Framing historical violence in geopolitical space: How describing the location of violence within national borders affects assessments of collective responsibility over time and across communication partners

As mass violence—especially that occurring during periods of war, colonialization, or foreign occupation—is generally accompanied by contested perceptions of geopolitical space, the subsequent question of where the violence took place is inevitable. This issue is of central importance for how we understand, commemorate, and teach these important historical events. Did the violence take place in the country that existed there before the violence began, in the country that existed at the time of the violence, in the country that covered that area after the violence had ended, or in the country to which that region now belongs? This set of four studies ( N = 841) examines how the geopolitical framing of historical violence influences perceptions of collective responsibility for that violence, and whether the effects of geopolitical framing extend across time and interpersonal communication partners. The findings suggest that by placing the violence within a given country, that nation was perceived as more responsible for it, an effect that continued to influence memory and assessments of responsibility over time. These effects also influenced how people told others about the violence, thereby influencing the subsequent assessments of others in a similar fashion.