Motivated History: Representations of Groups History as a Function of Current Motivations

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Immo Fritsche, since 3/2019
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2015 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 277137575

Representations of groups history are motivated and therefore they are flexible and selective. The proposed project is set out to uncover these motivational dynamics by testing an integrated multi-motive perspective on national history in Poland and Germany, both in terms of individual-level and collective level motivations. We aim at determining how different depictions of historical roles of the ingroup (victims, perpetrators, passive bystanders, heroic helpers) can be affected by specific psychological needs for control and moral acceptance and how depictions of ingroup history as either agentic or moral may differentially satisfy these motives. In the proposed set of 22 experimental studies we will induce need for control or need for morality (on collective or individual level). This will allow to capture the effects of current psychological motivations on historical representations measured, for instance, as spontaneously generated depictions of history or perceived ingroup and outgroup continuity. We will also investigate how current needs affect the acceptance of different historical roles and how the memory of victim or perpetrator episodes in the past can help to satisfy current needs. Finally, we will investigate the role perceptions of collective continuity and homogeneity play in mediating the hypothesized effects. The results will contribute to the understanding of intergroup reconciliation after historical crimes. The dominant paradigm in this field, a needs-based model of reconciliation (Nadler & Shnabel, 2008), focuses on how historical representations threaten specific psychological needs. On the contrary, we view the representations of history as people s reactions to current threats to control or morality and analyze the motivational underpinnings of preferred historical representations within and beyond the context of intergroup reconciliation. Thorough analysis of this problem will significantly advance psychological theory on motivated collective cognition and intergroup conflicts, but also will help practitioners creating curricula, museum exhibits and policy makers in better understanding of the motivational underpinnings of historical representations. This can obviously improve the quality of historical education in both Poland and Germany.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Poland
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Michal Bilewicz
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Dr. Markus Barth, until 2/2019