Making sense of the past to understand the present: Attributions for historical trauma predict contemporary social and political attitudes

Abstract

Research indicates that the memory of collective trauma influences attitudes towards contemporary social and political issues. We suggest that the specific attributions for trauma that members of victim and perpetrator groups make provide a more nuanced understanding of this relationship. Thus, we constructed and validated a measure of attributions for the Holocaust. Then, we ran a preregistered study on representative samples in Germany ( N = 504) and Israel ( N = 469) to examine whether attributing the Holocaust to essentialist or contextual causes influences attitudes towards the immigration crisis and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Results indicated that, among Germans, attributing the Holocaust to German character was associated with positive attitudes to immigration via collective guilt. Among Israelis, attributions to German character were associated with negative attitudes to non-Jewish immigration, a hawkish stance in the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, and pro-Israel attitudes via a sense of perpetual victimization. Results reveal how attributions about past trauma affect contemporary social and political attitudes among victims and perpetrators.

Moral exemplars and moral disillusionment. How the perception of Poles' behavior during the Holocaust shapes current Polish‐Israeli conflicted relations?

“…More so, attitudes towards Israelis and Israel as a state in the context of the Holocaust memory might not fully capture how shared representations of past attitudes of Poles towards Jews are related to present‐day attitudes towards Jews. Therefore, we also examined whether the over‐estimating of moral and under‐estimating immoral attitudes during the Holocaust is related to secondary antisemitism (Bilewicz et al, 2013; Hirschberger et al, 2016, 2022), a form of antisemitism that is built on the denial of responsibility for the crimes committed during the Holocaust.…”

From Threat to Challenge: Understanding the Impact of Historical Collective Trauma on Contemporary Intergroup Conflict

“…Collective Trauma From the Past to the Present: A Threat-Centered Perspective Despite the abundance of research on the short-and long-term effects of collective trauma primarily on victims and survivors, less attention has been paid to its ripple effects on new intergroup situations that are seemingly unrelated to the original traumatic event. The Holocaust, for example, has created a lasting, intergenerational, collective trauma among both Jews and Germans, albeit in very different ways (Giesen, 2004;Hirschberger et al, 2022;Imhoff et al, 2017;Kellermann, 2001). It is a central component of Jewish as well as German identity (e.g., Fulbrook, 1999;Pew Research Center, 2013) and serves as a lens through which both groups perceive the contemporary world and understand the ongoing relationship between themselves and other groups (e.g., Canetti et al, 2018;Hirschberger, 2018;Hirschberger et al, 2022;Schori-Eyal, Klar, & Ben-Ami, 2017;Schori-Eyal, Klar, Roccas, & McNeill, 2017;Vollhardt, 2012).…”

“…The Holocaust, for example, has created a lasting, intergenerational, collective trauma among both Jews and Germans, albeit in very different ways ( Giesen, 2004 ; Hirschberger et al, 2022 ; Imhoff et al, 2017 ; Kellermann, 2001 ). It is a central component of Jewish as well as German identity (e.g., Fulbrook, 1999 ; Pew Research Center, 2013 ) and serves as a lens through which both groups perceive the contemporary world and understand the ongoing relationship between themselves and other groups (e.g., Canetti et al, 2018 ; Hirschberger, 2018 ; Hirschberger et al, 2022 ; Schori-Eyal, Klar, & Ben-Ami, 2017 ; Schori-Eyal, Klar, Roccas, & McNeill, 2017 ; Vollhardt, 2012 ). As Lifton (2005) contended, following collective trauma, the pains and suffering of past events often become indistinguishable from current conflicts.…”

Rejecting an Intergroup Apology Attenuates Perceived Differences Between Victim and Perpetrator Groups in Morality and Power

“…A factor that may moderate the link between severity judgments and perpetrator costs is attributions of crimes (Hirschberger et al, 2022;Imhoff et al, 2017). Arguably, attributing crimes to the evil essence of the perpetrator group may legitimize costs as a corrective measure proportionate to the severity of the crime.…”