Comprehending The Unimaginable: Deciphering the Psychological Aspect of Resistance to Genocide

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project examines an area largely overlooked in the literature on genocide by focusing on two questions. What is the psychology underlying the early detection and comprehension of the threat of genocide? What factors facilitate the refusal to be victimized and the drive to protect oneself and family? The Principal Investigator examines the psychology underlying the resistance to genocide through a narrative analysis of interviews with German Jewish exiles who fled the Third Reich before the Holocaust. The work addresses five important substantive questions. (1) What is the relationship between cognition, ontological security and ethnic violence? (2) Are basic personality factors more important than contextual or situational influences in an individual's ability to withstand the psychology of victimization that accompanies genocide? (3) How social is the construction of identity, and how is our ethical-political action in turn shaped by our perceptions of others? (4) Was there something particularly virulent in German anti-Semitism, or can the kind of ethnic violence that occurred during the Holocaust occur elsewhere, given similar background conditions and social-psychological factors? And finally (5) can work on identity help formulate a theory of moral action that subsumes rational actor theory by encompassing that theory into a broader theory of human flourishing? Why is this research appropriate for a SGER? The work meets 4 requirements for a SGER: urgency of data collection, dissemination of raw data, exploration of innovative research methodologies, and applying new approaches to an established research topic. (1) Urgency of data collection. There is an urgent need to collect raw data from this particular group of people, before their memories are lost because of death or health problems as a result of aging. Despite extensive work on the Holocaust, this sample represents one group that has rarely been interviewed, yet the investigator's few preliminary interviews suggest they provide unusual insight on this period. (2) Dissemination of raw data. The investigator's work on cognitive frameworks has broken new ground in our understanding of how identity and perceptions of self constrain choice. Detecting the subtleties of this process requires a particular skill and access to subjects. By publishing the full interviews, the investigator will be releasing valuable data to the social science community, thereby providing access to an unusually rich data source so others can perform the kind of technical analyses no one scholar can have either the time or skills to execute. (3) Exploration of innovative research methodology. Mixing survey with narrative and interpretive data is innovative. This methodology is highly promising and congenial to improvements in interviewing in ways that might reconcile important methodological and ethical issues concerning interviewing on sensitive topics, such as genocide and racism. (4) Application of new expertise or new approaches to an established research topic. Knowledge about individuals whose identities were threatened, in multiple ways, and yet who managed to flourish, personally and professionally, can yield important insights. This investigation promises to enhance substantially our understanding of this topic and provide a valuable database for other scholars.