Loïc Fierens (FNRS, UCLouvain, Université de Lorraine) (presenting author)
Pierre Bouchat (Université de Lorraine)
This research investigates how familial and national memories of World War II, alongside intertemporal emotions, shape individuals' attitudes toward peace and war. The question guiding this study is: how do collective memories of WWII correlate with individuals’ attitudes toward war and peace? To answer it, data was collected among students of more than 20 European countries. The survey captures data on participants’ intertemporal frames, their familial and national memory of WWII, their attitudes toward peace and war, and different covariates. The nature of collective memories and of intertemporal emotions are expected to be associated with contrasted pro-war and pro-peace attitudes (prerecording available on OSF (https://osf.io/7c4fv/overview). This study helps shedding light on how intergenerational narratives, collective memory and intertemporal emotions influence contemporary perspectives on war and peace across Europe. By exploring diverse national contexts, the research offers insights into the emotional and memory foundations of conflict attitudes in contemporary Europe.
Carla Grosche, University of Jena
Julian Kauk, Zentrum für Rechtsextremismusforschung, Demokratiebildung und gesellschaftliche Integration
Tobias Rothmund, University of Jena
The use of temporal references has become a defining tool in contemporary political communication across the political spectrum, but is most prevalently employed in right-wing populist discourse. Drawing on over three million Telegram posts from the German radical right party AfD and its politicians, we investigate how both general temporal and specific historical references are used in far-right online discourse to mobilize support for present-day political action. Using computational methods and structural topic modeling, we examine both the prevalence of temporal references and the features through which the present is constructed through the lens of the collective past, and introduce a typology of temporal narratives linked to in-group deprivation, perceived injustice, blame attribution, and political mobilization. Our findings contribute to understanding how far-right actors construct and strategically use collective memory to reinforce group identity, assign victim status and perceived entitlement to the in-group, and call for action to restore "old glory.”
Marlene S. Altenmüller, Leibniz-Institute for Psychology (ZPID), Trier, Germany
Remembrance often involves artistic approaches such as monuments, visual artworks, or musical explorations. So far, little is known how aestheticization (i.e., contextualizing something as art or in an artistic way) shapes the psychological impact of remembrance. Theory and research from empirical aesthetics suggest that aestheticization induces psychological distance and alleviates affective responses to adverse topics, while also potentially enabling more engagement with the displayed content. I experimentally (N = 539) compared thematizing the holocaust in a purely informational way (i.e., encyclopedia text), in an artistic way using educational materials by the Holocaust Remembrance Center Yad Vashem (i.e., visual art + poetry), or without treatment (i.e., control group). The results show no direct effects on moral disengagement or support for historical closure. However, aestheticization triggered more contemplation, which was related to less disengagement and, consequently, less support for closure. Thus, art might not hinder remembrance but could help deeper reflection.
Carmen Lienen *1, Fiona Kazarovytska *2 & Frank Eckerle 3
* Both authors contributed equally to the present article.
1 FernUniversität in Hagen, Community Psychology
Universitätsstraße 47, 58097 Hagen, Germany
carmen.lienen@fernuni-hagen.de (ORCID: 0000-0003-0770-5882)
2 Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Social and Legal Psychology
Binger Str. 14-16, 55122 Mainz, Germany
fiona.kazarovytska@uni-mainz.de (ORCID ID: 0000-0003-3537-5710)
3 University of Klagenfurt, General Psychology and Cognitive Research
Universitätsstraße 65-67, 9020 Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Austria
Frank.Eckerle@aau.at (ORCID ID: 0000-0002-6170-1260)
Groups are often implicated in multiple historical transgressions. Yet, psychological research on collective memory has predominantly focused on isolated instances of wrongdoing. Using Germany as the empirical context, we conducted five mixed-methods studies to examine how perpetrator group members engage with memories of different transgressions. A qualitative analysis of 457 comments from online discussions on Germany’s collective remembrance (Study 1) provided the basis for developing scales that distinguish inclusive from exclusive memory orientations. An inclusive orientation acknowledges the importance of addressing multiple transgressions. An exclusive orientation prioritizes certain memories over others. Subsequent quantitative studies (Studies 2a-3 and S1; Ntotal = 1,599) examined how these orientations relate to sociopolitical attitudes, using both variable-centered (nomological network) and person-centered approaches (latent profile analysis). We found that an inclusive orientation was related to willingness to repair multiple harms and more prosocial present-day attitudes (e.g., support of migrants). In contrast, an exclusive orientation was linked to historical defensiveness, even toward those crimes whose exclusive remembrance is ostensibly supported. Latent profile analyses further revealed that advocating exclusive remembrance may paradoxically reflect a broader reluctance to repair any of the investigated wrongdoings. We discuss how studying multiple memories advances research on collective memory and present-day intergroup relations.
Le Fan Xiao, MSc, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, lxiao@link.cuhk.edu.hk
Zhong-Yu Fang, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, zhongyufang@cuhk.edu.hk
Ying-yi Hong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, yyhong@cuhk.edu.hk
Collective nostalgia is a group-level, identity-based affective response to positively remembered ingroup pasts grounded in collective memory representations (Hakoköngäs, 2025). Theoretically, it is triggered by threat and then serves as a homeostatic corrective (Sedikides et al., 2015). We study how identity distinctiveness threat (IDT) – the perception that ingroup uniqueness is undermined (Branscombe et al., 1999) – relates to collective nostalgia in Hong Kong, where its ongoing socio-political integration with Mainland China heightens concerns about distinctiveness loss. In a pilot study (n = 25), participants completed measures of IDT, collective nostalgia, and intergroup bias. IDT significantly predicted collective nostalgia controlling HK/Chinese identification (β≈0.48, p=.023), and collective nostalgia predicted outgroup prejudice (β≈.15, p≈.006). These preliminary findings suggest that perceived distinctiveness loss activates memory-based emotional processes, increasing intergroup biases; our planned main studies will use a larger sample and experimentally manipulate collective memory cues to test the proposed causal directions.
Nawël Cheriet 1,2 , Jean-François Orianne 2 & Christine Bastin 1
1 Psychology and Neuroscience of Cognition Research Unit, University of Liège, Belgium
2 Sociology Science Research Institute (SSRI), University of Liège, Belgium
This study examines how social roles shape individuals’ representations of past experiences of a crisis and imagined future similar crises. To do so, we analyzed narratives of 56 Belgian participants: 28 healthcare workers (with established social roles) and 28 confined individuals (facing improvised social roles). In 2021, participants recalled their memories of the 2020 pandemic and imagined a similar crisis happening in 2031. Results revealed lexical fields that differed by social role (established vs. improvised) and temporal orientations (past vs. future). In recalling the past, established-role narratives emphasized institutional settings, medical urgency, and procedural action, while improvised-role narratives used affective, domestic, and relational language. When imagining the future, these patterns partially persisted: established-roles narratives focused on temporal progression and crisis cycles, whereas improvised-role participants emphasized agency, possibility and political power. We argue that social roles act as cognitive and discursive filters that shape the structure and emotional tone of narratives across time.
Sarah Zahreddine 1, Sandra Penić 1, Rezarta Bilali 2
1 Department for political science and international relations, and Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
2 Department of applied psychology, New York University, New York, USA.
How societies remember collective suffering shapes contemporary political attitudes, yet collective victimhood is often reduced to a simple inclusive–competitive distinction. Using survey data from 11 conflict-affected countries (N = 13,260), this study examines how four victimhood construals embedded in collective memory—comparative competitive, global competitive, comparative inclusive, and universal inclusive—and historically derived lessons predict support for conciliatory versus conflict-escalating policies. Comparative competitive victimhood consistently reduced support for conciliation and increased escalation. Global competitive construals, however, were context-dependent and predicted greater conciliation in societies experiencing ongoing violence. Inclusive victimhood was similarly heterogeneous: comparative inclusive construals weakly supported conciliation while increasing escalation, whereas universal inclusive construals—grounded in shared moral meanings of harm—robustly promoted conciliation and reduced escalation. Prosocial moral lessons aligned with conciliation, whereas defensive lessons emphasizing vigilance predicted escalation. These findings show that the political consequences of collective memory depend on how past victimization is interpreted and mobilized.
Maria Babińska 1,2 , Maciej Siemiątkowski 2 , Michał Bilewicz 2
1 Center for Social and Cultural Psychology, Université Libre de Bruxelles
2 Center for Research on Prejudice, University of Warsaw
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 created an unprecedented wave of prosocial mobilization in Poland, where citizens and institutions engaged extensively in helping Ukrainian refugees. This study examines how collective memory and moral engagement through helping behavior interact in responses to this crisis. We investigated whether perceiving this situation as analogous to past Russian invasions of Poland predicts helping behavior toward Ukrainian refugees, or whether prosocial engagement shapes subsequent historical reasoning. A two-wave panel study conducted among a quota-representative sample of Polish participants (N = 710) three and nine weeks after the onset of the invasion measured both helping behavior and perceived historical analogies. Cross-lagged panel analysis revealed that perceiving analogies at T1 did not predict helping behavior nine weeks later. Instead, helping behavior at T1 significantly predicted stronger perceptions of historical analogies at T2. This reverse temporal ordering challenges prevailing assumptions that analogies guide behavior. Rather, the findings suggest that moral action can precede and elicit historical meaning-making, as individuals retrospectively construct analogies to integrate their prosocial responses into familiar historical narratives.
Whitney Agunyego, Leibniz-Institute for Psychology (ZPID), Trier, Germany
Germany is often regarded as particularly successful in remembering its perpetrator past concerning the Holocaust and Second World War, learning from it, and striving to prevent its reoccurrence. Nevertheless, right-wing attacks are on the rise. Many people in Germany — particularly those (in)directly affected by attacks such as in Hanau on February 19th, 2020, where a right-wing extremist killed nine racialized individuals — criticize the states’ handling of right-wing attacks as inadequate. Building on the case of Hanau, we experimentally investigate how perceiving Germany as successful (vs. unsuccessful) in its (re)appraisal and remembrance of recent right-wing attacks impacts institutional trust, justice-related satisfaction, and desire for closure. This work is a conceptual replication and extension of Kazarovytska et al. (2022) who evaluated effects of perceiving (un)successful remembrance of Germany’s Nazi past on desire for historical closure. Our work contributes to the psychological understanding of remembrance considering current far-right extremism.
Jasmin Weber & Alexandra M. Freund (University of Zurich)
Can collective memory translate into prosocial behavior? Moral compensation (i.e., balancing morally problematic actions with moral ones) has been studied extensively at the individual level. Less attention has been given to how people respond to immoral behaviors committed by groups they belong to: Are they willing to compensate for their group’s wrongdoing even without personal contribution? Drawing on social identity theory and research on moral balancing and collective guilt, we propose that confronting people with historical atrocities by their ingroup – such as Germans born after 1945 reading about the Holocaust or current generations of white US Americans about slavery – can promote individual prosocial behavior even generations later. To test this, we will present participants with descriptions of immoral vs. neutral past behaviors by an ingroup vs. an outgroup and then offer them a choice between prosocial and self-serving behavior. Data will be collected in February 2026 via Prolific.
Jovan Ivanović 1, and Sandra Obradović 2
1 LIRA Lab, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade
2 Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, LSE
This presentation explores the intertwined psychological processes of collective remembering and imagining, emphasising their shared roots in present-day uncertainty. We propose a multidirectional model of collective mental time travel (CMTT), in which the present serves as a catalyst for navigating both the past and the future through culturally embedded narratives and symbolic resources. Drawing on recent interdisciplinary research, we argue that these processes are not linear but multilinear, shaped by social identities, historical contexts, and culturally specific worldviews of time. Our model highlights the feedback loop between temporal reflection and present-day action, showing how collective memory and imagination can either reinforce the status quo or catalyse social transformation. Ultimately, we advocate for a nuanced understanding of CMTT as a dynamic, socially situated process that plays a critical role in shaping collective agency and envisioning alternative futures.