A Theoretical Model of Victimization, Perpetration, and Denial in Mass Atrocities: Case Studies From Indonesia, Cambodia, East Timor, and Myanmar.

ACADEMIC ABSTRACT: The present article discusses victimization, perpetration, and denial in mass atrocities, using four recent case studies from Southeast Asia. The four cases include Indonesia (in which hundreds of thousands died in anti-Communist violence), Cambodia (in which the Khmer Rouge killed more than one million civilians), East Timor (in which more than one hundred thousand civilians died during the Indonesian occupation), and Myanmar (in which the state/army is accused of genocide toward the Rohingyas). Our aim is to bring a psychological lens to these histories, with a focus on three processes relevant to genocide. We examine, first, how the victims were targeted; second, how the perpetrators were mobilized; and third, the denial, justification, meaning-making, and commemoration of the atrocities. We propose a novel theoretical model, TOPASC: A Theory of the Psychology of Atrocities in Societal Contexts, highlighting the psychology of atrocities as involving factors across the macro, meso, and micro contexts. PUBLIC ABSTRACT: We introduce a new model, "TOPASC: A Theory of the Psychology of Atrocities in Societal Contexts," to explain why people justify mass killings and why certain group members are consistently targeted. In our model, we explore how mass atrocities against specific groups are influenced by psychological dynamics in intergroup situations which, in turn, are shaped by socio-historical contexts and individual psychologies. To illustrate these ideas, we analyze four cases of mass atrocities in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Cambodia, East Timor, and Myanmar. These cases highlight how different social groups, characterized by diverse ideologies, ethnicities, genders, or religions, exhibit varying vulnerabilities as perpetrators or victims based on their social and power status. Mass atrocities are not sudden occurrences but rather result from a series of complex processes and events.

Denying the accusation of plagiarism: power relations at play in dictating plagiarism as academic misconduct.

In academia, plagiarism is considered detrimental to the advancement of sciences, and the plagiarists can be charged with sanctions. However, the plagiarism cases involving three rectors of universities in Indonesia stand out, as they could defend their stand for not committing academic misconduct despite evidence found. By analyzing the three rectors' cases, the present study aims to answer how power relations take a role in plagiarism discourse in Indonesia, particularly in determining what is considered academic misconduct and what is not. By employing critical discourse analysis, we found that when the accusation of plagiarism appears during rectorial elections, the accused could equivocate that the accusation was meant to undermine them as a political opponent. When the accused plagiarists win the election, they have more power to deny and tackle the accusations of plagiarism. The findings indicate that plagiarism issues can be politicized, in which by those in power it can be used as a tool to undermine their political opponents, whereas the accused plagiarists can claim that the actual problem is personal and not about plagiarism. It is also shown that in the real context, whether something is called plagiarism or not is subject to interpretation by those in power. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10734-022-00875-z.

The socio-psychological predictors of support for post-truth collective action.

Politics in the current era are replete with unreliable media stories which lack evidence, sometimes disparagingly dubbed "fake news". A survey on a sample of Muslims in Indonesia (N = 518) in this work found that participants' endorsement of collective action in of support issues with little to no empirical evidence (i.e., post-truth collective action) increased as a function of their belief in fake news and prejudice against the outgroup (i.e., non-Muslims). Belief in fake news stemmed from participants' generic and specific conspiratorial thinking, whereas prejudice was positively predicted by relative Muslim prototypicality, denoting how much Muslims in Indonesia view that their group is more representative than non-Muslims of the superordinate Indonesian identity that encompasses both groups. Additionally, our findings revealed that generic conspiratorial thinking and relative Muslim prototypicality were positively predicted by collective narcissism, which in turn spurred participants' support for collective action by augmenting belief in fake news.

Exploring the Pathways Between Transformative Group Experiences and Identity Fusion.

A growing body of evidence suggests that two distinct forms of group alignment are possible: identification and fusion (the former asserts that group and personal identity are distinct, while the latter asserts group and personal identities are functionally equivalent and mutually reinforcing). Among highly fused individuals, group identity taps directly into personal agency and so any attack on the group is perceived as a personal attack and motivates a willingness to fight and possibly even die as a defensive response. As such, identity fusion is relevant in explaining violent extremism, including suicidal terrorist attacks. Identity fusion is theorized to arise as a result from experiences which are (1) perceived as shared and (2) transformative, however evidence for this relationship remains limited. Here, we present a pre-registered study in which we examine the role of transformativeness and perceived sharedness of group-defining events in generating identity fusion. We find that both of these factors are predictive of identity fusion but that the relationship with transformativeness was more consistent than perceived sharedness across analyses in a sample of Indonesian Muslims.

Do Counter-Narratives Reduce Support for ISIS? Yes, but Not for Their Target Audience.

The purpose of this research is to experimentally test whether counter-narratives are effective to reduce people's support and willingness to join Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Integrating psychological reactance theory (Brehm, 1966) and need for closure (NFC; Kruglanski, 2004), we predicted that exposing people to counter-narratives when they are at greater risk of radicalization (high NFC individuals) would be counterproductive and enhance their support for ISIS. Participants (N = 886 American Muslims) were randomly assigned to a 3 × 3 factorial experimental design varying the source (United States Government, Imam, ISIS defector), and the content (social, political, and religious) of the counter-narrative while comparing these groups to a control message. Results show an overall small positive effect of counter-narratives (ß = -0.107, p = 0.043), but also evidence for greater support for ISIS in individuals at greater risk of radicalization (ß = 0.154, p = 0.005). Results also show that the content was more important than the source: A political narrative was the most effective, and this result is consistent across different sources although an ISIS defector is the most effective messenger. These findings challenge the widespread assumption that counter-narratives are effective against violent extremism. In fact, they accelerate the very phenomenon that governments and policy makers are trying to undermine. Therefore, policy makers should avoid including them in their armamentarium to tackle violent extremism.

Taking Seriously Ingroup Self-Evaluation, Meta-Prejudice, and Prejudice in Analyzing Interreligious Relations.

The present study aims to understand the conditions where prejudice can be predicted by ingroup and outgroup meta-prejudice. The data collecting was disseminated toward Muslim and Christian participants (N = 362) living in Maumere, Flores Island, Indonesia. In Flores, Christianity is the largest religion and Islam is the second. Across two samples, the effects of ingroup and outgroup meta-prejudice on prejudice were found to be moderated by ingroup self-evaluation. It shows that at high level (but not low) of positive ingroup self-evaluation, ingroup and outgroup meta-prejudice were found to predict prejudice. The results suggest that it is important to consider how group members evaluate their own group and how group members think what others are thinking, in the study pertaining to intergroup relations.