Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis. Permission is given for a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without the permission of the Author. A mixed method investigation of historical narratives and representations within and across cultural contexts: Implications for political culture and national identity A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand. Sarah (Yun-Seon) Choi 2024 Statement of Authorship The four empirical studies (spanning across three separate articles) that comprise this thesis have all been written for publication. I am the primary author for each article, having conceptualized the ideas, conducted the analyses, interpreted the findings, and written the final articles. Chapter 2 is currently published in the journal, Memory Studies. Chapter 3 is currently published in the European Journal of Social Psychology. Chapter 4 is currently being prepared for submission to the British Journal of Social Psychology. Choi, S. Y., Liu, J. H., Mari, S., & Garber, I. E. (2023). Content analysis of living historical memory around the world: Terrorization of the Anglosphere, and national foundations of hope in developing societies. Memory Studies, 16(2), 333-351. Choi, S. Y., & Liu, J. H. (2024). Identifying stories of ‘us’: A mixed‐method analysis of the meaning, contents and associations of national narratives constructed by Americans. European Journal of Social Psychology, 54(2), 431-448. Choi, S. Y., & Liu, J. H. (Manuscript Under Preparation). Investigating the dynamic activation of national narratives for identity construction: A naturalistic experiment utilizing event reminders in the United States. 1 General Abstract Growing fragmentation in historical attitudes can be observed alongside increasing political polarization and conflict in many societies, with both of these trends mutually reinforcing each other. Amidst these dynamics, there is a growing urgent need to understand both the politics and psychology of collective remembering. Although there has been much theorizing about the ways that historical narratives are curated by political elites and institutions in ways that promote a positive and moral image of the nation, there has been a lack of research investigating the ways in which such narratives are actually received, internalized, appropriated, and/or resisted by the individuals that they are directed toward. To address this gap, the current thesis identifies and maps out popular historical narratives that are shared by lay individuals embedded in the national context of the United States. Importantly, how and the extent to which these narratives are connected to the present-day context of nations is a key consideration throughout this endeavour. According to theories of collective remembering (Assmann, 2013; Rigney, 2005), historical narratives that are ‘active’ in public discourse ought to incorporate elements from the nation’s distant, mythologized past in continuity with their more recent, living memories to connect the past meaningfully to the present, and to inform a meaningful and coherent sense of national identity over time. By investigating the dynamics of historical narratives, representations, and identity at the level of individuals, while still incorporating the political and social contexts that they are embedded in, the current thesis contributes to bridging the gap between psychology and politics in the domain of collective remembering. Chapter 2 investigated how communicative memories (memories of public events that have occurred within the lifetimes of people alive or personally remembered today) index the present-day climates of societies. The findings from this chapter demonstrated how recent memories of terrorism drive an extreme negative climate in Western countries, while recent memories of national independence underpinned a 2 positive climate across majority world countries. In Chapter 3, I explored how historical narratives are articulated by individuals (embedded in the American context) to give meaning to these historical representations, and thereby orient the nation’s past to its present. This chapter identified popular historical narratives which were anchored in positive representations of national foundations, and in turn, were positively associated with national identification. However, these were identified alongside a popular counter-narrative that was critical of the mythologization of America’s past. Moreover, there was considerable plurality and fragmentation in the narrative landscape, with many American participants failing to articulate a distinct historical narrative at all. In Chapter 4, I employed an experimental approach to show how this fragmentation is reduced, while endorsement of positive narratives about the nation becomes tighter when individuals are reminded of: 1) national foundations (the past reinforcing the present) and 2) a present-day context of intergroup threat (the present reinforcing the past). In Chapter 5, I discuss the theoretical and methodological implications of the studies and their findings within a dynamic framework of historical narrative and identity. The societal relevance of these findings is discussed in relation to the declining resonance of positive national narratives in the United States, amidst increasing domestic polarization and recent failures of the state to respond to crises. This has implications for the narrative resources that are available to political leaders in their rhetoric to mobilize the national identity of their followers and audience. Nonetheless, such rhetorical work does not occur within a vacuum, and the changing social/political context (see Chapter 4) may (re)activate the narratives that are still available within the minds of ordinary Americans today (see Chapter 3). 3 Acknowledgments It is not easy to put into words, the feelings of gratitude and admiration that I hold for all the people who have supported and inspired me throughout the journey of this PhD. First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor James H. Liu for supporting me since my Master’s project back in 2018. Since then, James had treated me as a collaborator and guided me through many opportunities for growth and learning both in academia and in life. I will forever be thankful for your support, reassurance, and mentorship not only in research but also in developing my identity and values as an academic in social psychology. Thank you for always keeping your door open for our conversations that have kept me inspired, motivated, and committed to the bigger picture of our research and work. I will always remember the lessons I have learned from you as a scholar, educator and mentor. This thesis is dedicated to his memory. I would also like to thank my co-supervisors Veronica Hopner and Michael Belgrave for their guidance and support, especially during the early development of the PhD project. Your insights have been invaluable in developing the direction and main ideas that anchor this project. I would like to thank my family for their limitless support, encouragement, reassurance, acceptance, and patience that has gotten me through the toughest times while undertaking this project. To my parents, who have nurtured my interest in history and identity through their stories of student activism in their home country Korea, and their demonstration of empathy and willingness to learn the local history as immigrants in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This work is dedicated to them. To my brother, partner, and all of my friends in Auckland and beyond, who have provided me with the necessary space to recharge and for reminding me to have fun. To my academic friends and colleagues over the years: Hakim, Robert, Roosevelt, Rafaella, Gaja, Jony, Minh, Nuke, Evan, Ahnya, and Sally who have provided a circle of warmth, solidarity, and support at Massey University. To my other 4 academic and teaching mentors that I have had the privilege to work with: Darrin Hodgetts, Stuart Carr, Pita King, Clifford Van Ommen, Kathryn Mcguigan, Matthew Kean, Amanda Young-Hauser and Shemana Cassim, who I have been endlessly inspired by and have learned so much from. You have all made Massey University feel like a home and have demonstrated the values of the kind of scholar and colleague that I aspire to become. To my academic friends and colleagues overseas: Jovan, Orsi, Surya, Marlies, Eunbyul, Pallavi and others who have been great sources of support and inspiration through our rare but meaningful meetings at conferences and online catch ups. And last but not least, thank you Belinda and Bree for all the barbeques and dinners you have hosted, providing a space for all of us to connect. 5 Table of Contents General Abstract ...................................................................................................................... 1 Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................... 3 Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... 5 List of Tables ............................................................................................................................ 8 List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... 9 Chapter 1: Introduction to Thesis and Literature Review ................................................ 10 Cultural Psychology Orientation .............................................................................. 14 Literature Review ..................................................................................................... 15 Developing A Social Representations Approach to Identity ................................... 16 Social Identity and Self Categorization Theory ....................................................... 17 Social Representations Theory ................................................................................ 20 Collective Memory .................................................................................................. 22 Historical Narratives: A Top-down Approach ......................................................... 29 Historical Narratives: A Bottom-up Approach ........................................................ 34 Research Questions and Thesis Overview ............................................................... 55 Preface 1: Chapter 2 .............................................................................................................. 61 Chapter 2: Content analysis of living historical memory around the world: Terrorization of the Anglosphere, and national foundations of hope in developing societies .................................................................................................................................... 63 Abstract .................................................................................................................... 63 Social Representations of History and Collective Remembering ............................ 64 Living Historical Memory ....................................................................................... 65 Living Historical Memory and Emotional Climate ................................................. 67 Method ..................................................................................................................... 70 Administration and Translation ........................................................................... 70 Participants and Procedure ................................................................................... 70 Materials .............................................................................................................. 71 Coding .................................................................................................................. 71 Results ...................................................................................................................... 72 Events in Living Historical Memory ................................................................... 72 Subjective Evaluation of Living Historical Memory across Cultures ................. 75 The Moderation of Evaluation by Content .......................................................... 80 Discussion ................................................................................................................ 87 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 92 6 Preface 2: Chapter 3 .............................................................................................................. 93 Chapter 3: Identifying stories of ‘us’: A mixed-method analysis of the meaning, contents and associations of national narratives constructed by Americans .................................. 95 Abstract .................................................................................................................... 95 Pathways for Narrative Continuity .......................................................................... 97 Pathways for Narrative Change and Plurality .......................................................... 98 The Present Context ............................................................................................... 100 The Present Study .................................................................................................. 102 Method ................................................................................................................... 103 Participants and Procedure ................................................................................. 103 Measures ............................................................................................................ 104 Analysis.............................................................................................................. 107 Results .................................................................................................................... 109 Content Analysis of Historical Events ............................................................... 109 Thematic Analysis of Historical Narratives ....................................................... 111 Historical Representations as Content for Narratives ........................................ 118 Narrative Landscape Across Groups ................................................................. 121 Discussion .............................................................................................................. 127 Progress and Glorification: Different Stories From Common Origins .............. 127 The Critical (counter)Narrative and Resistance ................................................. 130 Narrative and Identity ........................................................................................ 131 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 135 Preface 3: Chapter 4 ............................................................................................................ 136 Chapter 4: Investigating the dynamic activation of national narratives for identity construction: A naturalistic experiment utilizing event reminders in the United States ................................................................................................................................................ 138 Abstract .................................................................................................................. 138 Narratives in Intragroup Context ........................................................................... 140 Narratives in Intergroup Context ........................................................................... 141 Popular Historical Narratives in the United States of America ............................. 142 The Present Research and Context ........................................................................ 143 Naturalistic Paradigm for Studying Social Representations and Narratives ......... 145 Study 1 ................................................................................................................... 147 Method ................................................................................................................... 147 Participants and Procedure ................................................................................. 147 Measures ............................................................................................................ 148 Results .................................................................................................................... 154 Main Effects on Historical Narratives ............................................................... 154 Historical Narrative and Identity ....................................................................... 159 Discussion .............................................................................................................. 161 7 Study 2 ................................................................................................................... 162 Method ................................................................................................................... 163 Participants and Procedure ................................................................................. 163 Measures ............................................................................................................ 163 Results .................................................................................................................... 166 Narratives and Identity ....................................................................................... 166 General Discussion ................................................................................................ 173 The Mobilizing Potential of the Progress Narrative .......................................... 174 Identity Mediated by History ............................................................................. 175 Limitations and Future Directions ..................................................................... 176 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 180 Chapter 5: General Discussion and Conclusion ................................................................ 181 Aims of the Thesis ................................................................................................. 181 Theoretical Contributions: Refining a Dynamic and Functional Framework of Historical Narrative and National Identity ............................................................. 191 Methodological Contributions ............................................................................... 196 Societal Relevance ................................................................................................. 198 Limitations and Directions for Future Research .................................................... 204 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 206 References .............................................................................................................................. 208 Appendices ............................................................................................................................. 237 Appendix 1: Supplementary Materials for Chapter 2 ............................................ 237 Appendix 2: Supplementary Materials for Chapter 3 ............................................ 244 Appendix 3: Supplementary Materials for Chapter 4 ............................................ 272 8 List of Tables Table 1.1 Percentages of Participants who Nominated the World Wars and Related Events 72 Table 1.2 Percentages of Participants who Nominated International 21st Century Events 73 Table 1.3 Percentages of Participants who Nominated Foundational Events for their Country 74 Table 2.1 Frequencies of Top Historical Events 109 Table 2.2 Frequencies of Narrative Categories and Mean Valence and Dates of their Associated Events 111 Table 2.3 Frequencies of Main Narratives as Co-occurring and Solo Categories 111 Table 2.4 Frequencies and Mean Valence of the Top Events Nominated Across Narratives 118 Table 2.5 Frequencies of Main Narratives Across Partisan Groups 120 Table 2.6 Ethnic Group Breakdown of the Main Narratives 121 Table 2.7 Frequencies of Main Narratives across Majority and Minority Ethnic Groups 121 Table 2.8 Sample of Narrative Quotes Across Ethnic Groups 123 Table 3.1 Results for the Exploratory Factor Analysis 153 Table 3.2 Multiple Regressions Predicting Endorsement of Each Narrative (with Foundational Reminders as Referent) 157 Table 3.3 Multiple Regressions Predicting Relative Endorsement of Narratives (with Foundational Reminders as Referent) 158 Table 3.4 Multiple Regression Predicting National Identification (with Foundational Reminders as Referent) 158 Table 3.5 Current Events (nominated by at least 5% of participants) 165 Table 3.6 Multiple Regressions Predicting Endorsement of Each Narrative (with Foundational Reminders as Referent) 168 Table 3.7 Multiple Regressions Predicting Relative Endorsement of Narratives (with Foundational Reminders as Referent) 169 Table 3.8 Multiple Regressions Predicting National Identification (with Foundational Reminders as Referent) 169 9 List of Figures Figure 1.1 Averaged Evaluations of Salient and All Nominations Across 39 Societies 76 Figure 1.2 Averaged Evaluations of Salient and All Nominations Across Regions 78 Figure 1.3 Percentages of Salient Content Categories Across Regions 84 Figure 2.1 Mean Valence of Popular Events in Chronological Order 110 Figure 3.1 Separate mediations testing the indirect effects of national foundation reminders (vs. control) on national identification via the progress and glorifying narratives. Contrast 2. 161 Figure 3.2 Separate mediations testing the indirect effects of national foundation reminders (vs. current events) on national identification via the progress and glorifying narratives. Contrast 1. 171 Figure 3.3 Separate mediations testing the indirect effects of national foundation reminders (vs. control) on national identification via the progress and glorifying narratives. Contrast 2. 172 10 Past events exist, after all, only in memory, which is a form of imagination. The event is real now, but once it’s then, its continuing reality is entirely up to us, dependent on our energy and honesty. Ursula Le Guin, Tales from Earthsea Chapter 1: Introduction to Thesis and Literature Review In the post-modern, “post-truth” internet age, we are witnessing heightened polarisation and fragmentation in how history is remembered and in turn, implicated in present day Western democracies. This can be illustrated with examples from various contexts across the world. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the Treaty of Waitangi is regarded as a founding document for the country, wherein recognition of a bicultural partnership between Māori and the Crown is symbolically agreed upon (Orange, 2015). The Treaty/Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed by Māori chiefs and representatives of the British Crown in 1840. Te Tiriti is a legal document, and its principles have been included in New Zealand legislation since the 19th century. These mainly pertain (but are not exclusive) to land and cultural rights of Māori and their relations with the Crown (Belgrave, 2018). However, over the years, there has been much disagreement and dispute about interpretations of Te Tiriti and its principles. This is especially pertinent due to differences in translation between the English and Māori versions of te Tiriti with the fundamental difference being that Māori cede sovereignty to the Crown in the English version, whereas in the Māori text (signed by most chiefs), they only give governance to the Crown (Orange, 2015). New Zealand/s 2024 coalition recently announced plans to review the principles of the Treaty, raising concerns that this will set back years of progress in Māori rights, self-determination, and well-being. Specifically, the ACT party, a right-wing libertarian partner of the coalition, has raised a bill that proposes to ensure all New Zealanders have the same political rights and duties, while framing the current principles of the Treaty as non-democratic (Stewart, 2023). This has activated much tension 11 between the government and Māori leaders, who are concerned that such a move would negate recognition of the partnership between Māori and the Crown as separate parties, and override the Treaty. In response, thousands of people gathered to march on the Treaty grounds and elsewhere on Waitangi Day in protest against the controversial bill (Paewai, 2024). Such contestation reveals the difficulty and struggle in arriving at a consensual understanding of history and its implications for contemporary society. In the United States of America, critical race theory was introduced as an academic concept about how systemic racism has shaped society, its laws, and power relations which continue to systemically to impact the livelihoods of minority groups (Ledesma & Calderon 2015). While it is a concept that is typically taught only in higher academia, critical race theory has become the target of Republican legislators in states across the country. For example, the Board of Education in Florida state banned critical race theory from being taught in public school classrooms in 2021. The justification for this was that it would protect children from lessons that could “distort” historical events. This was taken even further the following year when a new bill in the state proposed to ban schools and businesses from inducing “discomfort” and “psychological distress” in students when teaching them about racial discrimination in U.S. history (Alfonseca, 2022). Educators and theorists have protested against such bills, which are viewed to be censorious to education about racial oppression in the U.S. by undermining teachers’ ability to discuss central events in American history like slavery with their students (Alfonseca, 2022). Again, this case demonstrates the struggle to productively discuss, address, and confront the past as a society. As will be outlined in later sections, this case also demonstrates the vested interests of state institutions to curate sanitized versions of the country’s past, in efforts to construct an image of the nation that individuals may positively identify with. 12 History continues to move and rally people towards action on one hand, as demonstrated by the Māori protesters at Waitangi. On the other hand, it has also been observed that people in modernized society are increasingly disinterested and unknowledgeable about history (Schwartz, 1998), trends which are exacerbated by political decisions like the banning of critical race education. Such dynamics reveal the complicated nature of history as remembered by individuals who hold different understandings, experiences, and motivations in an increasingly pluralized world. As evident in our examples, it remains crucially important for individuals to be engaged in history and critical thinking about the past. This is because history is invoked as a warrant of legitimacy for justifying a country’s political arrangements and decisions. Through their agency to accept or reject certain historical justifications, people’s understandings and interpretations of history have real political implications (Liu & Hilton, 2005). This thesis is interested in this bottom-up agency of individuals in making sense of the past and how this bears implications for psychological experiences of nationhood. The institutional curation of historical narratives from the top-down has already been documented extensively by various disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, ranging from sociology to museum studies. These descriptive investigations of public sites and practices of remembrance have been insightful in showing how certain elements of the past are centered, and in turn, what details and accounts about the past are neglected and omitted. These approaches take the perspective of collective memory as “objectivized culture” (Olick et al., 2011) that can be observed through cultural products (e.g., monuments) and practices (e.g., commemorations). Yet, the psychological and thus, functional implications of history as a tool for nation-building has not sufficiently been investigated at the level of individuals who actually engage with those cultural products and practices. For ‘official’ collective memory producers to have their intended effects, their audiences need to receive, engage, 13 reproduce and resonate with institutionalized representations of the past (Kansteiner, 2002). As highlighted by the cases above, reality is far from being as simple as individuals consistently conforming to culturally sanctioned versions of the past. While historical narratives may indeed circulate amongst individuals and become popular from the bottom-up, there is still a gap in understanding what these bottom-up historical narratives look like. The current research seeks to address this gap by investigating: how individuals configure their own narratives about the collective past, the extent to which their narratives diverge or align with what is culturally dominant, and whether these narratives function to psychologically reinforce a sense of national identity. The need to address such questions have already been highlighted by researchers in social psychology. As called for by Smeekes and colleagues (2017, p. 294): “It may be particularly beneficial…considering how individuals explain and describe ingroup and outgroup narratives through their own discourse. This may also facilitate the development of a more reliable measure of ingroup and outgroup narratives for each context”. Freel and Bilali (2021, p. 215) have further questioned what may be “the factors that influence the content of historical narratives prevalent in a society (e.g., the degree of consensus within society)”, recognizing that “group members can endorse, accept, or reject various narratives to different degrees”. Responding to these calls, the current thesis focuses on the active construction of historical narratives by individuals, and how this informs their experiences of national identity. On a broader level, such efforts may help contribute toward developing greater efficacy in historical narrative intervention studies (e.g., Garagozov & Gadirova, 2018; Ivanović et al., 2024) and strategies for promoting critical thinking in history education by recognizing and accounting for narrative biases that are common within specific national contexts. 14 Cultural Psychology Orientation This thesis takes a bottom-up, psychological approach to studying collective and cultural phenomena. To do so, I adopt a cultural psychology orientation to inform this research-- the idea that culture and psychology are mutually constitutive (Shweder, 1991). Historically, there has been some tension between a more sociological versus psychological understanding of culture. The former tends to treat culture as ‘superorganic’, existing at a level beyond individual experiences (Kroeber, 1917). The latter has aligned more closely with the view that culture is constituted by people’s experiences and imagination of those experiences, and thus takes the view that culture is inherently “local” (Geertz, 1973). In recent years, there has been much consolidation between these two camps, with acknowledgements that there is value in studying culture both at the level of institutions, policies, and wider social structures, as well as through the beliefs, values, knowledge, and representations held in the minds (and interaction) of individuals (Elcheroth et al., 2011). Cultural psychology emerges through this consolidation between studies of mind (psychology) and culture (society), to allow for the study of ‘mind-in-context’ (Wang, 2008). This approach takes the view that ‘‘psyche and culture . . . make each other up’’ (Shweder, 1991, p. 1) through a process of mutual constitution. Such an approach assumes that there are psychological affordances that are embedded in our everyday practices and realities, which function to afford certain experiences, constrain others, and direct action and behaviour toward particular ends that work to maintain a certain culture. This conceptualization provides a framework for thinking about social/cultural practices as ‘‘intentional worlds’’ (Shweder, 1991, p. 1) that reinforce and promote particular beliefs and desires in individuals (Kurtiş et al., 2018). The central question that social and cultural psychologists have increasingly sought to address over the years, concerns the question of how cultural norms, rules, and values are 15 “internalized” by individuals (Vygotsky, 1978). Importantly, the study of this phenomena cannot be separated or isolated from the institutions and structures themselves that are imposed to stabilize, maintain, and reproduce a culture over time. In short, culturally prescribed norms are legitimized by ‘external’ structures that exist beyond us, yet at the same time, they must be internalized and made comprehensible to our minds by making them our ‘own’ (Bruner, 1991). We are long beyond the point of accepting that mere conformity is sufficient for describing how and why individuals internalize and accept cultural prescriptions. Indeed, research has come a long way in uncovering processes of individual and collective agency and creativity in accepting, resisting, appropriating and (re)shaping the culture around them (Reicher, 2004). As mentioned, the current thesis is broadly interested in the bridge between individual psychology and culture. It aims to do so through advancing empirical research on the shared use of (historical) narratives by individuals to make sense of their social and national realities. That is, narrative is interpreted as a central mechanism that connects the individual mind to culture and society. While this is an area that has been much conceptualized and theorized about from top-down sources (as will be discussed below), it has lacked sufficient empirical operationalization and investigation at the level of individual members of society. Literature Review This section delineates the theoretical foundations that inform the goals and approach of the current research. Social Identity Theory (SIT/SCT; Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner et al., 1987) is drawn upon as the motivational system that drives engagement with historical narratives for individuals embedded within national contexts. Further, we also consider the role of content in determining the possibilities (as well as constraints) for identity through a social representations (SR) approach (Elcheroth et al., 2011). These perspectives both align with Reicher’s (2004) dynamic framework of identity, wherein content (or representations) is 16 what actualizes and mobilizes the collective potential of individuals as members of a common group. Both Social Identity and Social Representations Theory can be interpreted via the broader approach cultural psychology outlined above. Developing A Social Representations Approach to Identity Social Identity Theory (SIT), Self-Categorization Theory (SCT) and Social Representations Theory (SRT) provide the major pillars of theory to our current examination of collective memory as represented in the minds of individuals. Through an SIT perspective, the shared use of narratives ought to be organized by the boundaries of social categorization. In other words, the boundaries of salient social categories determine who certain norms, values, goals (usually communicated through group-based narratives) appeal to, and to whom they do not. This is because individuals’ preference for certain narratives are driven by their underlying motivations for legitimizing and defending the important social categories that they derive membership from, such as nationality. In turn, historical narratives can be used by individuals to enhance their social category (e.g., nation) in comparison against relevant outgroups. Importantly, the social representational (SR) perspective adds the consideration that the kind of narratives that are available for mobilizing a social category are both constrained and facilitated by the existing knowledge, definitions, assumptions, and beliefs that are both culturally reified and interpersonally/socially shared within society. To develop the theoretical foundations for this research, the following literature review covers the basic tenets of SIT/SCT before providing an overview of the SR approach to inform our discussion on how collective memory, as shared psychological representations and narratives of history, gives form and meaning for the realization and enactment of social (national) identity. 17 Social Identity and Self Categorization Theory While often grouped together under the ‘social identity perspective’ (Hornsey, 2008), for technical purposes, it is important to delineate between social identity (SIT, Tajfel, 1978) and its related counterpart, self-categorization theory (SCT, Turner et al., 1987). Both SIT and SCT share the same core assumptions, however, have different foci or emphases. SIT focuses on competitive intergroup behaviour and its motivations and implications, including tendencies for intergroup differentiation and outgroup derogation. In turn, SCT focuses on the cognitive underpinnings of identity through muti-level categorizations of ingroup and outgroup across situations and contexts. These different emphases are delineated below. According to SIT, a social identity provides the “part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership in a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership” (Tajfel, 1978, p. 63). The core assumption of this theory is that individuals are driven by motivations to maintain a positive and secure self-concept, including the part of their self-concept that derives from their group memberships. This is typically achieved through perceiving positive distinctiveness in comparison with other groups. The existence of the ‘other’ is thus inherent to the conceptualization of social identity. Furthermore, the social context provides a backdrop for determining who (or what group) is relevant for comparing ourselves against, and on what dimensions. Thus, there can be wide variability in how we define ourselves, depending on the ‘other’ that is available for comparison in a given context (Haslam et al., 1992; Oakes, 1987). From its inception, SIT has been applied for thinking about and understanding nations as groups. Since then, there has been extensive research exploring the dynamics of social identity in (cross-)national contexts of comparison, competition, and conflict (e.g., Li & Brewer, 2004; Reicher et al., 2006; Verkuyten, 2021). 18 According to SCT, a social category provides “cognitive tools that segment, classify, and order the social environment” (Tajfel & Turner, 1979, p. 40), wherein a social category can be understood as a collective of individuals “who have internalized the same social category membership as a component of their self- concept” (Turner, 1982, p. 36). When internalized, this cognitive category becomes a meaningful social identity for an individual. Once a social identity is adopted, an individual is guided by the norms, values, and beliefs that have been internalized as part of that identity. In this way, SCT provides an understanding of how individuals see their group (and relevant ‘other’s). Furthermore, this theory purports that particular contexts activate certain social categories to be more salient and accessible than others (Oakes, 1987). There are multiple social categories that an individual might identify with, like gender, nationality, work, extended family, etc. Any of these could be salient at a given time and become the basis for activating ingroup/outgroup distinctions. Amidst this multitude of identities we have access to, SCT proposes that group categorization occurs as a function of accessibility and fit. That is, how accessible, salient, or primed a social category is, and how well that category reflects the social reality and relevant group-based differences in a given context. It is evident that both SIT and SCT are context-dependent theories that open up the space for considering the role and influences of various levels of context, including cultural and historical, on identity and intergroup relations (Reicher, 2004). Rather than being ahistorical and inflexible, identity is increasingly recognized as a dynamic construct that is both constitutive and transformative in ways that are ‘contextually valid’. A Dynamic Approach to Social Identity Importantly, social identification does not merely involve the activation of identity, but the active process of constructing an identity that is in line with a particular agenda (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). Turner (1999) himself argued that SIT and SCT are process 19 theories that require the incorporation of culturally and contextually specific content before any meaningful predictions can be made in their application and analysis. As such, we approach social/national identity from a constructivist perspective with the potential for transformation, rather than a perspective that is essentialist and assumes a shared and fixed ethnic core for groups. This comes from recognizing identity content as dynamic and constructed. Momentum for this dynamic approach to SIT that considers both the roles of content and context in social identification has grown in recent decades, emerging as part of a wider criticism of the minimal group paradigm’s treatment of social identities as ahistorical constructs (Huddy, 2001). History provides a diachronic identity, wherein social identity can be conceptualized as being in a continual and complex process of becoming (Klein et al., 2007; Reicher & Hopkins, 2001) rather than being abstract, static, and isolated from historical and cultural contexts. The most significant project for constructing a group identity in the modern era has been that of nations and countries. Drawing upon history has been particularly appealing for such nation building efforts. This is because history provides concrete events and figures that can be weaved into emotionally compelling national narratives (Liu & Laszlo, 2007; Wertsch, 2008). History provides content for national identity by providing common understandings of the nation’s origins and key experiences, through which certain characteristics and values of the nation are implicitly communicated (Ashmore et al., 2004; Branscombe et al., 2002). Beyond such functions of self-definition and self-verification, history provides resources for maintaining a sense of continuity as well as resources for coping through new situations and crises (Wagner et al., 2002). Furthermore, because individuals derive self-esteem from their group memberships (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), historical narratives provide resources for constructing a moral and positive image of the nation in comparison with other nation groups, especially those that they are (or have been) 20 in conflict with. However, it is noted that constructing a moral image does not necessitate a positive or heroic evaluation of the nation and its history. Commonly, a moral image of the ingroup is expressed through a victimhood position and identity (Noor et al., 2017). In these various ways, the internalization of historical narratives may serve to create and reinforce a collective identity for individuals as an imagined or ‘mnemonic community’ (Zerubavel, 2003). Social Representations Theory Social Representations Theory (SRT: Moscovici, 1984, 2001) enables theorizing about the processes and structures that facilitate knowledge and beliefs within a society to be shared. Social representations (SR) are the collection of values, ideas, beliefs, and practices that are socially shared among members of a group. Widely shared between individuals, SRs are able to prescribe the rules and norms for how group members act and communicate with one another. The core assumption of SRT is that certain ways of perceiving and understanding the world (i.e., social frameworks) come to be held by members of a society through social sharing. Social facts are established when people come to share common interpretations for understanding shared experiences. That is, members of a collective are exposed to and participate in the sharing of certain meaning systems through social interaction, to produce common perceptions of major events (Pennebaker & Banasik, 1997) and ideas (Moscovici, 1976/2008). Patterns of interaction and communication may occur at the direct level between individuals or disperse through mass media. Thus, there can be “no communication without representations and no representations without communication” (de Rosa Annamaria, 2012, p. 77). This dynamic creates communities of shared understandings, providing the basis for people to communicate, make decisions, and act as a collective. As forms of enacted knowledge, social representations are determined by the existing social institutions, structures and practices that we conduct our lives and actions within. In 21 turn, widely shared social representations have the effect of upholding and sustaining those very institutions and practices, functioning like self-fulfilling prophecies. In this way, social representations are both produced within and constitutive of social reality. Importantly, the other side of this coin is that social representations that contest or diverge from existing representations that are dominant in society, can contribute to processes of social change (Elcheroth et al., 2011). The Intersection Between Social Representations and Social Identity Both SRT and SIT arose from a dissatisfaction with the negligence of collective and historical factors in the investigation of human behaviour (Reicher, 2004). SR focuses on how shared understandings of the world are constructed and maintained, leading to certain possibilities for human action. SIT focuses on how social context affects intergroup relations (although it has commonly been applied under a dehistoricized minimal groups paradigm, which has since been criticized, see Reicher, 2004). SIT acknowledges that groups occupy different levels in a hierarchy of status and power, and that intergroup behaviour is driven by individuals’ perceptiveness of such group-based arrangements (and their alternatives), (Hornsey, 2008). Both theories arose with a commitment to understanding social and societal influences of behaviour as well as processes of social change. There has been a growing recognition for the integration of SIT and SR to advance theory as well as practically and methodologically (Breakwell & Lyons, 1996; Reicher, 2004; Howarth, 2002). As mentioned, SR is concerned with the ways that social knowledge and understandings get internalized and by whom. SIT/SCT provides an organizing principle to this process, wherein “the way we orient to representations depends on how we categorize ourselves in relations to the groups with which those representations are associated” (Elcheroth et al., 2011, p. 735). In other words, membership within the boundaries of a social category will determine what representations we are more likely to be exposed to and 22 assimilate to our sense of self. Membership in certain groups is what leads us to perceive some representations as more salient, meaningful, legitimate, and ‘real’ than others. In turn, how we relate with members of our own and other groups depend on the representations we have about those groups in the first place, to give meaning and relevance to group identities. By understanding that identities of groups are created through processes of shared meaning- making, we can assume that identification and intergroup relations are always contextual, socially determined, and thus culturally variable rather than being fixed and universal (Reicher, 2004). This dynamic interplay between social representations and identities allows us to understand how the meanings of identities can become politicized to mobilize support for certain agendas (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). Rooted in content and representation, this means that there are always multiple versions of national identity pushed by politicians and groups with competing agenda that are possible at a given moment, being contested, and competing for popular acceptance and legitimacy. This inherently makes identity a political project (Reicher, 2004). Those who have aspirations to direct and influence collective attitudes and behaviours in certain directions have interests in constructing social identities (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). As such, there are typically different versions of a group identity that are being advanced in a society at a given time. Advancing such identity projects often involves invoking representations of history to make claims of legitimacy and resonate with audiences. Collective Memory The term ‘collective memory’ was introduced by Halbwachs (1925/1992) in his seminal work The Social Frameworks of Memory. In this, he argued how the thoughts of individuals, including their memories, are structured according to their social/group contexts: “It is in society that people normally acquire their memories. It is also in society that they recall, recognize and localize their memories” (Halbwachs, 1925/1992, p. 38). Based on his 23 argument, group memberships provide the structural foundations for remembering; facilitating individuals’ recall of particular events while facilitating their forgetting of others. This section will elaborate on conceptualizing the content of collective memory at the level of individuals who are embedded in these social frameworks, or in other words, through a ‘local’ lens of culture. Social Representations of History From a cultural psychological perspective, history could be read as a provider of materials for creating shared meaning via social sharing, communication, and internalization. In this way, historical events, figures, symbols, and settings can become social representations. As mentioned, this shared meaning is then often invoked by public figures as prior knowledge to legitimize certain versions of national identity (Reicher, 2004). Liu and Hilton (2005) describe these ideas through social representations of history (SRH), which involve widely shared knowledge of history that serve as the materials for constructing official accounts and narratives about a group’s past and its origins. Since history (through shared representations of meaning) provides core content for identities in this way, we can assume that individuals have the potential and agency to contest, resist, and transform identities by re-imagining the meaning of the past and the implications this has for the group’s future and goals (Elcheroth et al., 2011). In research, SRH has been operationalized and studied as socially shared knowledge and beliefs about history held by laypeople at a given moment in time (Hilton & Liu, 2017). Through surveys, the SRH approach can probe collective memory by mapping popular beliefs and understandings of history (at a certain moment) and examining their associations and implications for political attitudes (this past research will be reviewed in later sections about the bottom-up approach to collective remembering). Large-scale surveys have shown that knowledge about central historical events and figures tend to be consensually shared 24 across many disparate groups in society (Huang et al., 2004; Liu, 1999), even in ethnically/regionally diverse contexts (Liu & Gastardo-Conaco, 2011; Liu et al., 2002). On the other hand, such studies have also demonstrated that the perceived importance and relevance of SRH to the group and their present politics is often contentious (see Liu & Hilton, 2005). In other words, even when knowledge of historical representations is widely shared, there may still be individual- or group-level variability around the perceived meaning of such historical content for dealing with current issues and crises (Sen & Wagner, 2005; Sibley et al., 2008). The conceptualization of SRH also emphasizes a dynamic interplay between the past and how the past is produced (and reproduced) in the present. Events and figures from the past become salient when they are selectively mobilized for their relevance to current political agendas (Sen & Wagner, 2005). In this way, SRH provide a symbolic reserve of content that can be weaved into convincing narratives by political elites in their rhetoric, as suits their political projects at the time (Pennebaker & Banasik, 1997; Liu & Hilton, 2005). Thus, SRH are theorized to provide powerful narrative resources for managing public issues. For example, historical representations that are widely shared and commemorated within a society, such as foundational events, ought to be difficult to contest in public debate because they carry such widely shared legitimacy and emotional resonance for those who are highly identified with their group (Pennebaker & Banasik, 1997). However, such dynamic functions of historical content have not sufficiently been tested empirically (see Liu et al., 2014). In summary, SRH provide symbolic content that can be selectively recruited into narratives that communities mobilize around, but nevertheless whose interpretations are malleable and open to change (Huang et al., 2004; Liu et al., 2002; Spellman & Holyoak, 1992). In other words, SRH exist as an open system (Moscovici, 1984) of narrative resources that are subject to amendment, negotiation, and re-negotiation over time. Thus, collective 25 memory constitutes an active past (Halbwachs, 1925/1992) that has the potential to shift and evolve across generations. However, dominant historical narratives that are reinforced by state institutions provide a configuration of SRH that tend to be consensually shared across individuals as members of a society, and thus become relevant to perennial issues that they collectively face, providing a reliable source of collective stability and continuity. Narrative Approaches to History Rather than drawing from a single event, history is likely to be communicated as a temporal and themed story about nationhood. Narrative-based approaches to collective memory offer a layered and storied way of understanding historical representations. Among various ideas about historical narratives (which will be outlined below), historical charters (Liu & Hilton, 2005) provide a way of understanding those narratives about history that are central to upholding ingroup identity. Specifically, SRH that are hegemonic (i.e., normatively or consensually regarded as important) warrant the existence of an historical charter (Liu & Hilton, 2005). A nation’s historical charter (Liu & Hilton, 2005; Hilton & Liu, 2017) constitutes a widely shared narrative of its foundational origins in continuity with its present- day affairs, and the historical mission or quest driving this narrative forward (see also Wertsch, 2021; Zerubavel, 2003). This is upheld by ‘official’ reification from cultural/institutional products and practices. Through establishing a historical charter, nation states seek to maintain temporal continuity between past, present, and future for their citizens as members of an enduring collective with core founding principles (Jetten & Hutchinson, 2011; Sani et al., 2007). Owing to their “official” representation in society, historical charters work to legitimize and justify social and political arrangements and provide the foundations for national identity. As such, these narratives provide a cultural mechanism for collective stability, cohesion, and order, anchoring public opinion and debate in prescriptive ways 26 (Moscovici, 1984). As mentioned, historical charters weave widely shared representations of events, people, settings, and symbols into stories with temporal form and depth, and with a coherent starting point that is anchored in ‘narratives of origin’ (Geertz, 1973; Malinowski, 1926; Smith, 1998) or foundational myths. In this way, charters provide “the story of the making of an ingroup” (Liu, 1999, p. 1023). The origin story provides a particularly important class of representation within this wider integrative narrative, for a group’s self- understanding and sense of primordiality. They also set the moral imperatives for a group, which continues to guide and justify certain actions and decisions when navigating their present (Hilton & Liu, 2017). Such an imperative provides a source of moral superiority compared to others while inculcating certain norms and values within the group (Yamashiro et al., 2022). Wertsch (2021) describes a similar idea through the National Narrative Project (NNP) as an “overall biography or life history of a national community that is directed toward an aspiration or ideal that guides a national community’s understanding of itself” (p. 184). Others have further described ideas of master narratives (Carretero et al., 2013; Hammack, 2011), which refer to the ways that a nation’s history is narrated in a romanticized and essentialized way. Like the former, master narratives are proposed to provide interpretive frameworks for understanding a nation’s self-concept. They essentialize the group’s past by highlighting events that communicate and preserve a moral and positive image of the nation while silencing or downplaying any shameful events, thereby providing the basis for constructing a positive national identity. They provide heroic characters and motives as a source of identification and moral orientation for group members, while rendering a romantic and essentialist concept of the nation (Carretero et al., 2013). These narrative approaches to history are all anchored in the common tradition of narrative psychology, which is centered around the idea of “storied realities” (Bruner, 1986; 27 1991). Narrative psychology highlights storied reasoning as a human form of making sense of the world and our environments. The narrative plot structure, through its capacity to provide a chronological and communicable order to events, gives shape and structure to the way we think about our experiences and understand reality (Laszlo, 2006). When applied to the way we think and talk about the past, “historical intelligibility requires not merely past events occurring at particular times, but a coherent story in which many events are skipped, others are coalesced, and temporal sequence is often subordinated to explanation and interpretation” (Lowenthal, 1985, p. 223). Through such selective interpretation, a historical narrative simplifies the past, presenting what happened from a subjective point of view (Novick, 1998). In other words, complexity and ambiguity of past events tend to get overlooked in the service of constructing a clear and simple narrative (Novick, 1998; Zerubavel, 2003). According to a narrative psychology approach, individuals come to understand their reality through application of existing cultural resources and tools (Wertsch, 1998). In this way, psychological experience is constituted by the mediation of reality through culture (Vygotsky, 1978), as "there is no way to give us an understanding of any society, including our own, except through the stock of stories which constitute its initial dramatic resources" (MacIntyre, 1984, p. 216). We as individuals do not produce historical accounts in isolation. Rather, we do so by appropriating the ‘mediational means’ like words and stories, that are already culturally available to us and used by those around us (Wertsch, 1991). This shared use and appropriation of cultural tools in the historical thinking of individuals as members of a society is what serves to reinforce our organization as a collective. Through this, individuals become members of distinct “mnemonic communities” (Zerubavel, 2003). That is, to espouse a certain narrative about how the nation came to be and what it stands for is to be enculturated and signify one’s identity as part of that nation (Van Engen, 2020). Thus, 28 narrative approaches to history are relevant for understanding how a meaningful sense of nationhood is constructed in individuals (Reicher, 2004). The schematic narrative template (SNT) according to Wertsch (2002) provides a more explicit framework for mapping how historical narratives tend to be structured and organized. SNTs are proposed to function as generalized, cognitive frameworks that can generate predictable narratives about various events (Wertsch, 2012). This is based on the idea of the schema from cognitive psychology (Bartlett, 1932/1995). SNTs organize events according to a general and familiar plot structure, which facilitates the accessibility of a wide range of events for public understanding and communication. Through the easy assimilation of specific events by these recognizable templates, their narration often ends up following a similar and familiar story every time. Structurally, narrative templates are organized around simple and accessible structures of temporality and plot. Thematically, they are grounded in ethnocentric and moralized representations over neutral and objective representations. According to Wertsch, 2002 (p. 124), in the ‘‘process of invoking an imaginary coherence, integrity, fullness, and closure, narrative also introduces a moral order into the picture’’. This tendency also allows individuals to emotionally resonate with the storyline. For example, the Expulsion of Alien Enemies has been identified as a common SNT that is observed in Russia. Furthermore, such templates incorporate little concrete information, endowing them with a property of nonfalsifiability. Their simple plot also means that they become communicatively and cognitively accessible to a wide range of people who may actually share little in specific knowledge about the event. The Expulsion of Alien Enemies narrative template in Russia may have self-fulfilling implications and trigger Russian aggression and vigilance to threat when internalized by individuals. In contrast, Hungarians have been observed to be predisposed to a historical 29 narrative that follows a trajectory of a glorious distant past followed by centuries of struggle, which leads to a psychology of collective victimhood and a tendency to underestimate their future and in turn, show support for strong, authoritarian leadership (Jenei et al., 2022). This shows the importance of considering contextual and cultural specificity when examining the dynamics of collective remembering. For the current thesis, I stick to the wider term of ‘historical narrative’ to encompass the common ideas proposed by historical charters, national narrative projects, and master narratives, with the main idea being that historical representations are selectively and subjectively weaved into a shared narrative that provides core content for ingroup identity. In summary, historical narratives that uphold and reinforce national identity are warranted by popular and widespread representations of history that are reified by cultural/institutional practices, tradition, and elite endorsement. The cultural dissemination of historical narratives is usually facilitated by the communication of historical narratives via a simple storyline or schematic narrative template (Wertsch, 2002). The next section will elaborate on the institutionalization of historical narratives from the top down and how this has been documented and studied. This covers a broad span of literature and past research which has contributed to important understandings of how institutions and elites curate a ‘suitable past’ through in-depth case studies. This will be followed up with a section covering the bottom-up internalization (or rejection) of these curated narratives by individuals, and the gaps we still have in understanding these—in both content and process. Historical Narratives: A Top-down Approach Researchers from a variety of disciplines across the social sciences, humanities and beyond have worked towards understanding how, why, and what societies selectively remember (and forget) about their collective past (see Olick et al., 2011 for a review). Such efforts have documented how institutionalized practices like formal education and public 30 commemorations attempt to frame a ‘suitable past’ that glorifies and/or essentializes the nation (Olick et al., 2011), and to bolster the power and legitimacy of the state (Hosbawm & Ranger, 1992). Nora (1989) expanded this perspective through his idea of ‘lieux de memoire’, or sites of remembrance, to demonstrate how the French state attempted to bolster official narratives of their national history while erasing the diverse historical accounts of local communities through formal and everyday memorialization. Beyond practices and rituals, the past is also crystallized through cultural products like murals, monuments, and street/place names but also by being embedded in policy and legislation (Olick & Levy, 1997). These create institutional backdrops for routine and everyday practices of remembering. Beyond personal intentions to participate, people encounter such commemorative activities and sites in the flow of everyday life (Hakim & Adams, 2017). Formal education also provides a source of legitimacy and perception of consensus, enculturating students to an official historical narrative through standardized procedures like university entrance exams (Carretero & Kriger, 2011; Kurtiş et al., 2017). It is important to emphasize that history is actively and intentionally curated to immortalize a certain version of the past that is not neutral. This active ‘memory work’ then creates the basis of justification for specific decisions and actions in managing a group’s ongoing affairs. Curated representations of history typically involve the denial or downplaying of shameful, unjust acts committed by the group throughout history (e.g., Blight, 2001), what decolonial scholars refer to as ‘cultivated ignorance’ (Mills, 2007; Nixon, 2011). This may be observed through outright silence around national atrocities (Leone & Mastrovito, 2010) or the downplaying of their negative consequences in the present by establishing historical closure (Sibley et al., 2008). In contrast, historical representations that provide positive distinctiveness for a group, especially glorified origins (Geertz, 1973), are likely to feature prominently in official historical narratives and representations as sources of 31 national pride. However, historical narratives that are conducive to a collective victimhood orientation in contexts like Serbia and Hungary, may instead emphasize a more negative and traumatic past. Importantly, such contexts of victimhood-based national identities may still espouse stories of glorious origins, which is then followed by traumatic downfall. Cultural Memory To provide terminology for distinct forms of collective remembering, Assmann (2013) coined the term ‘cultural remembering’ to explain the dynamic process of how history is selectively constructed from the top-down. Collective memories that are preserved through cultural remembering are those that have been crystallized through cultural symbols and practices as part of a society’s official heritage and memorial tradition. Thus, cultural memories constitute representations of history that have been culturally inscribed and continue to be reified by routine practices and rituals (Liu & Hilton, 2005). Typically, they comprise a “body of reusable texts, images, and rituals specific to each society in each epoch, whose ‘cultivation’ serves to stabilize and convey that society’s self-image” (Assmann & Czaplicka, 1995, p. 132). Through the technologies and mechanisms of cultural remembering, history becomes “disembodied, exteriorized, objectified and embedded in cultural institutions” (Assmann, 2013, p. 37). Therefore, cultural memory is represented in external and objectified forms, as part of a society’s official heritage. Since cultural memories that signify a group’s heritage tend to be based on the remote past, eyewitnesses have long died out and there are only relics and stories left to rely on to learn about what happened (Assmann, 1997). Within cultural memory, Assmann (2013) further distinguished between archival and ‘working’ cultural memories. It is posited that archival memory exist in the mode of potentiality by being stored in archives, libraries, and museums; only being brought into the mode of actuality as working cultural memory when such representations are activated through communication and given relevant meaning within 32 present-day contexts. In this way, memories existing in the mode of potentiality lie dormant until communicatively brought back to life as meaningful stories, narratives, and common frames of reference for group members. Expanding on these ideas, Rigney (2005) described how it is through the recursivity in actions and practices, such as visiting the same places and repeating the same stories that constructs cultural memory. For example, memories seek to attach themselves to particular locations (Halbwachs, 1950/1980), providing memory traces. However, monuments and historical sites only retain their value as facilitators of ‘working’ cultural memory insofar as their meaning is kept alive by the recursive enactment of stories and commemorative acts related to those locations. ‘Working’cultural memory is continuously performed by individuals and groups as they selectively recollect the past and participate in various forms of memorial activity, from narrating and reading to attending commemorative ceremonies. Through these directed acts, we consciously or unconsciously select certain representations from all that are possible. This selectivity is noted by Rigney (2005) as not a limitation of memory, but rather, a major precondition of it becoming meaningful for people. As mentioned, cultural memory becomes useful for a group to the extent that there is a relevant present-day connection from it that is perceived. Building and maintaining such meaningful associations between past and present relies heavily on the rhetorical and narrative work of political leaders and the media in public discourse. Here, we may link back to the idea of identity as political projects. Through the identity entrepreneurship of public figures, stories of nationhood are drawn upon by political elites to reinforce national identity in ways that align with their interests (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). For example, state leaders often invoke historical narratives to rally support for war (e.g., Hutcheson et al., 2004), political conflicts (Krebs, 2015), and public policy decisions, especially those regarding intergroup relations (Mols & Jetten, 2014). Certain narratives of history may also be used as a 33 source of restoring or redeeming a group’s image. For example, historical narratives in Germany underwent a major shift from being sanitized to being rooted in a sense of social responsibility for the Holocaust (Welch & Wittlinger, 2011). As mentioned, cultural memories become active or ‘working’ when translated into meaningful communication in the present. This was summarized by Liu and Khan (2021) that: “Collective memories are networked as narratives and exist as imprecise systems of meanings…Aspects are brought into focus for a particular political purpose, through the voice of leaders employing different forms of mass media” (p. 268). Often this is performed by political figures through a selective invocation of the past to promote a positive identity for their ingroup (Dresler-Hawke, 2005) and earn support for political decisions and actions that are framed as being in the best interests of the group, and especially in protecting the group from perceived threat (e.g., Bar-Tal et al., 2007; Wohl & Branscombe, 2008). Research has corroborated that political elites use historical narratives to frame group identity in positive terms and often, as being under threat in efforts to rally their audience toward supporting certain political action and decisions. For example, right-wing leaders in the United Kingdom selectively invoked a positive example from their nation’s canonical history (Churchill’s leadership against Nazi Germany) to frame a narrative where a glorious and strong past is contrasted against a negative future to foster collective angst and nostalgia as drivers of action (Mols & Jetten, 2014). In Germany, a corpus of public speeches showed that WWII was used to anchor a narrative of national responsibility stemming from the events of the war, to justify the country’s representativeness as a leader of freedom and unity in Europe (Lienen & Cohrs, 2021). This exemplifies social creativity on the part of politicians who did not change the events of WWII but did adapt the representation of their implications for the nation’s present and future. While such research in top-down political rhetoric has identified common ways that history is invoked for political means, it is just as 34 important to examine and understand the ways that such rhetoric is received and engaged with by their intended audiences. Historical Narratives: A Bottom-up Approach The top-down curation and dissemination of historical narratives (i.e., cultural remembering) only forms one side of the dynamic. It is important to consider just as importantly, how individuals, as members of the public, contribute to the (co-)construction of historical narratives over time (Kansteiner, 2002). This is what situates collective remembering as a dynamic and open system, open to negotiation, contestation, and resistance by individuals from the bottom-up as they continue to face new, incoming events and challenges. The top-down efforts of political elites described above, must be met by bottom- up acceptance for history to become a working narrative of identity for the group. In other words, the realization of a group narrative as an expression of group identity is determined by individuals’ emotional and psychological commitment to the narratives that they are culturally exposed to. Actual public interest and participation shape dominant historical narratives in interaction with institutional and commemorative efforts (Soroka & Krawatzek, 2021). While there has been criticism by some (e.g., Olick, 1999) that a bottom-up approach removes what is fundamentally ‘collective’ about collective memory, recently there have been shifts towards understanding collective memory as being relevant to the everyday lives, cognition, and communication of individuals, as indicated by Schuman et al. (2012, p. 452): “Collective memory cannot be reduced to the individual orientations that constitute it, but it is realized in these orientations”. Indeed, it would be incomplete to study collective memory as products of cultural processes without considering how these products are received and consumed by their intended audiences (see also Hewer & Roberts, 2012; Hirst et al., 2018; Kansteiner, 2002). 35 While institutionalized historical accounts may contribute to upholding hegemonic representations of history, historical knowledge that intersects with individuals’ personal experiences and interpersonal interactions may provide mediums through which hegemonic representations are discussed, contested, and even changed. The top-down framing of certain representations and the bottom-up contestation or acceptance of these both contribute to larger discourses around how the past is represented, especially in relation to in-group identity. The following section delineates conceptual frameworks for understanding collective memory from this bottom-up perspective, building upon those initial ideas of social representations of history (Liu & Hilton, 2005). This literature review will cover existing scholarship in the area of psychology and collective remembering before leading into a discussion about our current lack of knowledge regarding the form and content of historical narratives, as understood and produced by individuals (-in context). This discussion will situate the original contribution of the current research. Communicative Memory (Living Historical Memory) In contrast to cultural memory, communicative memory (Assmann, 2013) describes representations of historical events in the living memory of individuals that are shared through everyday informal communication, like hearing about 9/11 on the news or learning about World War II from one’s grandparents. Alternatively, we refer to these as living historical memory: memories of historical events that individuals have lived directly and/or acquired through social sharing with their elders or peers (Choi et al., 2023; Liu et al., 2021). Social sharing may refer to direct and intergenerational communication with others as well as wider sharing about events through social and mass media. In other words, LHM applies to those representations of that past that have occurred within the lifetimes of individuals living or still personally remembered today. 36 These processes of communication constitute the earliest phase of collective memory formation, that is led by direct eyewitnesses and participants of the events. During this process, multiple narratives based on different experiences of the event circulate and compete with each other (Assmann, 1997). Communicative remembering lives in everyday communication in this way, especially since individuals are predisposed to engage in social sharing following emotional or consequential events (Pennebaker & Banasik, 1997). Indeed, the prominence of war or conflict-related events in memory has been attributed to its narratability (Propp, 1968) and extreme emotion-laden nature (Bar-Tal 2001). Relatedly, a recency bias in collective remembering has been consistently documented in free recall (e.g., Roediger & DeSoto, 2014; Liu et al., 2009), highlighting how collective memories have a strong bias towards the present and towards the personal (Kansteiner, 2002). Indeed, lived memories are typically remembered as specific events that are dateable and placeable, while distant memories tend to be described in more broad and expansive terms, thus aligning with temporal construal theory (Liberman & Trope, 1998). In response, many emergent studies have been dedicated to examining how the personal or autobiographical intersects with the historical (see Hirst et al., 2018). In relation to autobiographical remembering of historical events, Schuman and Corning (2017) summarized decades of research on intergenerational differences in historical representations (see also Schuman & Corning, 2012). Their ‘Critical Years Hypothesis’ proposes that historical events that are lived and/or witnessed during one’s own critical, adolescent years (between the ages of 10-30) will leave a stronger, more enduring mark in memory than events that are encountered later in life (Schuman & Scott, 1989). In support of this claim, they have consistently found that American participants who were in their critical years during the Vietnam War regarded the event as especially important, even as time passed and new events were encountered. In turn, participants in their critical years during 37 the September 11th bombing recalled this event as especially important, more often than their older counterparts. It seems that lived historical memories from one’s critical years are carried along, remaining salient as people age and as other events occur (Schuman & Corning, 2017). Such intergenerational differences can have implications for political attitudes. Schuman and Rieger (1992) found that there were intergenerational differences in what historical analogies Americans resonated with more during the onset of the Gulf War. The older cohort was more likely to perceive an analogy between the contemporary war and America’s victory in WWII, thus showing more support. In contrast, those who experienced/witnessed the Vietnam War during their critical years, were more likely to perceive an analogy that led to viewing America’s participation in the Gulf War more negatively. Beyond the Critical Years Hypothesis, historical representations may shift based on perceived relevance to changing group circumstances. For example, younger generations of Dutch-speakers in Belgium showed lower memories of past victimhood (inflicted by French-speakers) in their historical attitudes compared to their older counterparts, reflecting the changing intergroup circumstances in the region (Rimé et al., 2015). The same historical events have also been shown to be interpreted differently in relation to changing trends in educational practices and general social awareness. This is reflected in changes in Americans’ attitudes toward the use of atomic bombs in war from more to less positive over the generations (Zaromb et al., 2014). These findings speak to the varied and personalized nature of the way that more recent events in history are remembered, narrated, and communicated about. In contrast to the ordered, stable, and hegemonic representation of cultural memories, communicative remembering seems to be directed by “everyday communications about the meaning of the past characterized by instability, disorganization, and non-specialization” (Kansteiner, 2002, 38 p. 182). We may think of these living memories that are communicatively shared, as informal memory, in contrast to formal historical representations and narratives that are curated by state-level institutions. However, there are still systematic effects that have been identified within this disorganization. This connects us back to the dynamics of social identity (Turner et al., 1987). Ingroup Biases in Historical Representations Just as memories of one’s personal past affects a sense of personal identity and self- esteem (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000), national memories have significant bearing on the meaning of national identity (Hirst et al., 2018). This has created a domain for researchers in social psychology to study the dynamic relationship between collective memory and identity, focusing on the individual as the unit of analysis. Indeed, collective memories are kept alive to the extent that they meet the identity-related needs and motivations of group members, by providing a clear representation of how the group came to be and has dealt with major events and crises over time (Liu & Hilton, 2005). This then informs and justifies what the purpose, values, and goals of the group are that drives their actions in the present and future (Abrams & Hogg, 2001). Central to social identity (Turner et al., 1987), in-group history provides a source of distinctiveness from other groups (Jetten & Hutchison, 2012). Unsurprisingly, social identity motivations have been demonstrated to drive more positive and continuous interpretations of ingroup history. A positive image of the ingroup is often achieved by selectively downplaying inconvenient or unpleasant aspects of the group’s past at the expense of historical accuracy (Hirst & Manier, 2008; Wertsch & Roediger, 2008). This section will provide a review of the research in this area of collective memory and identity. Much of this research has focused on identity-favouring and identity-defensive attitudes as both predictors 39 and outcomes of selective historical interpretations, suggesting a bidirectional relationship where history and identity mutually reinforce each other. Manipulating experiences of identity have been found to affect the way that history is recalled and interpreted. In a historical vignette study, those who read about in-group members as the aggressor in a historical event recalled significantly less of the passage compared to a condition where they read about another group as the aggressor (Rotella & Richeson, 2013). This suggests that when needs to defend ingroup identity becomes salient through negative historical information, people are motivated to disregard this information. In an earlier study, Sahdra and Ross (2007) found that participants who were already more identified with their group were more likely to remember episodes where ingroup members were framed as victims rather than perpetrators. Thus, in addition to the immediate experiences and salience of identity, one’s pre-existing disposition in level of identification further moderates tendencies for selective historical interpretation and sanitization (see also Doosje et al., 1998). Such tendencies have been found to be driven by needs to avoid negative group-based emotions like shame and guilt and in turn, boost positive group-based feelings like pride for the past. Feelings of shame predict distancing behaviours from past wrongdoers from the ingroup to defend group identity. This may occur by reappraising the events in a positive light or by simply making the shameful memories less accessible and less specific than prideful ones (especially for high identifiers), thereby reducing accountability of the ingroup for past injustices and wrongdoings (Branscombe et al., 2002; Dresler-Hawke & Liu, 2006; Smeekes & Verkuyten, 2014). This is evident in findings that members of a perpetrator group are less likely to experience collective guilt when their negative history is framed as having no impact on group members in the present (Imhoff et al., 2013) or when these negative events are perceived to be more distant in the past than recent (Peetz et al., 2010). Such 40 tendencies may be rooted in broader motivations for individuals to protect their subjective well-being. Indeed, associations between favourable historical narratives and subjective well- being have been shown in samples from Singapore (Ho et al., 2018), Estonia (Kus et al., 2014), and the United States (Adler & Poulin, 2009). In contrast to negative historical episodes where ingroup members are positioned as perpetrators and wrongdoers, nostalgia for a romanticized past has been found to provide a positive resource for identity and well-being. Experiences of nostalgia for the collective past were found to increase when threat to the ingroup was perceived to be salient (Sedikides et al., 2008). Enhancement in nostalgia in the face of intergroup threat serves a protective function for group members by producing beneficial effects for psychological well-being and by boosting perceived ability to cope with challenges. Moreover, nostalgia seems to provide a buffer against negative feelings of collective guilt. Collective guilt was found to be reduced after reminders of past harm-doing for those who engaged in collective nostalgia, and this was especially pronounced for those higher in ingroup glorification (Baldwin et al., 2017). Perceiving historical continuity has also been shown to provide similar positive psychological effects. In this context, perceived historical continuity refers to the perception that there is continuity, connection, or stability between the group’s past, present, and future. In contrast, perceived discontinuity occurs when individuals perceive a disconnect or disruption between the group’s past, present, and future. Perceptions of historical continuity of the ingroup’s characteristics and values were associated with reduced experiences of collective angst compared to perceiving historical discontinuity (Jetten & Wohl, 2012). Again, this effect was more pronounced for those higher in pre-existing identification with the group. Recently, studies in this area have started to explore the meaning, associations, and implications of specific historical events within national contexts, as represented in the minds of individuals. As mentioned earlier, national origin events constitute a specific class of 41 historical representations that are an important source of meaning for individuals when understanding and making sense of their group identity. Across time, it has been observed that people are drawn to beliefs that their nation stems from a long history with quasi- mythical origins, because this affords a sense of timelessness and primordiality for their group (e.g., Geertz, 1973). In this way, ingroup accounts of history typically offer an essentialist account of the group’s origins and relation to the land. Yamashiro et al. (2022) sought to identify Americans’ collective memory for such ‘quasi-mythical’ national origin events. They found that positively evaluated events were in the majority when a general public sample of Americans were asked to identify foundational events of their nation. There was especially high consensus for nominations of: The American Revolution, Declaration of Independence, and Christopher Columbus’ Discovery. This positivity bias was further pronounced for Christian participants and Republicans compared to other political affiliations. This stemmed from relatively lower nominations of negatively regarded events such as slavery and the Native American genocide. Nonetheless, these negative events were infrequently recalled across all ideological groups compared to the more positive events, and the American sample appeared to share a common set of historical reference points when constructing the American origin story. Similarly, Roediger and DeSoto (2014) observed strong correlations between groups at different time points (1974, 1991, 2009) and across generations, in their nominations of American presidents. The first presidents (Washington, Adams, Jefferson) tended to be recalled frequently, followed by a steep drop until Lincoln who showed consistently high recall across the samples. Recent presidents also showed heightened accessibility, with a consistent decline across years passed since the president served in office. Of those recent presidents fading from memory, Kennedy appeared to be better retained than the others. These strong correlations indicate that recall of US presidents is highly stable across 42 generations, again pointing towards hegemonic representations in collective memory. The salience of recent presidents is predicted to fade linearly over time, while the ones that have stood the test of time (i.e., Washington, Lincoln) appear to be consensually regarded as important across time and across age groups. Beyond origin events, Choi et al. (2021) focused on what Americans consider to be events that they feel proud of as a nation. An association was found where those who felt closer to their nation were more likely to generate a higher frequency of prideful events. There was no such inverse association with the frequency of shameful events that were nominated. However, in the different cultural context of Germany, there was indeed a significant negative association between felt closeness to the nation and number of shameful events generated. This indicates that cultural context is important to consider in understanding these dynamics. While a general association between identity and historical representations seems to hold, the specific ways that this plays out seem to vary across countries and regions, constrained by the historical circumstances of that place, and also shaped by the social creativity and subjectivity of individuals who are embedded in those different environments. Another popular and influential category of historical events is the representation of past wars. Representations of war feature prominently in historical narratives as conflict provides the basic template for storytelling, according to Propp (1968). Furthermore, conflict is effective in generating strong emotions, which in turn, leads to a high degree of social sharing (Bar-Tal, 2001; Pennebaker & Banasik1997). As such, it is not surprising that much of collective memory research has focused on remembrances of war. Within the context of the United States, Zaromb et al. (2014) found that participants tended to impose a common narrative structure in their accounts of major wars including the Civil War, WWII, and the more recent 2003 Iraq war. This narrative structure followed: a beginning, underlying 43 justification for warfare, turning point in the war, and end point. This suggests that partly what may contribute to the salience of war in collective memory is an ease of narratability. It also demonstrates the simplification and generalization of complex events that occur in service of narrative coherence and communication, as previously described by Wertsch’s idea of schematic narrative templates (2002). War representations and narratives can also indicate how history is mobilized for group identity. At the global level, Abel et al. (2019) showed that samples from ten different countries, excluding Russia, shared a high level of consensus in what events constituted important events in WWII. These events appeared to align with an American perspective of the war, which suggests why Russians stood against the consensual view of the American narrative. This international discordance showed the reconstructive memory effects of the Cold War that have positioned these former allies apart (Dalby, 2009). In their cross-cultural study, Giner-Sorolla et al. (2021) also found that most nations assigned themselves to hero and victim roles in WWII and that these tendencies were positively correlated, showing ingroup favouritism linked to both interpretations of heroic martyrdom as well as victimhood in war. While the research above examines the psychological and emotional drives that perpetuate selective and biased historical representations, there has also been research that examines the implications of individuals’ behavioural interactions with their cultural environment. Specifically, it has been shown how history embedded in the cultural environment, shapes and influences historical representations in the minds of individuals. Kurtiş et al. (2010) highlighted how the silence about the Native American genocide that is reproduced in presidential proclamations in the US affects individuals’ sense of identification with the nation. Participants exposed to texts that openly addressed ingroup accountability for the Native American genocide showed lower scores in national glorification than those 44 exposed to other conditions, which reproduced some form of silence over the genocide . More recently, Kurtiş et al. (2010) studied the effects of historical representations embedded in national history exams. They found that official representations of history portrayed in national exams defined Turkish identity in relation to Islam and were narrated from the perspective of the majority Muslim-Turks. In turn, participants who themselves endorsed such ethno-cultural constructions of Turkish identity tended to deny silenced events, which predicted reduced support for the rights of minority groups. Similarly, in the US context, Eason and colleagues (2021) showed how individuals endorsing the continued celebration of Columbus Day were those higher in national identification. These were also the individuals who were less likely to be supportive of Indigenous People’s day. In contrast, those who were lower in national identification (and thus in greater support of eliminating Columbus Day for Indigenous People’s Day), were more likely to reject negative stereotypes about Native Americans. In this way, we can see that top-down commemorations and education do exert significant influence on the political and intergroup attitudes of individuals, especially in interaction with their level of national identification or glorification. Hakim and Adams (2017) further demonstrated that Americans tended to show greater vigilance against Iran and misattribute blame for the 9/11 attacks to Iranian sources after recalling 9/11 commemoration. Crucially, this effect only emerged as significant for those who actually reported engagement with the hegemonic commemoration practices of 9/11 in their real lives. In relation to war, Watkins and Bastian (2019) found that the more commemorative activities that individuals engaged with, the more likely they were to value war, partially explained by an increase in positive moral emotions. Bottom-up Engagement with Historical Narratives In this area of research, much less is known about the explicit and psychological knowledge of hist