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Revenge may have played a role in the Sunday massacre in central Nigeria. Anchor David Baron speaks with Michele Gelfand of the University of Maryland about her research into the cultural factors behind revenge.

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DAVID BARON: It’s hard to offer any explanation for a massacre like that, but tensions between Muslims and Christians are running high in parts of Nigeria, and not just over religion. There’s poverty and competition for land to consider as well. And there may be an element of revenge, too. This weekend’s attacks on Christian villages near the city of Jos took place less than two months after hundreds of Muslims were killed in Jos. Michele Gelfand has studied revenge and the cultural influences that affect it. She’s in the psychology department at the University of Maryland at College Park. Professor Gelfand, is there a cultural context to explain something as ghastly as what has occurred in

Central Nigeria?

MICHELE GELFAND: It’s hard to explain the horrific event, such as those that happened in Jos. I think it’s fair to say, psychological research, which suggest that revenge is a universal instinct that when you perceive you’ve been harmed, your group has been harmed, that there’s an instinct to get even. And this is something that’s common across cultures, across history.

DAVID BARON: And might it explain some of the brutality of the attack as well?

MICHELE GELFAND: Yes, that’s right. In this case, you see as the long history of rioting in the Jos area starting in 2001 killing more than a 1,000 people. Again, in 2004 and 2008 has set out a spiral, a contagion of revenge, so to speak, that is happening across these two groups.

DAVID BARON: Right. And when you say contagion, you mean that it goes back and forth, it’s tit for tat, or contagious within each group?

MICHELE GELFAND: In our research, what we found is in a very collectivistic group oriented cultures, as found in that area, that because–

DAVID BARON: [OVERLAPPING] What do you mean by collectivistic group oriented?

MICHELE GELFAND: By collectivist cultures, we mean those countries and groups where people were born into extended families. They’re very integrated into cohesive strong groups, where there’s a strong emphasis on my group versus your group. Very strong in-group and out group boundaries as we call them.

DAVID BARON: Unlike the US, which is thought of as being very individualistic.

MICHELE GELFAND: That’s right. In our data, US is quite individualistic where the self is really construed as very separate, detached from collectives, and there’s very weak group boundaries. And the implications of that for the contagion of revenge are huge. In collectivist cultures, because of that strong cohesion in-group, revenge is contagious. What happens to one of my own group members feels very personal to me, to my group honor. And honor in these cultures is as important as the air one breathes. If one perceives that one’s group has been dishonored, there’s a strong retaliation instinct.

DAVID BARON: So if my cousin is killed, I won’t just think, well that was a problem between him and his enemy. That’s a reflection on me that my cousin was killed.

MICHELE GELFAND: That’s right. In our own data, we had people recall instances for example, when someone with whom they were very related was humiliated by someone else. And we had them think about this event, and then we had them write about how angry they really were, and how much they thought about seeking revenge. And what we found was striking. Collectivist individuals, they felt extremely angry, and they had serious revenge rumination over the event. Whereas for individualists, like people from the US, as you mentioned, they seem to distance themselves from that person, and blame the victim. So in this sense, what happens to one’s own group members, becomes personal, becomes a personal motive to seek revenge on their behalf, and that could be either with their original perpetrator, or as I said, with anyone from the out group.

DAVID BARON: I see. So if it really becomes an argument between groups and not between individuals, then in retaliation for your killing someone in my group, I could kill anyone in your group, including…

MICHELE GELFAND: [OVERLAPPING] That’s exactly.

DAVID BARON: …women and children.

MICHELE GELFAND: That’s right. Exactly, as occurred in this horrific event.

DAVID BARON: But clearly there are many collectivist countries of cultures around the world, and not all result, or certainly not at all times, to this sort of slaughter. What explains why it would tip over into actual violence?

MICHELE GELFAND: Yeah. That’s the million dollar question. [LAUGHS] The cultural factors clearly play a role, but there are many other factors. As in the case in this area, in Jos, there’s political vacuum, the lack of strong institutions, this ecological types of issues, as you mentioned. Jos’ and Nigeria’s middle belt where there’s fertile and hotly contested land. There’s also economic factors. Clearly this is a very strange region economically. All these factors, political, ecological, economic, as well as cultural contribute their part to this kind of horrific event.

DAVID BARON: Michele Gelfand is in the psychology department at the University of Maryland in College Park. Part of her research is studying the cultural influences behind people’s notions of revenge. Professor Gelfand, thank you very much for speaking with us.

MICHELE GELFAND: Thank you.

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