Making sense of the past to understand the present: Attributions for historical trauma predict contemporary social and political attitudes

Research indicates that the memory of collective trauma influences attitudes towards contemporary social and political issues. We suggest that the specific attributions for trauma that members of victim and perpetrator groups make provide a more nuanced understanding of this relationship. Thus, we constructed and validated a measure of attributions for the Holocaust. Then, we ran a preregistered study on representative samples in Germany (N = 504) and Israel (N = 469) to examine whether attributing the Holocaust to essentialist or contextual causes influences attitudes towards the immigration crisis and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Results indicated that, among Germans, attributing the Holocaust to German character was associated with positive attitudes to immigration via collective guilt. Among Israelis, attributions to German character were associated with negative attitudes to non-Jewish immigration, a hawkish stance in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and pro-Israel attitudes via a sense of perpetual victimization. Results reveal how attributions about past trauma affect contemporary social and political attitudes among victims and perpetrators.

Automated summary

Research suggests that the memory of collective trauma influences attitudes towards contemporary social and political issues. Results from a study conducted in Germany and Israel show that attributing the Holocaust to certain causes can impact attitudes towards immigration and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Germans who attribute the Holocaust to German character tend to have positive attitudes towards immigration due to a sense of collective guilt, while Israelis who make the same attributions tend to have negative attitudes towards non-Jewish immigration, take a hawkish stance in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and support Israel due to a sense of perpetual victimization.