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Threatened, hence justified: Jewish Israelis’ use of competitive victimhood to justify violence against Palestinians
Author(s) -
Halabi Samer,
Noor Masi,
Topaz Sharon,
Zizov Ayala
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
asian journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.5
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-839X
pISSN - 1367-2223
DOI - 10.1111/ajsp.12433
Subject(s) - outgroup , ingroups and outgroups , argument (complex analysis) , social psychology , judaism , psychology , group conflict , function (biology) , perspective (graphical) , mechanism (biology) , threatened species , criminology , epistemology , theology , ecology , philosophy , habitat , biology , biochemistry , chemistry , evolutionary biology , artificial intelligence , computer science
We theorised that competitive victimhood—the tendency to see one’s ingroup as having suffered more than the outgroup as a result of a prolonged conflict—may function strategically as a psychological mechanism to justify violent actions against the outgroup under high (vs. low) realistic threat. Focusing on the Jewish Israeli perspective in the Israeli‒Palestinian conflict, the present study supports this argument by demonstrating the positive relationship between competitive victimhood and justifying both direct and structural violence against Palestinians following high (vs. low) realistic threat. Theoretical and applied implications for conflict resolution are discussed.