Generativity in the shadow of genocide: The Holocaust experience and generativity.

Abstract

And Noah and his sons left the Ark, Noah's wife and his sons' wives (separately). Even though God had decreed that they might now procreate; Noah did not act on this privilege. For he said: but what will happen if Mankind continues to sin and the flood waters come once again and destroy all existence? (Noah asked) why should one have children and fear they will be destroyed-until God swore not to ever bring the flood waters again. Taken from the biblical commentary of the "Kke Yakar" on Genesis.Generativity is a term proposed by Erikson (1963) to describe a concern with "establishing and guiding the next generation" (p. 267). Genocide is an attempt to exterminate an ethnic or racial group to ensure that there will be no "next generation" of the targeted group. This chapter considers the impact of what may be the most infamous case of attempted genocide-the Holocaust-on the generative behavior of survivors of the German concentration camps. If under normal circumstances individuals are driven to ensure the future of their progeny and culture-and through them their own immortality-what might be the consequences of attempted genocide on survivors' concern for personal, familial, and cultural continuity?This inquiry can be placed within the expansive literature on the psychological ramifications of the Holocaust experience (see Kay, 1995, for a review of that literature). It has as its aim the description of the nature and role of generativity in the Holocaust survivor population. The thoughts and conclusions presented are based on research undertaken with 20 European-born Jews currently residing in the United States: 10 concentra-335

Altruism Born of Suffering and Prosocial Behavior Following Adverse Life Events: A Review and Conceptualization

“…For example, both in studies with Vietnam Veterans (Kishon-Barash, Midlarsky, & Johnson, 1999) and Holocaust survivors (Kahana et al, 1988), altruism and interpersonal prosocial behavior were common, and highly associated with psychological well-being and decreased levels of PTSD. Similarly, generativity, a concept that goes back to Erikson and refers to providing and caring for future generations (see McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1998), was found to be a prevalent characteristic among Holocaust survivors (Kay, 1998;Suedfeld et al, 2005). Specifically, this involved the desire to be productive members of society by volunteering and helping (Kay, 1998), and teaching one's children to help others and ''repay society for every kind thing done for them,'' for example by engaging in community work (Suedfeld et al, 2005, p. 243).…”

“…Another constructive response to extreme political violence is the strong commitment to positive societal change observed among some survivors of the Cambodian killing fields, which has been referred to as ''positive revenge'' (Garbarino, Dubrow, Kostelny, & Pardo, 1992). Similarly, many Hiroshima survivors became very involved in peace activism and the movement for nuclear disarmament (Lifton, 1967); and one aspect of generativity that was found among Holocaust survivors was their strong engagement in Holocaust education (Kay, 1998;Suedfeld et al, 2005). Phenomena like these can also occur at the macro level, involving larger groups within traumatized societies, and resulting in the ''social transformation of trauma'' to prosocial movements that benefit the entire society (Bloom, 1998, p. 179).…”

“…Not surprisingly, most of these cases were in the aftermath rather than in the immediate situation of own suffering and distress. It seems plausible that regained psychological and material resources (Hobfoll, 1991), temporal distance from the events (Kay, 1998;Trope & Liberman, 2003), and psychological closure (Skitka et al, 2004) are necessary in order to enable more inclusive forms of altruism born of suffering. But more interestingly, most reviewed cases of altruism toward other disadvantaged groups and outgroups followed suffering that was caused intentionally, by other human beings (either on a collective or interpersonal level), whereas altruism born of suffering after nonintentional harmdoing (natural disasters or illness) was more often limited to helping close others or those suffering from the same event type.…”

“…Specifically, this involved the desire to be productive members of society by volunteering and helping (Kay, 1998), and teaching one's children to help others and ''repay society for every kind thing done for them,'' for example by engaging in community work (Suedfeld et al, 2005, p. 243). Although these studies did not include control groups of people who did not personally experience the Holocaust, Kay (1998) compared survivors of concentration camps with Jews who had managed to escape from Europe early, and found that the camp survivors scored higher in generativity than the refugees.…”

“…Furthermore, with temporal distance a higher construal level of one's own suffering may become more likely (see Trope & Liberman, 2003), allowing one to perceive similarities with other forms of suffering. In other words, a more universal and inclusive perception of one's suffering may require distance from the events (Kay, 1998). Additionally, psychological closure may increase over time and facilitate the ability to attend to other concerns-that is, not only the ingroup's suffering, but also outgroups' well-being (Skitka et al, 2004).…”