The psychological impact of collective remembrance

Awareness of past atrocities is widely seen as critical for restoring justice and building resilient democracies. Going beyond information provision, an increasing number of memorial sites, museums, and historical archives offer opportunities for public participation. Yet, little empirical evidence exists on the impact of participation in collective remembrance of past atrocities. Two experimental studies, one in the laboratory (n=552) and one in the field (n=900), show that participating in a large-scale, digital history project about Nazi persecution increases peoples' collective action intentions for further commemoration activities and for activities that support liberal democracy today, especially countering antisemitism, but that it does not decrease their prejudice. These effects persist over two weeks. The findings point to an increased sense of participative efficacy as the mechanism - the belief that one's actions can make a meaningful difference in the achievement of a collective goal. Overall, the findings suggest that participating in digital history projects has the potential to motivate people to engage in a broad range of collective actions that are critical for symbolic justice and well-functioning liberal democracies.