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Physical daily contexts are replete with traces of the past. A statue in a park, the name of a street, or an old advertisement can all remind people of specific historical moments or periods. Often, they recall glorious episodes, but traces of less glorious pasts also persist. Among them, the most self-censored ones refer to past immoral actions that tarnish the overly idealized moral standard attributed to the group. As a case in point, material traces of the colonial past became the focus of controversies within formerly colonizing countries during the last decade. European anti-racist movements questioned the colonial heritage of European societies in an unprecedented manner and active social minorities also brought to the fore some traces still in the background of physical environments. Part of public opinion reacted by denouncing the “cancel culture” or the danger of “erasing” history. This chapter outlines a social psychological approach about contemporary perceptions and interpretations of still self-censored material traces of Italian colonialism. Results of a qualitative survey on Italian participants’ representations and attitudes toward a candy with a colonial wrapping will illustrate how Italian participants of different generations question this ephemeral trace and take on the challenge of a cumbersome past.

Although social scientists have examined how political speeches may help forge and/or shape collective memories, they have done so with little to no input from psychologists. We address this deficit, demonstrating how a modified version of a well-established and empirically derived psychological phenomenon – socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting – helps explain the mnemonic consequences associated with political speeches, in this case, the Belgian King’s 2012 summer speech. To this end, we analyzed the responses of 43 French-speakers and 49 Dutch-speakers. Of these individuals 35 of them attended to the speech (16 French-speakers; 19 Dutch-speakers). Our results suggest that the Belgian King’s speech induced French-speaking Belgians who attended the speech to recall less information related to what the King mentioned in the speech. We found no such deficit for Dutch-speaking Belgians. Rather, the Dutch-speaking Belgians exhibited greater recall of related and unrelated information. These results bolster the importance of including a psychological approach in the study of collective memories and the moderating role of social identity., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis which called for two crucial modes of social regulation

In this article we use a social representational perspective on a large sample of European students to consider the interplay between pacifist attitudes and representations of World War I (WWI). WWI gave rise to pacifist movements across the globe. Across 10 European countries (N = 1,347 undergraduate students), we invited participants to report the first 5 words that came to their mind when thinking about this event and measured their level of pacifism. Analyses of the reported words revealed the presence of seven lexical classes corresponding to 2 main perspectives on WWI. The first main perspective was characterized by "analytical" representations of the war, with a focus on the places and actors of WWI. The second perspective highlighted negative emotions and appraisals associated with war. Overall, we found that the pacifist attitudes we analyzed were associated with a view of the conflict in terms of negatively valanced words, both at the emotional level and in terms of concrete consequences. Conversely lower pacifist attitudes were linked with an emphasis upon weapons. The present results help fill a gap in the literature on attitudes toward peace and war by evidencing their interplay with the way individuals view war. These findings allow us to establish a connection between mainstream, individualcentered approach to attitudes relying on individual premises and social representation theory. Moreover, in line with historical scholarship, these results suggest that a common interpretational framework underlies a view of the conflict associated with the pacifist wave that emerged 100 years ago and current pacifist attitudes. Finally, the present study is the first large scale psychology study of the social representations of the Great War.

The objective of this document is to help the RPOs and RFOs involved in CALIPER to develop a tailored internal engagement and change management strategy. This task is part of WP5 (Engagement, change management and sustainability), which aims at creating the appropriate conditions for ensuring the acceptance of the Gender Equality Plan (GEP)’s measures. A key success factor for the acceptance, smooth implementation and sustainability of a GEP is a strong basis of engaged and motivated people. The document presents, on the one hand, some theoretical insights to understand gender equality and discrimination and, on the other, a practical guideline addressing common obstacles in gender equality work (resistance) and how to overcome them, as well as success factors and good practices to foster structural change for gender equality in research organizations. These theoretical and practical knowledges will allow CALIPER research organisations to appropriately design an internal engagement and change management strategy and thus ensure the success of their respective GEPs. In addition to this, a last chapter presents the evaluation and monitoring process of engagement activities, including a presentation of the broad strategy adopted and KPIs for tasks 5.2 (Engagement of regional research and innovation ecosystem) and 5.3 (Awareness raising activities) and the description of the reporting procedure and template.

Several European countries have introduced integration programs that oblige immigrants to adopt the host culture. While research has shown that members of national majority groups consider host culture adoption by immigrants as desirable, the effect of making host culture adoption mandatory on attitudes toward immigrants has so far not been investigated. We argue that perceiving host culture adoption as mandatory yields less positive evaluation of immigrants than voluntary adoption. Moreover, we contend that this effect is explained by a lower perception of identification with the host nation by immigrants in the former case than in the latter. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a first study in France ('N' = 63) and a second preregistered study in Switzerland ('N' = 110). In both studies, participants received information about an immigrant who adopted the host culture either voluntarily or as part of a mandatory integration program. As expected, granting civic rights to the immigrant is perceived as more legitimate in the voluntary adoption condition than in the mandatory adoption condition, and this effect was mediated by perception of host nation identification. These results highlight the role of the situational context of acculturation practices in social judgments about immigrants. Implications for mandatory integration policies are discussed.

COST Action IS1205 “Social psychological dynamics of historical representations in the enlarged European Union”.

Groups that perceive themselves as victims can engage in “competitive victimhood.” We propose that, in some societal circumstances, this competition bears on the recognition of past sufferings—rather than on their relative severity—fostering negative intergroup attitudes. Three studies are presented. Study 1, a survey among Sub-Saharan African immigrants in Belgium (N = 127), showed that a sense of collective victimhood was associated with more secondary anti-Semitism. This effect was mediated by a sense of lack of victimhood recognition, then by the belief that this lack of recognition was due to that of Jews' victimhood, but not by competition over the severity of the sufferings. Study 2 replicated this mediation model among Muslim immigrants (N = 125). Study 3 experimentally demonstrated the negative effect of the unequal recognition of groups' victimhood on intergroup attitudes in a fictional situation involving psychology students (N = 183). Overall, these studies provide evidence that struggle for victimhood recognition can foster intergroup conflict.

Research has shown that members of the national majority group generally consider host culture adoption by immigrants as desirable. However, so far, this positive effect of perceived host culture adoption on attitudes toward immigrants has not been explained. We argue that majority members infer national identification of immigrants from their cultural adoption. Moreover, we predict that this inference should decrease majority members’ feeling of ingroup threat, therefore also improving their attitudes toward immigrants. We conducted two experimental studies. In Study 1, majority members who were presented an immigrant group that adopted the host culture held more positive attitudes than those who were presented one that disregarded it. In line with our hypothesis, this effect was fully mediated by perceived identification of the immigrants with the host nation, itself decreasing perception of ingroup threat. Study 2 reproduced the same experimental design, but used descriptions of individual immigrants’ acculturation strategies, and the immigrant group’s status – valued vs. devalued origin – was also manipulated. In addition, Study 2 focused on dimensions of the “Big Two” of social perception. Results replicated the mediational effect of perceived identification on attribution of both warmth and competence traits. The status manipulation had no significant effect and did not interact with cultural adoption. These two studies provide robust evidence that perception of host nation identification explains the effects of perceived cultural adoption on attitudes towards immigrants.

The present study examines current social representations associated with the origins of the Great War, a major event that has profoundly affected Europe. A survey conducted in 20 European countries (N = 1906 students in social sciences) shows a high consensus: The outbreak of the war is attributed to the warring nations’ leaders while the responsibility of the populations is minimized. Building on the concept of social representation of history (Liu and Hilton, 2005), we suggest that the social representations of the Great War fulfill social psychological functions in contemporary Europe. We suggest that WWI may function as a charter for European integration. Their content also suggests a desire to distinguish a positively valued ingroup ("the people") from powerful elites, construed as an outgroup., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Collective memory theories propose that groups' remembrances of their past depend upon their current social situation. In Belgium, a significant proportion of Dutch speakers share a collective memory of past victimisation by French speakers and fight for an ever-larger autonomy of their region. Yet, as the respective economic, political and social situations of the linguistic regions of Belgium recently evolved with a reversal of fortunes, the current experience of younger Dutch speakers does not fit the traditional memory anymore. We thus predicted that the collective memories of victimhood would decline amongst them, thus bringing changes in intergroup attitudes and political aspirations. Three generations were compared in a survey of 1226 French-speaking and 1457 Dutch-speaking individuals. For both groups, younger generations evidenced less regionalist and more integrative positions than older ones. However, these effects were stronger for Dutch-speaking respondents, and for them, collective memory of victimhood mediated the relation linking age and identification with Belgium, intergroup attitudes and political aspirations. We concluded that the current social context has decisive consequences for collective remembrances, which, in turn, impact intergroup relations and political attitudes and choices.

This commentary on Moss and Vollhardt's (2016) article examines how their findings complement a study by Kanazayire, Licata, Melotte, Dusingizemungu, and Azzi (2014), which also sought to assess the effectiveness of the Rwandan government's ethnic identity policy for improving reconciliation sentiments in postgenocide Rwanda.

European colonial powers invaded and then dominated a large part of the African continent from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. The influence of colonialism did not cease after independence as it still impregnates the cultures and identities of both formerly colonising and formerly colonised peoples. The question of how inhabitants of formerly colonised and formerly colonising countries represent the colonial past is a key issue in understanding this lasting influence. Social representations of European colonial action were investigated among young people (N = 1134) in three European countries and six African countries. Social representations of the colonial past were structured around two main dimensions across African and European samples: Exploitation and Development. Social representations of colonialism denoted by Exploitation were more strongly endorsed by the European compared to the African subsample, whereas those denoted by Development were more strongly endorsed by the African compared to the European subsample. However, while African participants considered colonialism less negatively than Europeans, they also had higher expectations concerning Europeans’ collective guilt feeling and willingness to offer reparations. By contrast, European participants’ social representations of colonialism were more negative but they were less likely to believe that present-day European peoples and governments are accountable for the misdeeds of colonialism in the past. Finally, national identification mediated the association between the Exploitation dimension of colonialism and both group-based emotions and support for reparation in the African, but not the European, subsample. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The consequences of colonialism are important not only because they shape our “world of nations” at the level of international relations, but because their contemporary repercussions are also present in the psychosocial dynamics at work among former colonized and former colonizing peoples, such as identity building, collective emotions, traumatic processes, intergroup relations, prejudice, discrimination, and acculturation processes. However, there is still a scarce amount of cultural and social psychological studies dealing with the current implications of colonial history and memories in contemporary societies. This Special Issue aims to fill this gap. The main focus here is on the relevance of historical representations and collective memories of the colonial past with regard to contemporary intercultural relations. In this vein, this Special Issue includes eight papers that shed light on the content and structure of social representations of colonial history; the emotional and cognitive impacts of the colonial past; and how colonial past is shaping contemporary acculturation processes and intergroup attitudes and relations. This Special Issue hosts original empirical research employing different methodologies (e.g. interviews, questionnaire surveys, experiments, and case studies), as well as theoretical papers that rely on a systematic review of the empirical literature. Together, the contributions in this Special Issue stress the importance of considering colonial legacies in the study of contemporary intercultural relations. We call for dialogue and interdisciplinary work in this domain between social and cultural psychology and other social sciences, such as history, anthropology, and political science., SCOPUS: re.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Inspired by the popular Arab protests against oppressive regimes that began in 2010,people around the world protested in sympathy with the Arab peoples. The present research draws on two major theories of intergroup relations to develop an initial integrative model of sympathetic collective action. We incorporate social dominance theory’s (SDT) concept of (rejectionist) legitimizing myths with the solidarity and emotional mediation concept of the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA) to understand motivations for sympathetic collective action among bystanders. Using data from 12 nations (N=1480), we tested three models: (a) SIMCA (i.e. solidarity, anger, and efficacy), (b) a social dominance theory model of collective action (i.e. social dominance orientation and ideologies concerning Arab competence), and (c) an integrated model of sympathetic collective action combining both theories. Results find the greatest support for an integrated model of collective action. Discussion focuses on theoretical pluralism and suggestions for future research., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

It is a known fact that some Belgians collaborated with the Nazi occupier during WWII. However, according to a popular myth, collaboration was widespread in Flanders, whereas Walloons bravely resisted. Of course, historical reality is much more nuanced, but this oversimplification has largely resurfaced in political debates surrounding the Belgian linguistic conflict. Demands for amnesty for former collaborators addressed by Flemish nationalist parties are a case in point. We conducted two studies in order to investigate Belgians’ attitudes towards this political issue in the two linguistic communities. In 2012, a first survey (N = 521; 315 French-speakers (FS) and 206 Dutch-speakers (DS)) showed that WWII collaboration was morally condemned, and attitudes towards amnesty were predominantly negative, in both groups. However, DS tended to support amnesty more than FS. This effect of Linguistic Group on Support for Amnesty was mediated by Judgments of Morality of collaboration, and this mediation was moderated by Linguistic identification. In 2015, a second survey (N = 774; 476 FS and 298 DS) confirmed these results. Moreover, judgments about the Unfairness of the repression of collaboration also mediated the effect of Linguistic Group on Support for Amnesty. These results suggest that differences in political position-taking regarding the granting of amnesty between DS and FS are, at least partly, due to different attitudes towards collaboration and to the membership to a linguistic community., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Despite the current societal emergency, little is known about the acculturation processes undergone by Syrian and Iraqi asylum seekers. The present paper investigates their early-stage acculturation preferences in relation to their perception of majority members' acculturation expectations and to their settlement intentions. 103 Syrian and Iraqi male asylum seekers were recruited during the peak of the 2015 "refugee crisis" in a provisional reception centre and completed a brief questionnaire. Results showed that asylum seekers reported a high willingness to participate in the host society and to adopt the host culture, while maintaining their culture of origin. Moreover, as predicted, asylum seekers' settlement intentions and their perceptions of majority members' acculturation expectations were key predictors of their own acculturation preferences. Implications for integration policies are discussed., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

A questionnaire survey (N = 247) investigated the influence of identification with the Rwandan nation on reconciliation sentiments between members of the survivor and of the non-victim groups of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Results showed that, whereas the two groups did not differ in their level of identification with the nation, members of the non-victim group were more willing to reconcile than members of the survivor group. Perceived intergroup similarity mediated the effect of national identification on reconciliation sentiment for both groups, but this effect was stronger among non-victims. Finally, self-esteem during commemorations also mediated this effect, but only among non-victims. We discuss the importance of people’s motivation to reconcile with out-group members in post-genocidal contexts in light of the common in-group identity model (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000) as well as the needs-based model of intergroup reconciliation (Nadler & Schnabel, 2008)., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Social representations of the historical past, anchored in historical experience and cultural values, play a motivational role for justifying collective behaviour. The First and Second World Wars (WWI and WWII) are the most remembered historical events around the world. The aim of the current study is to investigate, based on country-level data, the relationship between the country's role during the war, social development, cultural values and willingness to fight in a future war, and how social representations of WWII mediate these processes. The data from the World History Survey were collected from a total of 6628 university students from 36 countries. The results showed that ascribing WWII a progressive (UN creation, democracy) or technological-scientific explanation, but also perceiving WWII as a social catastrophe, prevailed more than beliefs justifying WWII (just and necessary war). Directly or indirectly victorious nations endorse legitimizing and positive representations of world wars more than defeated ones. The effects of hierarchical and collectivistic values and low social development on willingness to fight in a war are mediated by legitimizing social representations of WWII. Importantly, when controlled for socio-structural differences (human development index), the indirect effect of being a victorious nation in a war on willingness to fight through legitimizing representations of WWII was also significant. These findings suggest that social representations of WWII serve as anchors for determining the role of a nation in collective violence. Social representations legitimizing past collective violence seem to facilitate more positive attitudes towards potential future collective violence in victorious nations.