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Your possible pasts: How different social representations of colonialism impact collective guilt and attitudes towards Algerians in France

par Fares, Ram;Licata, Laurent ;Bender, Michaël
Référence International journal of intercultural relations, 113, page (102441)
Publication Publié, 2026-05-01

Article révisé par les pairs

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Résumé :

Recent research links Social Representations of Colonialism (SRC) to attitudes toward immigrantsfrom former colonies, suggesting that views on colonial history shape contemporary intergroupattitudes. However, existing evidence is largely correlational, leaving questions of causality anddirectionality open. Building on prior experimental work on historical narratives, we pre-registered and conducted an experiment examining this link while taking psychological reactanceinto account, using the case of the French colonization of Algeria. We randomly assignedWhite French participants (N =238) to exploitative, developmental, or no (control) representationsof colonialism. Exposure to exploitative (vs. developmental) representations led to lessmodern racism and warmer attitudes toward Algerians in France, but these effects emerged onlywhen participants did not react against the framings. When reactance occurred, the direction ofthe effect reversed. Collective guilt predicted more positive attitudes overall but was unaffectedby SRC exposure, indicating no mediation. Exploratory analyses revealed political orientation andnational identification as key predictors of reactance to SRC framings. These findings providecausal evidence that social representations of colonial history shape intergroup relations andreveal that psychological reactance can counteract the attitudinal effects of such representations.