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

理解难以想象的事情：破译抵抗种族灭绝的心理方面

• 批准号: 0090188
• 负责人: Kristen Monroe
• 金额: $ 1.19万
• 依托单位: University of California-Irvine
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-09-01 至 2002-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0090188&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Comprehending; Unimaginable; Deciphering; Psychological; Aspect

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.

这个项目通过集中于两个问题来考察一个在种族灭绝文献中基本上被忽视的领域。及早发现和理解种族灭绝威胁的心理基础是什么？哪些因素促进了拒绝成为受害者和保护自己和家人的动力？《首席调查者》通过对大屠杀前逃离第三帝国的德国犹太流亡者的采访进行叙事分析，考察了抵抗种族灭绝的心理。这项工作涉及五个重要的实质性问题。(1)认知、本体论安全和种族暴力之间的关系是什么？(2)对于个人抵御种族灭绝所伴随的受害心理的能力，基本的人格因素是否比背景或情境影响更重要？(3)身份认同的构建是如何社会化的，我们的道德政治行动又是如何被我们对他人的看法塑造的？(4)德国的反犹太主义中是否存在某种特别致命的东西，或者在类似的背景条件和社会心理因素下，大屠杀期间发生的那种种族暴力是否会在其他地方发生？最后，(5)通过将理性行为者理论纳入更广泛的人类繁荣理论，研究身份认同是否有助于形成道德行为理论？为什么这项研究适合于SGER？这项工作满足了SGER的4个要求：数据收集的紧迫性，原始数据的传播，创新研究方法的探索，以及对既定研究主题应用新方法。(1)数据收集的紧迫性。迫切需要从这一特定人群中收集原始数据，以免他们因衰老导致的死亡或健康问题而失去记忆。尽管对大屠杀进行了广泛的研究，但这个样本代表了一个很少被采访的群体，但调查人员的几个初步采访表明，他们提供了关于这一时期的不同寻常的见解。(2)原始数据的传播。这位研究人员在认知框架方面的工作为我们理解自我认同和自我认知如何约束选择开辟了新的天地。发现这一过程的微妙之处需要特殊的技能和对受试者的了解。通过发布完整的采访，研究人员将向社会科学社区发布有价值的数据，从而提供对异常丰富的数据源的访问，以便其他人能够执行任何学者都没有时间或技能来执行的那种技术分析。(3)探索创新研究方法。将调查与叙述性和解释性数据相结合是一种创新。这一方法非常有希望，有利于改进采访方式，以调和与就诸如种族灭绝和种族主义等敏感话题进行采访有关的重要方法和伦理问题。(4)将新的专门知识或新方法应用于既定的研究课题。了解身份以多种方式受到威胁，但在个人和职业上成功发展的人，可以产生重要的见解。这项调查有望大大增强我们对这个话题的理解，并为其他学者提供一个有价值的数据库。