can be therapeutically augmented are suggested, and speculations are offered on the role of the personal past and group past in generating hopefulness in the nonclinical population.