Perpetrator acknowledgment of genocide victimization reduces victims’ anger and hostility.
Evidence
For example, experiments among Jewish and Armenian Americans (Vollhardt, Mazur, & Lemahieu, 2014) to which the authors of the target article also refer demonstrated that the perpetrator groups’ acknowledgment (as opposed to denial) of these groups’ victimization in the Holocaust, Kielce Pogrom, and Armenian Genocide reduced anger, sadness, and hostility and increased positive affect. — Johanna Ray Vollhardt and Michelle Sinayobye Twali, Emotion-Based Reconciliation Requires…, 32
Categorization
- SHARE: A tight empirical claim that would interest anyone working on intergroup reconciliation/transitional justice literature.
- XREF: connects to: Harming victims increases derogation and commitment to violence; Acknowledging in-group responsibility for past atrocities increases infrahumanization of the victim group — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2108; Collective victimhood feelings suppress reconciliatory actions across both groups — R. C. Tripathi, R. Kumar, and V. N. Tripathi, When the Advantaged Feel Victimised:…, 121 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Harming victims increases derogation and commitment to violence
#contradicts(0.82) - Acknowledging in-group responsibility for past atrocities increases infrahumanization of the victim group
#contradicts(0.78) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2108 - Collective in-group responsibility specifically reduces attribution of human emotions to victims
#qualifies(0.76) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2111 - Collective victimhood feelings suppress reconciliatory actions across both groups
#complicates(0.75) — R. C. Tripathi, R. Kumar, and V. N. Tripathi, When the Advantaged Feel Victimised, 121 - Group glorification increases emotional minimization of outgroup victims’ suffering.
#contradicts(0.73) — Bernhard Leidner et al., Ingroup Glorification, Moral…, 50 - Perceiving a victim’s shared humanity can break the disengagement that enabled violence
#expands(0.72) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2424