Conflict escalation alters even retrospective moral judgments of past in-group harms.

Evidence

The resurgence of conflict brought with it some defensive revisions in the assessment of the in-group’s past wrongdoings. In our study, participants reacted to events that had occurred long ago: the most remote 52 years and the most recent 6 years before the first study. Nonetheless, the resurgence of violence apparently affected perceptions of these past events. These results suggest that in periods of heightened conflict, not only are group members likely to justify in-group acts that would be deemed unjustifiable in periods of relative calm, but they are also more likely to withhold moral condemnation of harmful acts committed by the in-group in the past. — Sonia Roccas and Yechiel Klar and Ido Liviatan, The Paradox of Group-Based Guilt, 86

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s question about whether actual historical persecution vs. perceived threat drives glorification — this suggests defensive distortion is driven by current threat, not by the historical facts themselves. — connects to: Conflict both demands belief in in-group morality and creates urgent need to question it — Sonia Roccas and Yechiel Klar and Ido Liviatan, The Paradox of Group-Based Guilt: Modes…, 5; Escalating Israeli-Palestinian conflict did not alter how identification modes predict group guilt — Sonia Roccas and Yechiel Klar and Ido Liviatan, The Paradox of Group-Based Guilt: Modes…, 80; Conflict escalation lowers group-based guilt and raises exonerating cognitions over time. — Sonia Roccas and Yechiel Klar and Ido Liviatan, The Paradox of Group-Based Guilt: Modes…, 87 (+7 more)
• QUESTION: In New Zealand, does the peace/war status of the conflict modulate when these retrospective revisions occur, or is any sense of being under threat sufficient?

Related

• Escalating conflict reduces in-group acknowledgment of past wrongdoings (similarity 0.93)
• Conflict escalation lowers group-based guilt and raises exonerating cognitions over time. (similarity 0.90)
• Ongoing historical harms trigger defensive denial where ended ones allow acknowledgment (similarity 0.88)
• Conflict both demands belief in in-group morality and creates urgent need to question it (similarity 0.88)
• Groups respond in real time to current rather than historical in-group wrongdoings (similarity 0.86)
• Escalating Israeli-Palestinian conflict did not alter how identification modes predict group guilt (similarity 0.84)
• Perceived in-group moral violations trigger defensive cognitive distortions. (similarity 0.84)
• Those who read unfavorable group history become less willing to apologize (similarity 0.84)
• Reminders of a group’s own victimization history increase guilt assigned to others (similarity 0.83)
• Reminders of past victimization suppress a group’s collective guilt for its own current harmdoing. (similarity 0.83)
• Moral disengagement mechanisms enable justification of in-group harm. (similarity 0.81)
• Threat amplifies attribution biases that exonerate ingroups and damn outgroups (similarity 0.80)
• Defensive Germans superficially accept guilt while warding off latent responsibility (similarity 0.79)
• Reading about in-group atrocities suppresses concern for harm and fairness (similarity 0.79)
• Moral disengagement from in-group wrongdoing can be countered through awareness-raising communications. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Escalating conflict reduces in-group acknowledgment of past wrongdoings #corroborates (0.90) — Sonia Roccas and Yechiel Klar and Ido Liviatan, The Paradox of Group-Based Guilt, 130
• Conflict escalation lowers group-based guilt and raises exonerating cognitions over time. #corroborates (0.85) — Sonia Roccas and Yechiel Klar and Ido Liviatan, The Paradox of Group-Based Guilt, 87
• Threat to in-group moral image triggers defensive reinterpretation of atrocity reports. #expands (0.85) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2136
• Learning one’s group harmed another group increases dehumanization of the victims #expands (0.80)
• Group anonymity and emotional arousal override individual moral judgment #expands (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 435