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ori (the
indigenous peoples of New Zealand) predicted increased opposition toward social
policies promoting material reparation among New Zealand European undergradu-
ates. Historical negation was, in turn, predicted by right-wing authoritarianism
(Study 2). These ndings suggest that the authoritarian motivation to protect the
positive history of the in-group causes New Zealand Europeans to actively position
historical injustices performed by earlier colonial generations as irrelevant. Position-
ing history in this fashion has important consequences for the mobilization of
political attitudes and, in particular, opposition toward social and political policies
relating to the distribution of resources and status within society.jasp_799 598..623
New Zealand (NZ), like many nations discovered by European coloni-
als in the latter half of the last millennium, has a history of injustices expe-
rienced by indigenous peoples. Like minority ethnic groups in many nations,
the indigenous peoples of NZ (Ma
ori language
in schools should have had lasting impacts on the well-being of Ma
ori people
today. Despite this, claims for reparation on the basis of historical injustice
1
The authors contributed equally to this manuscript.
2
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Chris G. Sibley, Department
of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand. E-mail:
c.sibley@auckland.ac.nz
598
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2012, 42, 3, pp. 598623.
2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2011.00799.x
often incite considerable controversy and opposition in mainstream (NZ
European) society (Sibley, Robertson, & Kirkwood, 2005).
In an initial examination of this issue, Sibley, Liu, Duckitt, and Khan
(2008) used cross-sectional data to show that individual differences in a new
measure of historical negation predicted policy preferences on issues impact-
ing Ma
ori and NZ
HISTORICAL NEGATION AND POLICY ATTITUDES 599
Europeans (Liu, Wilson, McClure, & Higgins, 1999). There is also strong
support from the dominant majority for the use of symbolic elements of
indigenous cultures/peoples as part of the representation of national culture
(Liu, 2005; Sibley & Liu, 2007). Because of this high level of recognition and
support for symbolic elements of biculturalism, the plight of indigenous
peoples cannot simply be passively ignored to the same extent as it has been
in some other postcolonial nations. It cannot be easily forgotten. Rather, we
argue that the colonial past in NZ is actively negated or is rendered politically
inert by NZ Europeans through discourses positioning historyparticularly
the role and responsibility of current generations of NZ European postcolo-
nials for historical injustices perpetrated against or at the expense of
Ma
orias irrelevant.
Based on content analysis of political speeches and qualitative work,
Sibley et al. (2008) developed a measure of historical negation to capture
key elements of the way in which history is mobilized (or demobilized) to
capture political legitimacy in NZ. They argued that this measure provided
a culturally appropriate index assessing the degree to which historical injus-
tices are actively construed by the individual as irrelevant (or relevant) to
the political arrangements and governance of contemporary intergroup
relations.
Consistent with a social dominance theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) and
system justication theory perspective (Jost & Banaji, 1994), historical nega-
tion is theorized to function as a legitimizing myth (or ideology/political
discourse) in the NZ context (Sibley et al., 2008; Sibley, 2010). We argue that
historical negation summarizes a set of beliefs that are shared by large seg-
ments of society and derived from the discourse of political elites. These
beliefs, in turn, produce and maintain support for existing social inequality
and the unequal distribution of resources, status, and power between groups
by positioning the historical basis of claims for injustice as irrelevant to the
governance of contemporary society.
Moreover, in postcolonial nations (e.g., NZ) where indigenous peoples
have experienced a history of injustice and where social inequality is rela-
tively stable and enduring, Sibley et al. (2008) argued that the causal effect
of historical negation on attitudes toward resource-based social policies
should be unidirectional. The ideology determines the policy preferences,
not vice versa, because the ideology reects enduring elements of the
history of inequality endemic to NZ society, socialized during late adoles-
cence and early adulthood and produced by group-based motivational
goals (as discussed later). An alternative, perhaps more cynical position
would be to argue that historical negation is simply a post hoc justication
of policies disenfranchising Ma
ori
culture are actively incorporated into the national identity and national
symbols by members of the dominant group (Sibley & Liu, 2004, 2007), and
historical negation is not employed against this because it adds to positive
distinctiveness for all New Zealanders in the international context.
Ma
ori and
NZ Europeans (low scores). The items contained in the scale were adapted
from a variety of sources, primarily recent NZ political speeches; qualitative
responses and summaries of responses described in earlier work on race
talk in NZ; and research on perceptions of history (for further details, see
Sibley et al., 2008).
We assessed opposition toward the resource-specic and symbolic aspects
of bicultural policy by using items referring to actual or recently proposed
social policy (Liu & Sibley, 2006; see Appendix B). Previous research has
shown that this scale provides a valid, reliable measure that clearly differen-
tiates between these two clusters of policy attitudes (Liu & Sibley, 2006).
Higher scores indicate increased opposition toward the redistribution of
resources to Ma
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608 SIBLEY AND LIU
aimed to redistribute resources to Ma
ori
culture into mainstream national identity and culture. Discourses of histori-
cal relevance it seems, relate primarily to the issue of who gets what in society,
rather than the issue of who belongs in the national imagination.
Study 2
Our second study aimed to replicate and extend the cross-lagged effect of
historical negation on resource-specic policy opposition by including RWA.
This study reports results from an independent longitudinal study that was
conducted over a 9-month period in which RWA, historical negation, and
opposition toward both the symbolic and resource-specic aspects of social
policy were measured at both times. Thus, this study tested the full model
proposed in Figure 2.
We propose that (a) RWA will predict cross-lagged change in historical
negation; and (b) historical negation will, in turn, predict cross-lagged change
HISTORICAL NEGATION AND POLICY ATTITUDES 609
in NZ Europeans levels of opposition toward resource-specic aspects of
social policy. Evidence of these two cross-lagged paths would thus support a
causal mediation model in which RWA indirectly predicts opposition toward
resource-specic social policy via its effects on historical negation. We tested
for this mediated effect using procedures outlined by MacKinnon (2008)
applied to two-wave longitudinal mediation models (described in detail in the
Results).
Method
Participants and Procedure
Study 2 participants were NZ-born undergraduate students who self-
identied as NZ European/Pakeha. Data were collected from 183 partici-
pants (39 male, 144 female; M
age
= 19.6 years, SD = 4.0) during the rst
testing phase. In the following wave, which was conducted 9 months later, 86
people (14 male, 72 female) participated (M
age
= 19.5 years, SD = 3.5). This
sample was collected in 2007. Data from the sample have not been reported
previously.
Participants received partial course credit for participation during the rst
phase. The participants listed their e-mail addresses on the survey, which
were used to contact people 9 months later, at which point they were e-mailed
an electronic version of the same questionnaire. The participants were
entered into a prize drawing for $250 NZ (approx. $175 US) worth of grocery
vouchers as an incentive for participation during the second phase. There
were 11 invalid e-mail addresses during Time 2 assessment, yielding a valid
response rate of 50% for contactable participants. Importantly, the sample
who completed the Time 2 survey were comparable to those who participated
during only Time 1 with regard to both gender, c
2
(1, N = 183) = 2.45, p = .12;
and age, F(1, 181) = 0.05, p = .82, partial h
2
< .01.
Materials
Right-wing authoritarianism was assessed using six randomly selected
balanced items (3 pro-trait and 3 con-trait) from Altemeyers (1998) full
30-item scale. The shortened RWA scale includes Items 5, 6, 10, 15, 17, and
24 from the original 30-item measure (Altemeyer, 1998). Sample RWA items
from the scale include It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper
authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabble-
rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in peoples minds
610 SIBLEY AND LIU
(pro-trait), and Some of the best people in our country are those who are
challenging our government, criticizing religion, and ignoring the normal
way things are supposed to be done (con-trait). Analyses of an independent
undergraduate sample
3
(116 men, 216 women) indicate that the shortened
RWA measure was strongly positively correlated with the full RWA scale,
r(330) = .93, p < .01.
Historical negation was assessed during both phases using four randomly
selected balanced items from the full eight-item scale that we used in Study 1.
The items included in this shortened version are marked by an asterisk in
Table 1. As shown in Table 2, this shortened scale displayed acceptable
internal reliability at both time points, and reanalysis of Study 1 data indi-
cates that the four-item version was strongly positively correlated with the
full eight-item scale, r(106) = .96, p < .01.
Opposition toward the resource-specic and symbolic aspects of bicul-
tural policy were each assessed using ve randomly selected items from the
scales described in Study 1. The items included in these shortened versions are
marked by an asterisk in Table 2. As shown in Table 2, this shortened scale
displayed acceptable internal reliability at both time points, and reanalysis of
Study 1 data indicates that the shortened scales assessing resource-specic
and symbolic social policy attitudes were strongly positively correlated with
the full versions: r(106) = .94, p < .01; and r(106) = .98, p < .01, respectively.
Items assessing RWA and historical negation were rated on a 7-point
scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Items assessing
attitudes toward social policy were rated on a 7-point scale ranging from
1 (strongly support) to 7 (strongly oppose). Item order was randomized during
both phases.
Results
Descriptive statistics, internal reliabilities, and correlations between
RWA, historical negation, and opposition toward the symbolic and resource-
specic aspects of social policy are presented in Table 2. RWA (r = .83),
historical negation (r = .79), attitudes toward resource-specic social policy
(r = .78), and attitudes toward the symbolic aspects of social policy (r = .65)
all display moderate to high testretest correlations over 9 months.
We examined the cross-lagged effects of RWA, historical negation, and
opposition toward the resource-specic and symbolic aspects of social policy
using the analytic strategy described in Study 1. This model is presented in
Figure 3.
3
These statistics were from an unpublished sample.
HISTORICAL NEGATION AND POLICY ATTITUDES 611
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612 SIBLEY AND LIU
As shown in Figure 3, RWA exerted a signicant cross-lagged effect on
historical negation (b = .19, z = 3.01, p < .01). Importantly, this effect was
unidirectional, as historical negation did not exert a reciprocal cross-lagged
effect on RWA over time (b = .00, z = 0.04, p = .97). This, therefore, suggests
that RWA predicted change in historical negation over time. Replicating
Study 1, historical negation, in turn, exerted a signicant cross-lagged effect
on opposition toward resource-specic social policy (b = .24, z = 2.71,
p < .01). This effect was also unidirectional, as attitudes toward resource-
specic social policy at Time 1 did not predict change in historical negation
measured 9 months later (b = .10, z = 1.19, p = .23).
Consistent with the causal model proposed in Figure 2, longitudinal
mediation analyses indicate that historical negation mediated the effect of
RWA on opposition toward resource-specic social policy over time (Sobels
z = 2.01, p = .04). Following the procedures outlined by MacKinnon (2008),
we tested this longitudinal mediation model by calculating a Sobels z score
for the product of the cross-lagged path of RWA on historical negation over
time (Path A) and the cross-lagged path of historical negation on opposition
toward resource-specic policy over the same period (Path B). When esti-
mating both paths, we also controlled for all other paths and residual asso-
ciations between Time 2 variables. Therefore, this analysis tested whether the
product of these two paths (or the indirect effect of Path A Path B) was
signicant. When assessed longitudinally, this provides good evidence for the
proposed causal sequence.
Symbolic
policy opposition
Symbolic
policy opposition
Historical negation
Right-wing
authoritarianism
Resource-specific
policy opposition
Historical negation
Right-wing
authoritarianism
Resource-specific
policy opposition
Nine months
.83*
.19*
.67*
.24*
.61*
.64*
.07
.00
.00
.10
.03
.04
.04
.07
-.03
.14*
Figure 3. Study 2: Path analysis with standardized coefcients testing the cross-lagged relations
between right-wing authoritarianism, historical negation, and opposition toward resource-
specic and symbolic aspects of social policy over 9 months (*p < .05). Dashed lines indicate
nonsignicant paths.
HISTORICAL NEGATION AND POLICY ATTITUDES 613
As can also be seen in Figure 3, the effect of historical negation was
limited to resource-specic policy attitudes. Consistent with Study 1, histori-
cal negation did not exert a signicant cross-lagged effect on attitudes toward
the symbolic aspects of social policy (b = .05, z = 0.43, p = .67). However, we
did observe a relatively weak, but signicant cross-lagged effect in the oppos-
ing direction, with opposition toward the symbolic aspects of bicultural
policy predicting a slight change in historical negation over time (b = .14,
z = 0.43, p = .67). This unpredicted cross-lagged effect was not observed in
Study 1, however.
Discussion
Study 2 provides good support for the causal model that is proposed in
Figure 2. As predicted, RWA predicted longitudinal change in historical
negation. Historical negation, in turn, predicted change over time in
resource-based policy opposition. This indicates that historical negation lon-
gitudinally mediated the effect of RWA on resource-based policy opposition.
There was also one anomaly: Opposition to symbolic policy at Time 1
predicted historical negation at Time 2. Thus, although the predicted effect of
historical negation on resource-based policy attitudes was unidirectional in
both Studies 1 and 2, we did nd some tentative evidence for the possibility
that symbolic policy attitudes might produce change in the ideological posi-
tioning of history. We return to this unexpected nding in the General
Discussion.
General Discussion
Two studies examined whether a legitimizing myth or ideology derived
from social representations of history would causally inuence NZ Europe-
ans beliefs about how resources should be distributed in contemporary New
Zealand society. NZ Europeans are the dominant majority group in NZ, and
represent roughly 64% to 65% of the population at the time our data were
collected in 2006 and 2007. Extending Sibley et al.s (2008) research, longi-
tudinal data from two independent studies indicate that historical negation
produced change in support for resource-specic aspects of social policy
aimed at attenuating existing social inequalities between NZ Europeans
and Ma
ori land.*
4. Treaty claims for rights to the radio spectrum.*
5. Requiring all treaty claims to be lodged by the end of next year. (R)
6. Reserving places for Ma