Victim groups need agency (vertical) restoration while perpetrator groups need moral communion (horizontal) restoration.

Evidence

Notably, different theoretical approaches distinguish between and emphasize different needs associated with victimization and perpetration. Twali et al. (2020) proposed a hierarchy of four acknowledgment needs: factual acknowledgment (recognition that collective victimization occurred), empathic acknowledgment (validation of the victim group’s suffering), acknowledgment of responsibility for harmdoing by the perpetrator group, and the internalization of a negative identity (when the transgression becomes an integral part of the historical perpetrator group’s identity). Building on self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci 2017), Kachanoff et al. (2020) distinguish between the needs for competence (the ability to achieve desired outcomes) and autonomy (freedom of expression of the ingroup’s sociocultural identity). Justice restoration theory (Okimoto & Wenzel 2008; for a recent review, see Okimoto & Gollwitzer 2025) highlights the basic need for justice, and Hirschberger et al. (2016) emphasize the unique characteristics of existential threat, which jeopardizes the very need for survival. While acknowledging these critical nuances, for conceptual parsimony the needs-based model subsumes all these needs under the broad umbrella of the need for empowerment and the restoration of the ingroup’s vertical dimension of identity (i.e., agency/competence, or getting ahead). Similarly, while recognizing the importance of the distinction between sociability and morality (Brambilla & Leach 2014), the model subsumes the need for moral identity and the need to be accepted and liked under the horizontal dimension of identity (i.e., communion/warmth, or getting along). — Nurit Shnabel and Johannes Ullrich, Identity Needs in Intergroup Relations, 66

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Direct reinforcement of the reader’s existing synthesis’s asymmetry claim — the needs-based model maps the verticle (agency) dimension onto victimization and the horizontal (moral/communion) dimension onto perpetration, which is exactly the asymmetry the reader’s review centers on.
• XREF: Connects to Twali et al. acknowledgment-needs hierarchy and Kachanoff et al.’s self-determination framing as rival taxonomies the needs-based model unifies. — connects to: Reconciliation work must target perpetrator and high-power group members’ affect, not only victims’. — Johanna Ray Vollhardt and Michelle Sinayobye Twali, Emotion-Based Reconciliation Requires…, 29; Victim and perpetrator groups pursue agentic versus moral identity restoration respectively. — Nurit Shnabel and Johannes Ullrich, Identity Needs in Intergroup Relations:…, 140; Victim groups seek agentic power while perpetrator groups seek moral reacceptance — Nurit Shnabel and Johannes Ullrich, Identity Needs in Intergroup Relations:…, 65 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Victim and perpetrator groups pursue agentic versus moral identity restoration respectively. #corroborates (0.97) — Nurit Shnabel and Johannes Ullrich, Identity Needs in Intergroup Relations, 140
• Victim groups seek agentic power while perpetrator groups seek moral reacceptance #corroborates (0.95) — Nurit Shnabel and Johannes Ullrich, Identity Needs in Intergroup Relations, 65
• Victims need empowerment while perpetrators need moral acceptance for reconciliation #corroborates (0.93) — Johanna Ray Vollhardt and Michelle Sinayobye Twali, Emotion-Based Reconciliation Requires…, 37
• Satisfying identity needs of victims and perpetrators facilitates reconciliation across groups. #expands (0.86) — Nurit Shnabel and Johannes Ullrich, Identity Needs in Intergroup Relations, 94
• Powerful groups need empathy while weaker groups need responsibility acceptance. #complicates (0.76) — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt, 1519
• Reconciliation demands rehumanizing perpetrators, which ingroup norms punish #complicates (0.74) — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt, 2011