Victim Once Again: Perpetual Ingroup Victimhood Orientation (PIVO) in Intergroup Conflicts

1. Victim Once Again: Perpetual Ingroup Victimhood Orientation (PIVO) in Intergroup Conflicts Noa Schori1, Yechiel Klar1 & Sonia Roccas21Tel Aviv University, Israel, 2The Open University, Israel Abstract: We introduce the concept of Perpetual Ingroup Victimhood Orientation (PIVO) as a fundamental belief that affects attitudes and behavior during an intergroup conflict. In three studies we examine the relationships between PIVO, moral entitlement (the belief that the ingroup is allowed to do anything to ensure its survival), sensitivity to losses encountered by the enemy outgroup, and group-based guilt. Findings of study 1 indicate that moral entitlement fully mediates the relationship between PIVO and sensitivity to losses encountered by the enemy outgroup. Findings of study 2 show that when conflict-related threat is made salient PIVO becomes a weaker predictor of group-based guilt. Study 3 indicates that a real-life conflict-related threat increases PIVO, moral entitlement and willingness to accept damage to outgroup civilians, and decreases moral alarm and group-based guilt. Introduction The ways groups behave during intergroup conflicts are influenced not only by contemporary events. General attitudes and beliefs may have a vast impact on the group's conduct, even if objectively they have little relation to the current conflict. One influencing factor is the group's history, particularly traumatic history of persecution and suffering. The effects of collective trauma can range from increased ingroup cohesiveness and increased empathy to the suffering of others to hypervigilance, aggressiveness, and feelings of vulnerability, humiliation, anger and vengefulness. We introduce a model that encompasses two possible paths diverging from past collective trauma: moral alarm and perpetual ingroup victimhood orientation. Moral alarm is the apprehension that the group may become as aggressive and violent as its own worst past enemies. PIVO is the sense of that the group is eternally threatened by conniving enemies planning to annihilate it, and that historical enemies are reincarnated in present adversaries. The hypothesized consequences of PIVO include an increase in moral entitlement (the belief that all is allowed in order to ensure the group's survival), reduction in group-based guilt and increased willingness to tolerate damage caused to innocent outgroup members. Figure 1: Structural Equations Model of PIVO and consequences • Study 1 • The goal of the study was to examine the relationship between PIVO, moral entitlement and sensitivity to losses encountered by the enemy outgroup. • PIVO (e.g., "Even under different guises, the hatred toward us is the same at its base"); • •Moral Alarm (e.g., "We are in danger of treating other peoples in the we were treated by our worst enemies"); • •Moral Entitlement (e.g., "when required to defend ourselves, moral considerations are irrelevant"); • •Willingness to accept damage to outgroup civilians as an inevitable part of the conflict (e.g., determining the magnitude of the missile targeted at a Palestinian terrorist while taking into consideration the number of civilian casualties) • •Group-based guilt (e.g., "Israel is to blame for much of the Palestinians' suffering"). • A SEM analysis indicated that PIVO predicts willingness to accept damage to outgroup civilians and group-based guilt. This relationship is fully mediated by moral entitlement . PIVO .62* Moral Entitlement R2=.55 -.68* Group-basedGuilt R2=.73 -.41* -.23* .66* .28* Willingness toaccept damage tooutgroup civilians R2=.44 MA χ2 (60; N = 103) = 78.544. NFI, NNFI, CFI = .95, .98, .98, respectively, and RMSEA = .052 [.000 -.081]. All coefficients are statistically significant at p < .01. Study 2 The goal of study 2 was to explore the effect of threat on the relationship between PIVO and group-based guilt. We hypothesized that conflict-related threat, but not other types of threat, would cause people to become highly victimhood-orientated, thus decreasing the predictive power of individual differences in PIVO. 71 Jewish-Israeli students were randomly assigned to one of three priming groups: neutral, general threat and conflict-related threat. Participants completed a measure of PIVO, underwent a scrambled instructions task that served as the priming manipulation, and completed a measure of group-based guilt. Results of regression analysis supported our hypothesis. We found a main effect of PIVO on group-based guilt (β=-.854, p<.001). The higher the level of PIVO, the lower group-based guilt participants displayed. An interaction between PIVO and experimental condition was also found (β=1.242, p=.013). Under conflict-related threat low-PIVO participants experienced less group-based guilt than under other types of threat. The results are displayed in figure 2 (participants are divided into high- and low-PIVO according to a median split). Figure 2: Effects of PIVO and manipulated threat on group-based guilt Group-based Guilt Type of Threat Study 3 In study 3 we examine the effects of a real-life threatening situation (an upsurge in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) on PIVO and its outcome variables. We hypothesized that thereat would increase PIVO, moral entitlement and willingness to accept damage to outgroup civilians, and would decrease moral alarm and group-based guilt. The design of the study was cross sectional. In T1 93 Jewish-Israeli students completed the questionnaires during a military operation Israel conducted in the Gaza strip, during which Palestinian conducted daily missile attacks on southern Israel. In T2, two months after the operation ended, 118 students completed the same set of questionnaires. Results supported our hypothesis, indicating higher PIVO and moral entitlement and lower group-based guilt during the operation. Participants were also more tolerant of inflicting damage upon outgroup civilians in order to achieve the ingroup’s goal (e.g., accept heavier casualties to civilian population in order to accomplish a successful assassination of an outgroup military leader) during the operation. Figure 3: PIVO and consequences during and after a military operation Conclusions PIVO is an important factor in predicting certain group attitudes and emotions in ingtergroup conflicts, such as guilt and tolerance to damage to outgroup civilians. A relatively stable construct, PIVO is also affected by context. During times of threat, people who don’t usually perceive their group as an eternal victim temporarily behave as if they were high on the perpetual victimhood schema.