Victim and Perpetrator Groups’ Divergent Perspectives on Collective Violence: Implications for Intergroup Relations

Abstract

Groups in conflict develop strikingly different construals of the same violent events. These clashing perceptions of past violence can have detrimental consequences for intergroup relations and might provoke new hostilities.In this article, we integrate and juxtapose what we know about construals of collective violence by delineating the different dimensions along which these construals differ between victim and perpetrator groups: regarding the question of who is the victim, who is responsible for the harm doing, what the perpetrator's intent was, how severe the violence was, and when it took place. Then, we discuss the individual-and group-level factors (e.g., collective narratives, social identities) that shape these construals, as well as their implications for attitudes regarding the conflict and support for relevant policies. We distinguish two different core motives that drive construals and their outcomes among victim and perpetrator groups: Perpetrator groups try to cope with moral identity threats and preserve a positive image of the ingroup, while victim groups try to protect their ingroup from future harm doing and desire acknowledgment of their group's experiences. Lastly, we discuss implications for strategies and interventions to address victim and perpetrator groups' divergent perspectives of collective violence.

Do you get us? A multi-experiment, meta-analytic test of the effect of felt understanding in intergroup relations

“…While the present studies allowed for a basic test of generalizability across a limited range of intergroup contexts, future research would do well to conduct tests of other potential boundary conditions based on features of intergroup relationships that were not examined Effects of felt understanding between groups 32 here. Critical tests would include whether felt understanding has similar effects (1) in postviolent conflict settings where negative perceptions, mistrust, and sense of victimhood may be deeply entrenched (Bilali & Vollhardt, 2019), and (2) in settings marked by more pronounced status and/or power differences where there may conceivably be limits to the extent to which the outgroup's perspectives are even seen to matter if an ingroup has much higher power and status (Talaifar et al, 2020). Future research could also include a confirmatory test of the reversal effect evident here when the outgroup was stereotypically high in warmth and low in competence.…”

Understanding xenophobic hate crime in South Africa

“…A set of eight response categories was developed following the SASAS 2018 pilot. These categories were developed based on existing work on attitudes towards collective conflict (for a review, see Bilali & Vollhardt, ). Each of the responses ( N = 2,814) on the solution item was then appraised and grouped into one of the predetermined categories.…”

“…Many attitudinal studies on conflict resolution and reconciliation have tended to use university student samples (for a synopsis, see Bilali & Vollhardt, ; Esses & Hodson, ; Levy et al, ). Although a valid approach, the ability of such studies to generalise their findings to situations outside that of the experimental context has been critiqued.…”

“…This paper will show that what citizens believe about the etiology of violent xenophobia influences their attitudes towards anti‐xenophobia strategies. The paper builds on empirical lay attribution studies of intergroup conflict (for an overview of this research, see Bilali & Vollhardt, ; Esses & Hodson, ; Levy, Chiu, & Hong, ). The research demonstrates the importance of lay attributions for understanding attitudes towards anti‐xenophobia strategies in the country.…”

The Beginning of Agoral Gatherings in Poland and Their Macro-Systemic Political and Economic Consequences: Events of Lublin July 1980

“…This is the strength of agora gatherings. It is a pity that at the same time in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, instead of organizing agoral gatherings according to the paradigm of unity (Biela 2020), civil war crowds took their bloody toll (Bilali & Vollhardt, 2019).…”