Socio-psy chological antecedents of Acknowledgment of Ingroup Responsibility

1. Socio-psychological antecedents of Acknowledgment of Ingroup Responsibility Sabina Čehajić-Clancy Sarajevo School of Science and Technology Bosnia and Herzegovina EASP Small Group Meeting in Israel

2. Why acknowledgment matters? • Reconciliation • Victims’ right • Perpetrators’ “healing” • Preventive measures of future atrocities EASP Small Group Meeting in Israel

3. What is acknowledgment? • = psychological readiness and willingness to publicly acknowledge one’s own group responsibility for committed wrongdoings towards others • > than being aware/knowing/perceiving etc. • < than personally accepting responsibility for the ingroup behaviour EASP Small Group Meeting in Israel

4. Intergroup contact-Acknowledgment • Male, 25: “Three or four years ago I was not ready to acknowledge atrocities committed by Serbs. The thing that changed me was contact. I have seen that some things I thought to be true were not exactly the way I thought. I realized that I have lived in a closed society all the time. Contact changed me. It opened me.” (Cehajic & Brown, 2008; p. 206). EASP Small Group Meeting in Israel

5. Measures • Contact (4 items, α = .85): e.g., “I spend quite a lot of time with my friends who belong to other groups.” • Perceived victimhood (3 items, α = .73): e.g.,“I consider my group to be the biggest victim in this war.” • Perspective-taking(3 items, α = .75): e.g.,“I am able to look at things that happened during the war from the perspective of other groups.” • Acknowledgment (2 items, α = .86): e.g.,“I am ready to acknowledge that members of my group have committed atrocities during the war” EASP Small Group Meeting in Israel

6. Study 2: antecedents of acknowledgment of ingroup responsibility Perspective-taking M=4.42 (1.69) .49* .30* Contact M=1.53 (1.65) Acknowledgment M=4.85 (2.05) -.17* Perceived Victimhood M=5.02 (1.61) -.17* -.14* N = 284; Mage = 17.8; Χ2 (1) = 1.18; p = .28; CFI = .999; GFI = .998; RMSEA = .026. EASP Small Group Meeting in Israel

7. Self-affirmation – Acknowledgment of ingroup responsibility? • Hypothesis: making people feel secure/happy enough with who they are (=affirmation/activation of positive perception of the self) will make it easier for them to admit their ingroup’s improper behaviour • Self-affirmation (Steele, 1988; McQueen & Klein, 2006) = active affirmation of some important (threat-unrelated) aspect of the self will increase tolerance for self-threats in another domain EASP Small Group Meeting in Israel

8. Experimental manipulation • Self-affirmation: participants were asked to recall a meaningful event in their life that made them feel proud and successful. Then, they were asked to describe thoughts and feelings they had following the event • Group affirmation: recalling an event that made feel proud of their group • Control condition: list of things they would take for a trip to an isolated island EASP Small Group Meeting in Israel

9. Study 1: Israel/Palestine(focus on Gaza attack in Dec 2008) EASP Small Group Meeting in Israel

10. Study 2: BIH(focus on Srebrenica genocide) EASP Small Group Meeting in Israel