Affirmation, acknowledgment of in-group responsibility, group-based guilt, and support for reparative measures.

Abstract

Three studies, 2 conducted in Israel and 1 conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, demonstrated that affirming a positive aspect of the self can increase one's willingness to acknowledge in-group responsibility for wrongdoing against others, express feelings of group-based guilt, and consequently provide greater support for reparation policies. By contrast, affirming one's group, although similarly boosting feelings of pride, failed to increase willingness to acknowledge and redress in-group wrongdoing. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated the mediating role of group-based guilt. That is, increased acknowledgment of in-group responsibility for out-group victimization produced increased feelings of guilt, which in turn increased support for reparation policies to the victimized group. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.

The Official, The Empathetic and The Critical: Three Approaches to History Teaching and Reconciliation in Israel

“…The way learners engage with the information is apparently just as important as the information itself. Such findings align with social psychological research on the effects of critical thinking prompts and affirmation (Čehajić-Clancy et al 2011;Roccas et al 2006;Vollhardt 2013). In this respect, both the critical and the empathetic teaching methods harbor greater promise for improving intergroup relations if used systematically.…”

“…The official single narrative appears to replicate tendencies for self-justifying and exonerating cognitions and for intergroup attribution bias, which protract and normalize conflict (Bar-Tal and Halperin 2011; Doosje and Branscombe 2003;Roccas and Berlin 2015). The empathetic dual-narrative approach creates conditions for mutual affirmation and for intergroup empathy, reducing competitive victimhood and rejection of threatening out-group perspectives and promote reconciliatory attitudes (Čehajić-Clancy et al 2011;Vollhardt 2013). The critical disciplinary thinking approach is assumed to curb bias and exonerating cognitions (Roccas et al 2006), help learners take a critical stance to self-legitimizing narratives, and promote ability to contain complexity and disagreement (McCully 2011).…”

Going along versus getting it right: The role of self-integrity in political conformity

“…Taken together, along with other research showing how affirmation buffers the rise and fall of self-feelings in response to collective events (e.g., Adams et al, 2006;Čehajić-Clancy et al, 2011;Sherman & Kim, 2005), the studies suggest that affirmation can reduce the negative impact of collective events on the self. Whereas previous research has tended to infer the presence of group norms based on characteristics of the situation, in the present research group norms were directly manipulated.…”

“…For example, people who self-affirmed prior to group activity were more willing to acknowledge wrong-doing by an ingroup (Adams, Tormala, & O'Brien, 2006;Čehajić-Clancy, Effron, Halperin, Liberman, & Ross, 2011); they showed lower partisan bias in the days prior to a presidential election (Binning, Sherman, Cohen, & Heitland, 2010); and they displayed fewer group-serving attributions for group success and failure (Sherman & Kim, 2005). When Americans were presented with a report that was critical of U.S. foreign policy, affirmed participants were less partisan in their evaluations of the report (Cohen et al, 2007).…”

Collective Guilt: Antecedets, Outcomes, and Ways of Avoding

“…Gruplar arası yükleme yanlılığını kullanarak yapılan negatif davranışı (Islam ve Hewstone, 1993) ve iç grup hareketini (Doosje ve Branscombe, 2003) kendi grupları, zarara uğrayan grup ve ortamdaki diğer uyaranlar açısından yanlı olarak ele alırlar. Gruplar arası çatışmalarda talihsiz olayların yaşanmasının kaçınılmaz olduğunu ya da başka gruplar arası çatışmalarda diğerleri tarafından daha ciddi saldırıların yapıldığını iddia edebilirler (Cehajic-Clancy, Effron, Halperin, Liberman ve Ross, 2011). Verilen zararı kendilerinin yapmadıklarını ve bu zarardan sorumlu olmadıklarını (Branscombe, 2004;Miron ve ark., 2010), dış grubun suçlu olduğunu (Tarrant ve ark., 2012), zararın abartıldığını, kendilerinin de mağdur ve acı içinde olduklarını belirterek grup saygınlıklarını korumaya çalışabilirler (Shnabel, Halabi ve Noor, 2013).…”