Collective Memory as Tool for Intergroup Conflict: The Case of 9/11 Commemoration

Abstract

We apply a cultural psychology approach to collective memory of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In particular, we considered whether practices associated with commemoration of the 9/11 terrorist attacks would promote vigilance (prospective affordance hypothesis) and misattribution of responsibility for the original 9/11 attacks (reconstructive memory hypothesis) in an ostensibly unrelated context of intergroup conflict during September 2015. In Study 1, vigilance toward Iran and misattribution of responsibility for the 9/11 attacks to Iranian sources was greater among participants whom we asked about engagement with 9/11 commemoration than among participants whom we asked about engagement with Labor Day observations. Results of Study 2 suggested that patterns of greater vigilance and misattribution as a function of instructions to recall engagement with 9/11 commemoration were more specifically true only of participants who reported actual engagement with hegemonic commemoration practices. From a cultural psychological perspective, 9/11 commemoration is a case of collective memory not merely because it implicates collective-level (versus personal) identities, but instead because it emphasizes mediation of motivation and action via engagement with commemoration practices and other cultural tools.