When two groups hurt each other: Understanding and reducing the negative consequences of collective victimhood in dual conflicts

Nurit Shnabel, Rotem Kahalon, Johannes Ullrich, Anna Lisa Aydin, Johanna Ray Vollhardt

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

This chapter builds on the needs-based model of reconciliation, which posits victim groups’ primary need for agency and perpetrator groups’ primary need for morality, and examines dual conflicts in which groups are both victims and perpetrators. The authors posit that in such cases, the experience of victimization is more psychologically impactful than the experience of perpetration. They review empirical support for this “primacy of agency” effect, as well as evidence of the effects of interventions that affirm the group’s agency in such contexts. The findings show that agency affirmations increase conciliatory responses toward the other conflict party as well as the willingness to relinquish power and violence for the sake of morality. These effects were found across both higher and lower power groups in the conflicts that were examined.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood
EditorsJohanna Ray Vollhardt
PublisherOxford University Press
Chapter19
ISBN (Print)9780190875190
DOIs
StatePublished - 2020

Keywords

  • needs-based model of reconciliation
  • agency
  • morality
  • dual conflicts
  • Israeli–Palestinian conflict
  • primacy of agency
  • reconciliation

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