Jagiellonian University scientist: indicating the location of historical violence influences the attribution of responsibility for it

Identifying the place where historical violence occurred significantly influences who we attribute responsibility for it, according to research conducted by Dr. Lucas B. Mazur from the Jagiellonian University.

According to the scientist, specific geographical terms can shape collective guilt and create lasting social narratives around difficult historical events.

As announced on Monday by the Jagiellonian University press office, the results of research by a scientist from the Institute of Pedagogy at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Jagiellonian University have been published in Group Processes & Intergroup Relations.

In his work, Dr. Lucas B. Mazur examined how the location of violent events influences assessments of collective responsibility. In four studies involving over 800 people of German descent, he analyzed how the perception of the location where violence occurred influences the sense of responsibility for it. He also examined whether these effects persist over time and whether they spread to others through word of mouth, thus becoming part of the social narratives created around historical violence.

In the first two studies, German participants were shown a short note about a World War II guard. Depending on the group, the concentration camp was described as German, Polish, Ukrainian, or without any indication of nationality. The location where the described violence occurred influenced participants' assessments of collective responsibility for the events. Raters attributed greater responsibility to the nation whose name was used in the geographical description.

In another study, participants were told, they read the story of a man who served the Nazis. In one version, he lived in Lublin, Poland, and in the other, in Linz, Austria. All other details of the story were identical. In this situation, those reading the "Polish" version also attributed greater responsibility to Poles, while those reading the "Austrian" version attributed greater responsibility to Austrians.

Despite the relatively high level of historical education in Germany about the Holocaust and World War II, geopolitical framing still influences the perception of collective responsibility for Nazi violence, which is a particularly striking example of this effect.

According to him, the next part of the study showed that the effect of attributing responsibility persisted over time. After several days, raters continued to attribute more responsibility to the nation within whose borders the story was embedded.

We also analyzed whether the effect transfers to other people who hear the story secondhand. "We found positive correlations between the responsibility ratings made by the person telling the story and the ratings made by the person reading the story," the researcher noted.

According to him, the study shows that the language used in conversations about history has political and social significance, and even a slight change in wording can influence whether we feel responsible for past actions. "Journalists, educators, and museum curators should therefore be careful where they place historical events," concluded Dr. Mazur. (PAP)

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