Working group We Could Have Been Worse Competitive Innocence and Defensive Memory among perpetrator groups Add to calendar 2022-11-29 17:00 2022-11-29 18:30 Europe/Rome We Could Have Been Worse Seminar Room 2 Badia Fiesolana YYYY-MM-DD Print Share: Share on Facebook Share on BlueSky Share on X Share on LinkedIn Send by email Scheduled dates Nov 29 2022 17:00 - 18:30 CET Seminar Room 2, Badia Fiesolana Organised by Department of Political and Social Sciences In the framework of the EUI Political Behaviour Colloquium, this seminar features a paper presentation by EUI Researcher Joe Kendall. Can exposure to harmful acts committed by other groups obstruct meaningful confrontation with one's own group history? This project seeks to explore the extent to which favourable inter-group comparison – the invocation of sentiments such as "we might be bad, but at least we’re not as bad as them" – can affect how ingroup members confront legacies of perpetration. In doing so it contributes to understanding the psychological defences used by group members when confronted with information that threatens their group's status. It focuses on the case of the UK, a country which often stands accused of having failed to come to terms with the harms committed in its imperial past. The results show that historical 'whataboutism' (that is, deflective comparisons with 'worse' harms) not only restores individuals’ sense of national pride but actively increases prejudice against the harmed outgroup. The findings highlight the dangers of motivated defence mechanisms when confronting uncomfortable group histories.