Institutional acknowledgement of the chosen trauma in the background of its denial: A field experiment across conflicting groups

Abstract

Reconciliation research revealed that the institutional acknowledgement of the group's sufferings does not always improve fractured intergroup relations. To get a better understanding of this issue, through a field experiment we explored whether its effectiveness could be dependent on the collective background against which it is provided. That is, we involved citizens (N = 975) from societies entrapped in recent or ongoing conflicts (i.e., Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Palestinian, Israel) and examined the effects of the institutional acknowledgement of a chosen trauma when its denial by the majority (vs. minority) of outgroup members was made salient. Results revealed that the salience of the acknowledgement was effective in increasing the trust towards outgroup representatives. Instead, such an acknowledgement was ineffective in improving people's willingness to reconcile and hope for change, which was mainly dependent on the levels of denial by outgroup members. However, for these latter variables, relevant differences emerged depending on the conflictual versus post-conflictual context. Implications of our findings for intergroup reconciliation are discussed.