The Serial Mediating Role of Modern Prejudice and Competitive Victimhood in the Relationship Between Ethnic Ingroup Identification and Subjective Evaluation of Past Violence

Group members may resort to subjective evaluations of their ingroup's past harm-doing against the outgroup, and this poses a challenge for intergroup reconciliation in a society. Past research has shown a link between ingroup identification and subjective evaluation of the past violence against an outgroup in intergroup contexts. In this study, we aimed to test the serial mediating effect of prejudice and competitive victimhood beliefs in the relationship between ingroup identification and subjective evaluation of the past. Two hundred eighty-nine participants (170 Turks and 119 Kurds) completed measures of Ingroup Identification, Modern Prejudice, Competitive Victimhood, and Subjective Evaluation of Past Violence. After controlling for age, gender, and ethnic group, results showed that prejudice and competitive victimhood sequentially mediated the relationship between ingroup identification and subjective evaluation of past violence. Overall, these findings suggest that both Turks and Kurds hold legitimizing attitudes toward ingroup harmdoings, and that ethnic identification, prejudice, and competitive victimhood operate together in shaping such attitudes, carrying important implications for policymaking aimed at intergroup reconciliation.