The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood

Edited by Johanna Ray Vollhardt

Provides systematic reviews of social psychological scholarship on collective victimhood and contributes new ideas in the field
Showcases work from a diverse group of authors presenting research from many different countries and parts of the world
Authors examine a range of different contexts of collective violence in different parts of the world, including ethnic and religious conflicts, the aftermath of genocides, post-Apartheid, consequences of settler colonialism, racism, the caste system, and national histories of victimization

The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood

Edited by Johanna Ray Vollhardt

Description

Throughout the world, many continue to experience collective violence and its long-lasting consequences. This book examines the social psychological processes involved in experiences of collective victimization and oppression, as well as the consequences of these experiences for individuals and for relations within and between groups. In twenty chapters, authors explore questions such as: How are experiences of collective victimization passed down and understood? How do people cope with and make sense of these experiences? Who is included and excluded from the category of "victims," and what are the psychological consequences of such denial versus acknowledgment of collective victimization? And finally, what are the ethics of researching collective victimization, especially when these experiences are recent or politically contested?

The authors examine these questions and others across a range of different contexts of collective violence in different parts of the world, including ethnic and religious conflicts, the aftermath of genocides, post-Apartheid, consequences of settler colonialism, racism, the caste system, and national histories of victimization.

The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood

Edited by Johanna Ray Vollhardt

Chapter 1. Introduction to "The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood": Examining Context, Power, and Diversity in Experiences of Collective Victimization
Johanna Ray Vollhardt

Section 1: How are Narratives of Collective Victimization Passed Down? Transmission of Collective Victimhood in Families and Communities

Chapter 2. Transgenerational Transmission of Collective Victimhood through a Developmental Intergroup Framework: The Lasting Power of Group Narratives of Suffering
Laura Taylor, Marina Stambuk, Dinka Corkalo Biruski, & Dean O'Driscoll

Chapter 3. Collective Memory and the Legacy of the Troubles: Territoriality, Identity and Victimhood in Northern Ireland
Neil Ferguson & Donna Halliday

Section 2: How do People Appraise, Feel About, and Respond to Collective Victimization? Affect and Coping Mechanisms Involved in Collective Victimhood

Chapter 4. The Context, Content, and Claims of Humiliation in Response to Collective Victimhood
Yashpal Jogdand, Sammyh Khan, & Stephen Reicher

Chapter 5. A Temporal Account of Collective Victimization as Existential Threat: Reconsidering Adaptive and Maladaptive Responses
Gilad Hirschberger & Tsachi Ein-Dor

Chapter 6. Collective Victimhood as a Form of Adaptation: A World Systems Perspective
Michal Bilewicz & James Liu

Chapter 7. The Unifying Potential of an Appraisal Approach to the Experience of Group Victimization
Colin Wayne Leach

Section 3: How do People Make Sense of Collective Victimization? Collective Victim Beliefs, Lay Theories, and Lessons of Collective Victimhood

Chapter 8. Studied and Understudied Victim Beliefs: What Have We Learned So Far and What's Ahead?
Zsolt Péter Szabó

Chapter 9. Community Members' Theorisation of Their Collective Victimization: Deliberating the Dynamics to Islamophobia
Nick Hopkins & Anna Dobai

Chapter 10. In the Aftermath of Historical Trauma: Perceived Moral Obligations of Current Group Members
Yechiel Klar, Noa Schori-Eyal, & Lior Yom Tov

Section 4: How Does Social Inequality Influence Collective Victimhood? The Role of Structural Violence, Intersectionality, and Group-based Power

Chapter 11. Collective Victimhood Resulting from Structural Violence
Silvia Mari, Denise Bentrovato, Federica Durante, & Johan Wassermann

Chapter 12. Examining Collective Victim Beliefs using Intersectionality
Rashmi Nair, Mukadder Okuyan, & Nicola Curtin

Chapter 13. Resentment and Redemption: On the Mobilisation of Dominant Group Victimhood
Stephen Reicher & Yasemin Ulusahin

Section 5: Who is Considered a Victim? Inclusion and Exclusion Dynamics of Collective Victimhood Based on Power and Perceived Legitimacy

Chapter 14. Experiencing Acknowledgment versus Denial of the Ingroup's Collective Victimization
Michelle Sinayobye Twali, Boaz Hameiri, Johanna Ray Vollhardt, & Arie Nadler

Chapter 15. A Critical Race Reading of Collective Victimhood: The Precarious Case of Black Americans
Michael J. Perez & Phia S. Salter

Chapter 16. "We All Suffered!" - The Role of Power in Rhetorical Strategies of Inclusive Victimhood and its Consequences for Intergroup Relations
Andrew McNeill & Johanna Ray Vollhardt

Section 6: What is the Role of Personality Traits and Psychological Needs in Collective Victimhood?

Chapter 17. The Tendency to Feel Victimized in Interpersonal and Intergroup Relationships
Rahav Gabay, Boaz Hameiri, Tami Lipshitz, & Arie Nadler

Chapter 18. Striking at the Core: A Unified Framework of How Collective Victimhood Affects Basic Psychological Needs for Relatedness, Competence, and Autonomy
Frank Jake Kachanoff, Michael J. A. Wohl, & Donald M. Taylor

Chapter 19. 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

Section 7: Ethical Challenges in Researching Collective Victimization

Chapter 20. The Ethics of Researching and Writing about Collective Victimhood in Post-Conflict Societies
Sigrun Marie Moss

The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood

Edited by Johanna Ray Vollhardt

Author Information

Johanna Ray Vollhardt is Associate Professor of Psychology at Clark University, where she directs the Social Psychology Ph.D. program. At Clark, she is also affiliated with the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the Peace Studies program, and the Center for Gender, Area, and Race Studies.
She has served on the governing council and as Vice President of the International Society of Political Psychology. She is a co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Social and Political Psychology.

Contributors:

Anna Lisa Aydin
Goethe University
Frankfurt, Germany

Denise Bentrovato
University of Pretoria
Pretoria, South Africa

Michal Bilewicz
University of Warsaw
Warszawa, Poland

Dinka Corkalo Biruski
University of Zagreb
Zagreb, Croatia

Nicola Curtin
Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford, CA, USA

Anna Dobai
University of Dundee
Dundee, UK

Federica Durante
University of Milano-Bicocca
Milan, Italy

Tsachi Ein-Dor
The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya
Herzliya, Israel

Neil Ferguson
Liverpool Hope University
Liverpool, UK

Rahav Gabay
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

Donna Halliday
Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool, UK

Boaz Hameiri
University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication
Philadelphia, PA, USA

Gilad Hirschberger
The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya
Herzliya, Israel

Nick Hopkins
University of Dundee School of Social Sciences
Dundee, UK

Yashpal Jogdand
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
New Delhi, India

Frank Jake Kachanoff
Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management
Evanston, IL, USA

Rotem Kahalon
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv, Israel

Sammyh Khan
Keele University School of Psychology
Keele, UK

Yechiel Klar
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv, Israel

Colin Wayne Leach
Barnard College
New York, NY, USA
&
Columbia University
New York, NY, USA

James Liu
Massey University School of Psychology
Auckland, New Zealand

Silvia Mari
University of Milano-Bicocca
Milano, Italy

Andrew McNeill
Northumbria University
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Sigrun Marie Moss
University of Oslo
Oslo, Norway

Arie Nadler
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

Rashmi Nair
Ashoka University
Sonepat Haryana, India

Dean O'Driscoll
Queen's University Belfast School of Psychology
Belfast, UK

Mukadder Okuyan
Clark University
Worcester, MA, USA

Michael J. Perez
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX, USA

Stephen Reicher
St. Andrews University
St. Andrews, UK

Tammy Rubel-Lifschitz
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jerusalem, Israel

Phia S. Salter
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX, USA

Nurit Shnabel
Tel-Aviv University
Tel-Aviv, Israel

Marina Stambuk
University of Zagreb
Zagreb, Croatia

Noa Schori-Eyal
Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya
Herzliya, Israel

Zsolt Péter Szabo
Eötvös Loránd University
Budapest, Hungary

Donald M. Taylor
McGill University
Montreal, Canada

Laura Taylor
University College Dublin
Dublin, Ireland
&
Queen's University Belfast
Belfast, UK

Michelle Sinayobye Twali
Clark University
Worcester, MA, USA

Johannes Ullrich
Universität Zürich
Zurich, Switzerland

Yasemin Ulusahin
St. Andrews University
St. Andrews, UK

Johanna Ray Vollhardt
Clark University
Worcester, MA, USA

Johan Wassermann
University of Pretoria
Pretoria, South Africa

Michael J. A. Wohl
Carleton University
Ottawa, Canada

Lior Yom Tov
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv, Israel

The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood

Edited by Johanna Ray Vollhardt

Reviews and Awards

"The topic of this book is profoundly important. Johanna Vollhardt has been in the forefront of studying collective victimization. She and the contributing authors show the impact of collective victimization on the group and its individual members, responses to it, transmission to future generations, and much more. This is an excellent, wide-ranging exploration." -- Ervin Staub, Author of The Roots of Evil and The Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil

"This book edited by Johanna Vollhardt opens a large window to the comprehension of collective victimhood as a societal phenomenon from different aspects. This is a very interesting collection of papers badly needed for scholars, practitioners, and even lay people who desire to widen their knowledge with the socio-psychological perspective." -- Daniel Bar-Tal, Professor Emeritus, School of Education, Tel Aviv University