Yechiel Klar

Tel Aviv University | TAU · School of Psychological Sciences

When is greater morality expected of groups that have experienced intergroup victimization? Six experiments illustrate that meaning making for the victims, but not the perpetrators, can lead observers to perceive the victims’ descendants as morally obligated to refrain from harming others. Focusing on the lessons of the past for the victim group in...

In‐between groups encompass individuals who simultaneously belong to social categories that are often seen as mutually exclusive in addition to maintaining their distinct group identity. The current paper sheds light on how members of in‐between groups manage their relations within intergroup conflicts. Three studies were conducted among the Druze...

Code-mixing with a dominant language can appeal to members of linguistic minorities because it signals bilingual proficiency, modernity, and social mobility. However, it can also pose a threat to the minority’s group vitality and distinctiveness. In Study 1 (N = 208), Palestinian citizens of Israel (a linguistic and national minority) listened to a...

This chapter discusses divergent perceived moral obligations that have been derived in Jewish Israeli society from the ingroup’s experience of collective victimization in the Holocaust. These obligations are to never be a passive victim again, to never forsake ingroup members in need, to never be a passive bystander when others are being harmed, an...

The current paper presents three studies, which suggest that perceiving one’s nation as transgenerational (TG) is related to a differentiation in the evaluation of ethnically German diaspora migrants and ethnically non-German (‘foreign’) migrants. First, we find that unlike ‘classical’ concepts such as right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social domi...

Member-to-group comparisons, in which the relative standing of particular group members vis-à-vis the other group members is judged (e.g., how competent is Dan relative to the others in the department? How tasty is this pizza relative to the other pizzas on the counter) are highly prevalent. According to LOGE theory, in making such comparisons, peo...

A fre­quent rhetoric in the po­lit­i­cal arena calls mem­bers of larger groups like na­tions to lay aside all di­vid­ing dif­fer­ences and unite in face of a com­mon threat. In the pre­sent re­search we sought to test whether such a uni­fy­ing ef­fect of ex­ter­nal threat al­ready man­i­fests in such ba­sic cog­ni­tive processes as au­to­matic cat­...

A frequent rhetoric in the political arena calls members of larger groups like nations to lay aside all dividing differences and unite in face of a common threat. In the present research we sought to test whether such a unifying effect of external threat already manifests in such basic cognitive processes as automatic categorization even for such s...

The sense of historical victimhood is indubitably a focal part of the Jewish and Israeli historical legacies. Three such legacies are reviewed: Victimhood as a perpetual density; victimhood as imposing supremacist separateness from non-Jews, and victimhood that necessitates caring for the oppressed ' strangers.' These varied and often incompatible...

Because the underdog in a conflict typically gains the support of observers, nations will often adopt a narrative that persuades both their domestic following and international allies that they are the true victim in the conflict. Three survey studies were conducted to assess the perceptions of citizens of a third-party observer nation (Canada) in...

A model of the relationship between need for closure (NFC) and intergroup hostility was tested in four studies. According to the model, heightened NFC promotes glorification of the ingroup which fosters support for extreme measures against the group’s perceived enemies. In a parallel process, high level of NFC induces perceptions of ingroup victimh...

Although the effects of group-based victimhood on attitudes and emotions have been demonstrated in previous research, the ways it affects cognitive processes remain unclear. Four studies examined how a perpetual ingroup victimhood orientation (PIVO) affects cognitive biases. High levels of PIVO were associated with the categorization of more outgro...

We examined associations between two orientations based on historical group trauma, a form of enduring group victimhood (Perpetual Ingroup Victimhood Orientation [PIVO]) and the belief that one’s group might itself become a victimizer (Fear of Victimizing [FOV]), and attitudes, cognitions, and emotions related to intergroup conflicts. PIVO was posi...

This article examines why people cooperate with the silencing and censorship efforts of authorities that deprive them of historical knowledge. We analyze two motivational factors that account for people’s adherence to the "official" historical narrative and their willingness to serve as lay censors silencing and suppressing alternative historical n...

We introduce the distinction between perceiving the group as Intra-Generational (including only the present generation of group members) and Trans-Generational (including all past, present and future generations of the group). In four studies (N = 1265) administered to Jewish-Israeli, Palestinian-Israeli, American and Swedish samples, we demonstrat...

A set of studies explored the possibility to instill hope for peace in the context of intractable conflicts. The first study examined Jewish-Israelis’ hopes for peace following a message from an out-group communicator. Results show that participants’ hopes increased after viewing a Palestinian conclude that the conflict was solvable. This held true...

In the psychological literature (e.g., Adorno et al, 1950; Altemeyer, 1988; Rokeach 1954) Fascism has been mainly viewed as a tendency rooted in the individual person. In parallel, however, historical research has documented the link between Fascism and the emergence of national states (e.g., Levene, 2005). We suggest that social psychology can bri...

Most studies on forgiveness and reconciliation in intergroup conflicts are conducted during the postresolution stages of conflict. The present research was conducted in the south of Israel to examine the issue of forgiveness among people currently enmeshed in active and violent conflict. Study 1 was conducted in the Israeli town of Sderot, which fo...

Groups, particularly when immersed in an intractable intergroup conflict, place considerable value on protecting and defending their historical group narrative. However, some group members are more narrative-protective than others. In Study 1, we introduce a new individual-difference measure of motivation to achieve a Firmly Entrenched Narrative Cl...

For the vast majority of contemporary Israelis, the Holocaust is an acquired memory. However, over the years its presence has not diminished but rather is on the rise. We describe how perceptions of the Holocaust have changed from “what Israeliness is not” in the 1940s and 1950s to a core element in Israeli identity. Inspired by Bauer, we present f...

This chapter explores characteristics of sense-making in actual combat. We begin by examining the "booting up" and "rebooting" metaphors. These concepts denote a process through which commanders understand that their notion of the fighting requires adaptation. In hectic and often desperate situations, involving intense emotions and confusion, they...

The authors examined the relationships between 2 modes of national identification (attachment to the in-group and the in-group's glorification) and reactions to the in-group's moral violations among Israeli students. Data were collected during a period of relative calm in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as during a period of great intensif...

We examine the conditions that facilitate feelings of collective guilt, and consider the prevalent historial and contemporary conditions that inhibit such guilt. Specifically, we outline the important role that self-categorisation as a member of a group that is responsible for illegitimately harming another group plays in inducing collective guilt....

Emotion can result from interpreting group actions as reflecting on the self due to an association between the two. This volume considers the nature of collective guilt, the antecedent conditions necessary for it to be experienced, how it can be measured, as well as how collective guilt differs from other group based emotions. Research from Austral...

Price, Pentecost, and Voth (2002) argue that common rather than rare negative future life events elicit greater indirect self-others comparative optimism. We argue that this finding may reflect a measurement effect: Rare events generate small differences (but large ratios), whereas common events produce larger differences (but smaller ratios). In S...

The Krueger & Funder (K&F) article would gain in constructive value if the authors spelled out what role the heuristics-and-biases approach could play in balancing the field of social cognition, lowering the burden of blame on it, cautioning overly enthusiastic readers from championing the “enough-with-the-biases” movement, and acknowledging that n...

People are frequently required to judge how particular group members measure up against others in their group. According to the local-comparisons-general-standards (LOGE) approach, in these member-to-group comparisons, people fail to use the normatively appropriate local (group) standard and are infelicitously affected by a more general standard (i...

People are frequently required to judge how particular group members measure up against others in their group. According to the local-comparisons - general-standards (LOGE) approach, in these member-to-group comparisons, people fail to use the normatively appropriate local (group) standard and are infelicitously affected by a more general standard...

Can almost all members of a group be judged as better (or worse) than the other people in the same group? Apparently yes. In Studies 1–4, members of small intact groups systematically judged their group members as above the group average and above the median on a variety of social traits, even when all group members were judged consecutively. In St...

In a nationwide study, we explored how Israelis, currently stricken by an intense wave of terrorism, perceive the risk of being the victim of a terrorist attack. We studied both absolute and comparative (i.e., vis-a-vis other people at the area of residence) perceived controllability and vulnerability. The picture that emerges is one of realism. We...

Most people judge themselves to be content with their lives. However, they also judge themselves to be more content than the others in their group, which is a logical impossibility. In line with previous speculations, the authors found in two studies that comparative contentment judgments were highly related to judgments of one’s own contentment bu...

In Studies 1-8, participants judged an anonymous student as better than the average student, as above the group median, and as better than most other students on a variety of desirable traits. This effect was retained when name and age were removed and student ID number was the only individuating feature, when both the average student and the anony...

In Studies 1–8, participants judged an anonymous student as better than the average student, as above the group median, and as better than most other students on a variety of desirable traits. This effect was retained when name and age were removed and student ID number was the only individuating feature, when both the average student and the anony...

Depressed and non-depressed participants were compared in their tendency to overgeneralize from a single instance, which, according to the ‘cognitive distortion’ view is one of the best cognitive indicators of depression. In contrast to previous studies, which asked participants to introspect about their tendency to generalize from different events...

Deviation from personal ideals and group standards has maladaptive consequences. Using insights from self-categorization and social identity theories, an ordered-discrepancy model of maladjustment was proposed in which simultaneously deviating from both types of standards is associated with increased maladjustment for members of high status groups,...

This study investigates (a) whether dysphoric and nondysphoric participants differ in their perceptions of social consensus for their behavioral choices and (b) whether one group's perceptions are more accurate than the other's. The findings show that though the two groups were equally inclined to make self-referential judgments, they were made in...

Failure to consider base rate is regarded as potentially hazardous, mainly because its consideration is assumed to be determined solely by P(H/D), the probability of the individuating data if the hypothesis is true, and not at all by P(D/˜H), the probability if the hypothesis is false. However, when P(D/˜H) is unconfounded from P(D/H), it turns out...

Five studies showed that people assess vulnerability to future controllable negative life events differently depending on whether it concerns: (a) generalized targets (e.g., the average peer), or (b) concrete and familiar targets (self or nonself). In the former case, adistributionalframework is applied which focuses on available statistical inform...

Recently, an evolutionary view of performance in the Wason selection task was proposed, according to which people successfully solve tasks involving social exchange situations, or cheating detection content and perspective, but fail to do so in other domains. Alternatively, we propose that performance in the Wason problem largely depends on three a...

Trying to self improve and self change are highly appreciated personal endeavors in current western culture (Rieff, 1966; Starker, 1988; Wilson, 1976). A variety of formal enterprises, flourishing in past decades, reflect the need for self change. These include psychotherapies (Beit-Hallahmi, 1987; Zilbergeld, 1983), encounter, self-help, and aware...

This volume is devoted to volitional personal-change endeavors through which individuals attempt to promote internal changes in themselves. It brings together clinical and social psychological perspectives on this issue. This introductory chapter has three main functions: (1) to highlight some of the perennial difficulties in approaching the concep...

Self Change: Social Psychological and Clinical Perspectives examines cognitive and motivational factors affecting the intention to seek change, processes involved in the initiation and maintenance of change, the role of social networks as facilitators or inhibitors of change, and measurement and assessment of personal change. At any given moment mi...

Self Change: Social Psychological and Clinical Perspectives examines cognitive and motivational factors affecting the intention to seek change, processes involved in the initiation and maintenance of change, the role of social networks as facilitators or inhibitors of change, and measurement and assessment of personal change. At any given moment mi...

In contrast to the tendency to divide human reasoning into statistical, logical and causal (the “compartmentalized reasoner” approach), I propose two generic reasoning operations, focalizing and linking, in a variety of reasoning tasks. These operations affect sensitivity to judgment-relevant information, and are related to pseudodiagnostic judgmen...

It is proposed that in solving statistical and logical reasoning tasks, reasoners form a bilateral linking structure connecting the 2 problem focal categories with each other. This structure includes 2 links. Each link may be conceived as full or partial. A full vs partial link, relevant to the inference, was predicted to promote unqualified and co...

A study was conducted to assess the psychosocial characteristics of individuals who become involved in large group awareness training (LGAT) programs. Prospective participants in The Forum, which has been classified as an LGAT, were compared with nonparticipating peers and with available normative samples on measures of well-being, negative life ev...

The present study of Forum outcome was conducted within a large scale investigation of the Quality of Life in North America. A quasi-experimental, non-equivalent control group design was used to assess the short- and long-term effects of participation in the Forum. The experimental subjects consisted of men and women who attended Forum seminars dur...

A study was designed to assess the psychological effects of participation in an intervention that has been classified as a large group awareness training (LGAT). One hundred and thirty-five participants in the Forum (the successor to the est training and at present the most widespread LGAT) and 73 comparable peer-nominated control Ss completed det...

International conflicts have been presently viewed in terms of the notion of conflict schema, denoting a belief in the incompatibility of goals held by the parties. This belief subscribes to the same epistemic process whereby all beliefs are formed and/or changed. According to the epistemological approach, a conflict situation occurs when at least...

An essential element in the make-up of conflicts is the subjective knowledge the parties hold concerning their relation. Such knowledge determines, first, whether the situation is characterized as a conflict, and, second, how the conflict is reacted to, affectively and behaviorally. This chapter looks at intergroup and international conflicts from...

A theory of lay epistemology is applied toward an integration of attribution theory with cognitive consistency theories. The integration follows a three-fold partition of the epistemic process into its deductive, motivational and contentual aspects. The commonality of the attribution and consistency paradigms is apparent in regard to the deductive...

Do people know what they are doing? This admittedly simplistic phrasing conceals some questions of fundamental significance to a psychological theory of actions: Are human actions thoughtful and rational or are they often mindless and automatic? Are they consciously determined or do they frequently stem from unconscious forces inaccessible to human...