Only human: hostile human norms can reduce legitimization of intergroup discrimination by perpetrators of historical atrocities

A Theoretical Model of Victimization, Perpetration, and Denial in Mass Atrocities: Case Studies From Indonesia, Cambodia, East Timor, and Myanmar

ACADEMIC ABSTRACT

The present article discusses victimization, perpetration, and denial in mass atrocities, using four recent case studies from Southeast Asia. The four cases include Indonesia (in which hundreds of thousands died in anti-Communist violence), Cambodia (in which the Khmer Rouge killed more than one million civilians), East Timor (in which more than one hundred thousand civilians died during the Indonesian occupation), and Myanmar (in which the state/army is accused of genocide toward the Rohingyas). Our aim is to bring a psychological lens to these histories, with a focus on three processes relevant to genocide. We examine, first, how the victims were targeted; second, how the perpetrators were mobilized; and third, the denial, justification, meaning-making, and commemoration of the atrocities. We propose a novel theoretical model, TOPASC: A Theory of the Psychology of Atrocities in Societal Contexts, highlighting the psychology of atrocities as involving factors across the macro, meso, and micro contexts.

PUBLIC ABSTRACT

We introduce a new model, "TOPASC: A Theory of the Psychology of Atrocities in Societal Contexts," to explain why people justify mass killings and why certain group members are consistently targeted. In our model, we explore how mass atrocities against specific groups are influenced by psychological dynamics in intergroup situations which, in turn, are shaped by socio-historical contexts and individual psychologies. To illustrate these ideas, we analyze four cases of mass atrocities in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Cambodia, East Timor, and Myanmar. These cases highlight how different social groups, characterized by diverse ideologies, ethnicities, genders, or religions, exhibit varying vulnerabilities as perpetrators or victims based on their social and power status. Mass atrocities are not sudden occurrences but rather result from a series of complex processes and events.

At the roots of attribution of human rights to migrants

Introduction

This study (N = 141, M age = 20.15) aimed at deepening knowledge on the factors that can lead young adults to deny the inalienability of human rights to migrants by examining whether, under realistic and symbolic intergroup threat (versus no-threat), the denial of human rights to migrants increases. In doing so, the role of fraternalistic relative deprivation in mediating this relation was examined. Also, two potential positive factors were considered: in-depth exploration of personal identity in the educational domain and identification with the human group. Intergroup threat was expected to enhance perceived relative deprivation, thus reducing the attribution of human rights to migrants. Such relation was expected to be mediated by those factors expressing complex views of self and others (in-depth exploration of identity in the educational domain and identification with the human group).

Method

Realistic and symbolic threat were experimentally manipulated through a written scenario. In the no-threat condition, no scenario was presented.

Results

Showed significant effects of intergroup threat on the attribution of human rights to migrants, on perceived fraternalistic relative deprivation, on in-depth exploration of identity in the educational domain and identification with the human group. More specifically, intergroup realistic threat, but not symbolic threat, reduced the attribution of human rights to migrants and identification with the human group. Symbolic threat, but not realistic threat, increased the perception of fraternalistic relative deprivation, whereas both realistic and symbolic threat reduced in-depth exploration of identity in the educational domain, and identification with the human group. As shown by the sequential mediation analysis, and as expected, the effect of intergroup threat in reducing attribution of human rights to migrants was mediated by in-depth exploration of identity in the educational domain, identification with the human group, and fraternalistic relative deprivation. Implications of findings concerning the processes underlying identification with the human group and its beneficial effects in terms of humanization of a stigmatized outgroup were highlighted by stressing the intertwined nature of personal identity and social identity processes. The importance of complex views of self and others in helping to create inclusive generations of adults was also highlighted.

Perceived COVID-19 risk is attenuated by ingroup trust: evidence from three empirical studies

Background

The social identity model of risk taking proposes that people take more risks with ingroup members because they trust them more. While this can be beneficial in some circumstances, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic it has the potential to undermine an effective public health response if people underestimate the risk of contagion posed by ingroup members, or overestimate the risk of vaccines or treatments developed by outgroup members.

Methods

Three studies (two prospective surveys, one experiment) with community-based adults tested the potential for the social identity model of risk taking to explain risk perception and risk taking in the context of COVID-19.

Results

Study 1 was a two-wave study with a pre-COVID baseline, and found that people who identified more strongly as a member of their neighborhood pre-COVID tended to trust their neighbors more, and perceive interacting with them during COVID-19 lockdown to be less risky. Study 2 (N = 2033) replicated these findings in a two-wave nationally representative Australian sample. Study 3 (N = 216) was a pre-registered experiment which found that people indicated greater willingness to take a vaccine, and perceived it to be less risky, when it was developed by an ingroup compared to an outgroup source. We interpret this as evidence that the tendency to trust ingroup members more could be harnessed to enhance the COVID-19 response.

Conclusions

Across all three studies, ingroup members were trusted more and were perceived to pose less health risk. These findings are discussed with a focus on how group processes can be more effectively incorporated into public health policy, both for the current pandemic and for future contagious disease threats.

Awareness of Common Humanity Reduces Empathy and Heightens Expectations of Forgiveness for Temporally Distant Wrongdoing

The present research identified why and under what conditions perpetrator groups expect forgiveness from victims when focused on common humanity. In Experiment 1 ( N = 41), thinking about victims as fellow humans increased expectations of forgiveness among perpetrator group members. Experiment 2 ( N = 74) revealed the important role of subjective temporal distance in qualifying the effect of appealing to common humanity. Forgiveness expectations increased when a transgression was perceived as temporally distant rather than close. Experiment 3 ( N = 70) found that expecting forgiveness was associated negatively with remorse for wrongdoing and revealed reduced empathy for victims as a mediator of the effect. Taken together, the findings reveal that factors shown to encourage forgiveness among victims can also create corresponding expectations among perpetrators. Unfortunately, this process is more likely to damage than repair intergroup relations.

Our Flaws Are More Human Than Yours

Four studies investigated whether people tend to see ingroup flaws as part of human nature (HN) to a greater degree than outgroup flaws. In Study 1, people preferentially ascribed high HN flaws to their ingroup relative to two outgroups. Study 2 demonstrated that flaws were rated higher on HN when attributed to the ingroup than when attributed to an outgroup, and no such difference occurred for positive traits. Study 3 replicated this humanizing ingroup flaws (HIF) effect and showed that it was (a) independent of desirability and (b) specific to the HN sense of humanness. Study 4 replicated the results of Study 3 and demonstrated that the HIF effect is amplified under ingroup identity threat. Together, these findings show that people humanize ingroup flaws and preferentially ascribe high HN flaws to the ingroup. These ingroup humanizing biases may serve a group-protective function by mitigating ingroup flaws as “only human.”