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The Collective Remembering of Conflict and Its Role in Fueling an Ethos of Conflict in Society

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Book cover The Social Psychology of Intractable Conflicts

Part of the book series: Peace Psychology Book Series ((PPBS,volume 27))

Abstract

Traumatic events, and in particular collective violence, entail long-term effects on political attitudes, personal emotions (Punamaki, R.-J. (2011). Posttraumatic Growth in Middle Eastern Context. In T. Weiss & R. Berger (Eds.), Posttraumatic growth and culturally competent practice (pp. 31–48). New York: Wiley.), social beliefs (Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992). Shattered assumptions: Towards a new psychology of trauma. New York: The Free Press.), and on collective emotional orientation or emotional climate (Bar-Tal et al., Collective emotions in conflict situations: societal implications. Journal of Social Issues, 63, 441–460, 2007). To overcome a past of collective violence, tools like Truth Commissions should reconstruct social representations focused on (a) making efforts to discover the truth about the period of collective violence, (b) recognizing and validating victims’ suffering, (c) compensating those affected both materially and symbolically, (d) seeking justice, (e) avoiding new acts of violence, and (f) contributing to the creation of an inclusive collective memory oriented to the future. These functions may contribute to the avoidance of revenge cycles and further war crimes, at the same time as preventing collective violence from arising again. Bar-Tal’s suggestions and proposals regarding these topics are discussed in this chapter.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Basque Country, Vizcaya, Spain

    Dario Páez

  2. Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

    James H. Liu

Authors
  1. Dario Páez
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  2. James H. Liu
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Correspondence to Dario Páez .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center in Herzilya, Herzilya, Israel

    Eran Halperin

  2. Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

    Keren Sharvit

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Páez, D., Liu, J. (2015). The Collective Remembering of Conflict and Its Role in Fueling an Ethos of Conflict in Society. In: Halperin, E., Sharvit, K. (eds) The Social Psychology of Intractable Conflicts. Peace Psychology Book Series, vol 27. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17861-5_5

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