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members of religious, ethnic, and national groups often seem unaware of past harms committed by their own group. This knowledge gap is evident in histories presented in the media and educational settings, as well as in ordinary people’s recollections of their group’s history. The suppression of negative histories is sometimes inadvertent and sometimes deliberate. In either case, it can help group members to protect their social identities (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) and justify their social systems (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Lerner, 1980).

Efforts to cover up negative histories are not entirely successful, however. Researchers regularly write revisionist histories that question people’s cherished beliefs about the past (e.g., Loewen, 1995). Also, previously victimized groups often maintain memories of their suffering and sometimes seek reparations. In various countries, minority groups are now demanding that governments formally apologize on behalf of the majority for acts of legislative discrimination that occurred decades or even centuries earlier. How do current members of the majority respond to demands that their government atone for actions committed long ago? We discuss how identity and justice motives influence majority members’ support for government apologies and other reparations for past harms.

In increasing numbers, governments are formally apologizing for historical injustices. In the concluding sections of the chapter, we examine the impact and content of government offers of reparations. We examine the responses of members of a victimized minority and nonvictimized majority to a government apology for a historical injustice. Finally, we analyze the content of government offers of reparations to assess how governments apologize. In particular, we examine whether governments are sensitive to the identity and system justification concerns of the majority and victimized minority.

WHEN IGNORANCE IS BLISS

Why are people seemingly unaware of wrongs that occurred in their own country? Biases in both historical accounts and individual memory help to explain a lack of knowledge. The history taught in schools and presented in the media is not an unbiased rendering of past events. A famous illustration of biases in the reporting of history occurred in Great Britain in the 19th century. At the time, British Whigs advocated a strong democratic parliament and a constitutional monarchy. Whig historians supported their political beliefs with bad history. They distorted, glorified, and omitted aspects of the past to defend their political preferences. Their biased portrayal of the past reflects a phenomenon that historians labelled “presentism” (Butterfield, 1959). Presentism occurs when writers or speakers alter the historical record to make it consistent with their current knowledge, ideology, and preferences.

As a consequence of presentism, conceptions of the past are flexible and succeeding generations rewrite history to reflect their own beliefs and achieve their current goals (Barkan, 2000; Mead, 1924/1964). A blatant example of presentism appears in Natan Sharansky’s (1988) description of modifications to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. The first target of revision was Beria, a chief of the secret police who was executed for being a British spy. Subscribers to the encyclopedia were instructed to destroy the article on Beria and were provided with additional information on the Bering Strait to fill the gap in the pages. According to Sharansky, subscribers frequently received such missives.

Suppression and alteration of historical events is not limited to Communist dictatorships. In eras in which women were considered inferior to men, distinguished female scientists disappeared from the historical record of Western countries (Bodanis, 2006). Today, young people commonly learn versions of history in which the actions of their own national, ethnic, and religious groups are justified and glorified, while episodes potentially damaging to their groups’ image are de-emphasized or omitted (Frijda, 1997; Paris, 2000). Also, religious and national groups are more likely to construct memorials and hold commemorative ceremonies for their achievements rather than their blunders or offences. Therefore, people may lack knowledge of wrongs committed by groups to which they belong (ingroups) because they never learned about the incidents or were taught to interpret them in ways more flattering to their ingroups.

Socio-political organizations (i.e., governments) may deliberately memorialize or acknowledge historical events that justify the present system. Individuals may exhibit similar system-justifying biases when reconstructing aspects of their groups’ history, without being aware that they are remembering in a biased way. People often remember only a few elements of an episode, and their recollections of past events are reconstructions shaped in part by their current knowledge, motives, and goals (Bartlett, 1932; Mead, 1929/1964; Neisser, 1967; Ross, Blatz, & Schryer, 2008). As well, previous events are often sufficiently numerous, contradictory, and ambiguous that people can select which episodes they need or prefer to recall. Like Whig historians, ordinary people use the past as a resource, reconstructing and selecting events so as to achieve their personal and social goals.

Although a variety of goals might guide how historians, social groups, and individuals depict and recall past ingroup injustices, two general motivations of interest to social psychologists are particularly relevant. Social identity theorists reason that people are motivated to view the groups to which they belong (ingroups) favorably because they derive their identity

and self-regard partly from their group memberships (Branscombe & Doosje, 2004; Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Belonging to a group that has wronged others may threaten this positive image. Group members may respond to the threat in a variety of ways that limit the psychological damage, including deleting the episode from history texts. Psychologists studying justice motivation also suggest that people prefer to regard their ingroups favorably, but these researchers focus on dimensions related to fairness. According to Lerner’s (1980) just-world theory, people are motivated to perceive the world as a fair place where people are rewarded if they work hard, delay gratification, or bargain in good faith. People should be especially motivated to view the country in which they live as a place in which people get what they deserve, because their own outcomes are most dependent on local justice. Along the same lines, system justification theorists (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004) propose that people are motivated to view their own country’s existing social, economic, and political arrangements as fair and legitimate. Past instances in which this system has acted unfairly threaten the legitimacy of the system. People may act to reduce the threat in a variety ways, including denying that the system was unfair.

We have conducted several experiments to examine whether people’s memories are biased in ways that would support favorable views of their ingroups. Blatz and Ross (2005) asked Canadian university students to recall events from the histories of different groups (e.g., Canadians, Americans, Jews, Christians, Arabs, and Chinese) based on whatever knowledge they possessed. All participants belonged to at least two of the groups in the survey. After recalling each event, participants indicated whether the event was positive, negative, or neutral, and how much they knew about the event. As expected, participants recalled more positive than negative past events for ingroups, but more negative than positive events for outgroups. Also, participants reported that they knew more about positive ingroup than about positive outgroup events.

Although both individual motivation and selective historical reporting probably contribute to such memory biases, it is possible to isolate experimentally the role of individual motivation. Sahdra and Ross (2007) experimentally varied Canadian participants’ identification with Canada and then asked them to recall acts of violence and hatred committed by Canadians against members of other groups. According to social identity and justice theories, participants who identify highly with Canada should be strongly motivated to view Canadians as good people who rarely commit serious wrongs. As expected, participants who were experimentally induced to identify highly with Canada recalled fewer incidents of violence and hatred than did participants in the low-identity condition.

LOST IN TRANSMISSION

Much of what we remember about our country we have learned from others, rather than experienced directly. Memories are transmitted from person to person and from generation to generation. We have noted how writers of history sometimes alter or erase events to render the past more consistent with their preferences and beliefs. We now ask whether we can observe the emergence of similar biases as memories are transmitted from one person to another.

Psychologists have examined the transmission of memories from person to person using the method of serial reproduction (Allport & Postman, 1947; Bartlett, 1932; Lyons & Kashima, 2003). In a typical study, the first person in a chain reads a text and, after a brief delay, recalls this text as accurately as possible for a second participant. The second participant then reads the first participant’s account and, after a brief delay, recalls it for a third participant. This process is repeated until the chain has three participants or more. The major finding is that accounts get shorter as they move down the chain; peripheral and obscure details vanish, and only core details remain.

Most studies of serial reproduction involve material of little personal relevance to the average participant (e.g., obscure folk tales, Bartlett, 1932). In everyday life, however, a memory is transmitted because it interests either the teller or the listener. In a recent study, we examined how information about a historical injustice is transmitted from individual to individual in a three-person chain (Blatz & Ross, 2006). An audio recording described an episode that allegedly occurred either in the participants’ own country (Canada) or another country (Australia). The first participant in each chain listened to how the Canadian or Australian government forcibly removed Aboriginal children from their homes and communities and placed them in residential schools. The goal of the schools was to “civilize” the Aboriginal children, who were strictly disciplined for speaking their native language and robbed of their cultural identity. Many children were psychologically, physically, or sexually abused. The passage was based on episodes that actually happened in Canada (Krotz, 2007). The passage was transmitted down a three-person chain.

Story details will change and disappear as the description is passed from person to person. We expected that when the harm occurred in Canada, the alterations to the passage would be system justifying. We assessed memory errors that seemed to reduce the culpability of the current system and group. For example, some participants underestimated how many children were placed in the schools or recalled that the events happened longer ago than the original passage described. When the harm occurred in Canada, such

errors were rare for the first person, but became increasingly more common as the memory proceeded down the chain. Deletions and alterations also appeared when the harm occurred in Australia, but there was no increase in system-justifying memory errors as the passage was transmitted from person to person.

In our study, the system-justifying memory biases emerged despite the instruction to recall the passage accurately. Also, participants knew that the researchers possessed the original recording and would compare their recall to the original. Consequently, participants would have little to gain by deliberately falsifying their recall. Apparently, the kinds of biases observed in individual recall and historical accounts can arise inadvertently as memories are processed and transmitted.

REDRESSING GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED

HISTORICAL INJUSTICES

It is not always possible to whitewash the past by altering and omitting details from history and individual memory. Public monuments and archives often contain alternative renderings of the past that are available for investigation and discovery. Also, members of previously victimized groups sometimes keep memories of their calamities alive and in the public eye. For example, North American Jews conduct annual remembrances of the Holocaust that include public lectures and educational materials for schools. In addition, increasing numbers of previously victimized groups are demanding reparations for past government-sponsored injustices. In Canada, groups representing people of Aboriginal, African, Chinese, Italian, and Ukrainian heritage have sought reparations for past acts of legislative discrimination directed at their groups. They contend that that their people cannot “purge” themselves of this experience without some type of official reparation (formal apology, financial compensation, etc.) from current governments (e.g., Krotz, 2007). Similarly, some African Americans argue for reparations on the grounds that a history of slavery and discrimination can explain why African Americans are relatively disadvantaged compared to their White counterparts (Bitker, 1973).

We next present research that examines how people respond to accounts of officially sanctioned discrimination against a minority. The injustices are real, although we sometimes modify details of the accounts for experimental purposes. The twin motivations to think favorably of ingroups and to perceive the current system as fair should influence how people react to historical harms. Our general experimental strategy is to provide participants with descriptions that vary the location of an injustice, among other factors. In

many of the studies, the participants were members of the majority group, rather than the minority, victim group, and were not alive when the harm happened.

Social identity and justice theories suggest that majority group members should be reluctant to regard their ingroup and system as responsible for inflicting harm on an innocent minority, but not exhibit the same reluctance for an identical government-sponsored harm perpetrated by another country. When harms are perpetrated outside rather than in one’s home country, the fairness of one’s own system and ingroup is not called into question. Accordingly, people should perceive harmful government-sponsored policies as more unjust and damaging and the victim group as less blameworthy when the episodes occur in a foreign country. In turn, such differing perceptions should lead people to be more supportive of reparations for victim groups harmed by other countries rather than their home country.

In a study evaluating these hypotheses (Blatz, Ross, & Starzyk, under review), participants learned of a government-sponsored harm against an Aboriginal Canadian community. We presented the harm accurately, except for the location. Participants learned that the government-sponsored harm occurred either in Canada or Australia. As expected, our Canadian participants blamed the Aboriginal group more and the government less for a harm that occurred in Canada rather than Australia. Participants also objected more strongly to reparations when the harm occurred in Canada.

How might victims of injustice evoke greater sympathy from the nonvictimized majority in their country? Matsuda (1987) suggested that, in pursuing reparations, previously victimized minority groups need to demonstrate that they are still suffering psychologically, physically, or materially as a consequence of the original harm (Matsuda, 1987). In contrast to Matsuda’s suggestion, justice theorists (e.g., Jost & Banaji, 1994; Lerner, 1980) imply that connecting current suffering to a past injustice could reduce sympathy for the victimized minority. The majority should be reluctant to acknowledge that their system and ingroup perpetrated continuing harm. Instead of being sympathetic, the majority might respond to claims of persistent suffering by blaming the victims for their difficulties.

Suppose that members of the majority believe that reparations are possible and could help rectify the injustice. Would they then be more inclined to respond sympathetically and less disposed to blame the victims? Lerner and Simmons (1966) found that people responded more favorably to an innocent victim when they believed that they could effectively end the victim’s suffering and provide her with rewards. Similarly, we hypothesized that people’s sympathy for the victim group and support for reparations would depend on whether they believe the government could provide satisfactory

reparations. When reparations seem feasible, members of the majority might be sympathetic to victims who continue to suffer from an earlier injustice. Such suffering victims are likely to seem particularly deserving of support. Even when satisfactory material reparations are impractical, common sense might suggest that people should still feel sympathetic toward the victims and recognize the magnitude of the ongoing harm. However, social psychological theories of justice imply that, when material reparations are impractical, members of the majority will be motivated to restore justice in other ways, such as by downplaying the magnitude of the harm.

We evaluated these hypotheses in a study in which we focused on a government-sponsored harm against a Black community in Canada (Starzyk & Ross, 2008). The information provided to participants was based on an actual incident that occurred in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the 1960s (Clairmont & Magill, 1999). City officials demolished the homes and confiscated the land of members of the Black Canadian community. Participants read a passage describing residents’ reactions to their expulsion. Participants read that horrified residents watched bulldozers destroy their community; residents were moved to new homes that, unlike those destroyed, had running water, electricity, and sewage service. The passage informed participants that although city officials claimed that they relocated the residents for humanitarian reasons, the officials did not consult the residents about the relocation. In the passage, residents express their love for their former community and their belief that the city confiscated the land for economic rather than humanitarian reasons.

Canadians outside of Nova Scotia tend to be unaware of this episode, but former residents of the demolished community and their descendents are currently seeking reparations. We manipulated the feasibility of reparations. We described reparations as either feasible because the confiscated land was undeveloped and still available for the former residents or impractical because the land was unavailable. We also manipulated the former residents’ present state; they were depicted as either continuing to suffer psychologically and materially from the relocation or as doing reasonably well.

When reparations were feasible, participants expressed greater compassion for victims who continued to suffer from effects of the relocation. Participants perceived the magnitude of the injustice to be greater, reported more sympathy for the victims, and judged reparations more favorably. When they can support righting an injustice, people respond benevolently toward suffering victims. When reparations were impractical, participants’ assessments of the magnitude of the injustice and their expressions of sympathy were unaffected by whether the victims continued to suffer. The benevolence toward still suffering victims dissipated when people could not act to right

the injustice. This finding is consistent with just-world and system justification theories. The research also yielded an unpredicted result: Participants expressed more sympathy for nonsuffering victims when reparations were impractical rather than feasible. When reparations were feasible, participants objected to compensating nonsuffering victims. A feeling of sympathy is likely dissonant with their reluctance to award reparations to victims who are now doing well. To justify their reluctance and reduce dissonance, participants may come to regard the nonsuffering victims as undeserving of compassion.

HOW MEMBERS OF THE MAJORITY AND VICTIMIZED MINORITY RESPOND TO REPARATIONS

So far, we have described how members of the majority react to demands by a minority for reparations for historical injustices. Next, we discuss how members of the victimized minority and majority respond to actual offers of reparations. Members of previously victimized minorities often argue that government-sponsored reparations promote healing and allow them to feel better about their own group, the majority, and the political and economic system (Brooks, 1999). Many historians and legal theorists agree that official reparations benefit a victim group (e.g., Brooks, 1999; Minow, 2002). These scholars assume that, in the absence of a collective response, the wounds from the injustice continue to fester, causing resentment and conflict. As evidence, scholars note that Japan’s unwillingness to apologize officially for war crimes it committed during World War II has prevented reconciliation with the harmed groups, whereas Germany’s provision of reparations to some victim groups has facilitated favorable relations (Barkan, 2000). It is difficult to draw general lessons from such examples, however, because the situations and groups involved vary in many ways. Also, historians and legal theorists do not provide a theoretical framework to explain why reparations might have positive effects. Social psychological theories of justice provide a plausible explanation for the benefits of reparations for the minority group. By explicitly condemning past legislative discrimination, apologizing, and offering substantial financial compensation, a current government confirms that the victim group was treated unjustly and affirms the fairness of the present system.

Quite naturally, most of the speculation concerning the effects of reparations focuses on the victimized minority. There is much less discussion about how members of a majority group might respond to reparations. Yet, their reactions are important, because governments often avoid offering apologies or other reparations, in part, because they fear a backlash from the majority