1

“Europeans” – in interlacing national and social categories: Social psychology and historical changes in Eastern Central Europe* György Hunyady & Paszkál Kiss There is always some psychology in the analysis of historical and political processes. Politicians’ autobiographies, collective or personal remembering, history books and contemporary analyses of political institutions and changes often have references to lay or scientific psychological mechanisms. But it is our role as psychologists to make explicit the personal and social processes that are involved in the “making of our social world”. We are going to treat the following questions in our analysis: a) What are the main cultural-historical determinants in Hungary for the concept of Europe? b) What were the goals that motivated the research of social stereotypes and what social changes have they revealed in the past decades? c) What are the stereotyped features by which “Europeans” are described? d) How are continental and national categories related to social-occupational categories in public thinking, revealing societal prototypes in international perception?

a) Cultural background and social constellation The meaning of “European” is rooted deep in Hungarian public thinking and was seen as a fundamental question even at early times in Hungarian history. It is still an often recalled element of national consciousness that Hungarians came to the Carpathian Basin from Asia in the 9th century, the myth of this Asian origin have appeared repeatedly. The turning point in becoming Europeans was the culturalreligious change together with the foundation of the internationally recognized state: Hungarians adopted Christianity at the end of the 10th century, at the same time as

*

Megj: Tudomány és Lélek (angol nyelvű különszám), 4, 19-30.

2 the Scandinavians and Slavic nations settling in the eastern part of Europe did. The establishment of a Roman Catholic state brought Hungarians into a system of cultural and political relationships. The relationship between Hungarians and Europe was greatly influenced by the ambivalent relationship with the German Empire and the neighboring Austrian State. The latter attempted to extend its influence to Hungary that could be done only after the power and independence of the Hungarian Kingdom collapsed in the struggle against the Turks. After World War I. Hungary became independent, but lost two thirds of her former territory. One third of the Hungarian-speaking population got stuck in the land of the neighboring countries. Paradoxically the then formed new states (Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia) also carried ethnic tensions that appeared severely at the end of the 20th century. The loss of territory and pulling the nation apart were the foundations for the anti-socialist and anti-liberal system consolidating its power and carried Hungary again into the 2nd World War on the side of Germany. “Eastern” nations and Slavic neighbors aroused both attention and worry of the Hungarian public when Russia was only a distant eastern power yet. After World War II. Hungary landed in the Soviet zone of influence and consequently a Stalinist party dictatorship was created in Hungary. After Stalin died the most significant revolution eliciting wide international reaction broke out in Hungary in 1956. The fundamental goal of this revolution would have been the escape from the Soviet-Russian Empire. The armed intervention of the Russian troops led to a Communist restoration that looked for a modus vivendi in internal policy, and initiated economic reforms that were unique in the eastern block. As a consequence, Hungary was in the an advantageous situation in the Soviet zone of influence with respect to standards of living and intellectual openness, she was most ready—as soon as the international situation allowed her — to leave this zone influence. Although it is impossible here even to sketch what “East” and “West” meant to Hungarians during their history in the geographic center and at the edge of Eastern and Western cultures in Europe. It is somewhat symbolic that a literary

3 periodical between the two world wars — in an outstanding peak of Hungarian high culture — was called “Nyugat” (West). This title indicated the primary source from where the bourgeois middle class and intellectuals with highest standards took their inspiration. As a response — and this is not without symbolism, either — the literary periodical of intellectuals emerging from the peasantry and urging the long needed social changes adopted the title “People of East” (“Kelet népe”).

b.) Stereotype studies in the decades of returning to the West The liberalization of the Communist system in Hungary had a side-effect that had decisive influence on our discipline: from the mid-60s the party state not only tolerated, but demanded empirical social studies. Previously, both sociology and psychology belonged to the category of the so-called bourgeois pseudo-sciences. A few concepts of social psychology and the related research methodology promised to be useful tools in studying public thinking empirically. Social attitude and social stereotype were key concepts—among others—in this respect Among the first Hungarian scholars the first author tried to use these concepts in revealing the attitude of people to public affairs and the images people had of different social groups. This kind of research indirectly approached taboo topics that were not allowed to constitute the subject of free social discussion for decades. These topics included the role of the working class, the role and the historical significance of the Soviet Union in world politics, establishing the Communist system in Hungary. But the accumulated data collected in the course of decades demonstrates that the ideological expectations enforced by political pressure did not permeate completely the system of beliefs people had; even if they yielded to some of them, they resisted many of them. History provided us an exceptional quasi-experimental situation when in 1989–1990 the political system was peacefully, but radically changed, and society was relieved of the external ideological pressure. We had the opportunity to measure the consequences of this change in the development of the systems of views. The data regarding the characterization and evaluation of nations are particularly interesting for considering the relationship to Europe. “Russians”

4 undoubtedly received a favorable evaluation at the beginning of the 80s, but it is typical that the evaluation of “Englishmen”, as representing ideal of western culture was not worse than that either. A latent tension could be seen in the fact that the trait profile of the relatively highly esteemed “Russians” was very similar to that of the “Romanians” who were evaluated with clear reservations. After the change of the political system the “Russians” retained this profile, but fell back next to “Romanians” in the evaluation hierarchy. Raw-means of stereotypic evaluations before (1981) and after (1991) the democratic changes National categories

6

5,5

5

1981

4,5

1991

4

3,5

3 Hungarians

Englishmen

French

Americans

Chinese

Roumanians

Russians

Germans

Stereotypic description of "Russians" and "Romanians" in 1981 and 1991 Intelligent Educated Interested in politics Self-assertive Patriotic Honest Diligent Friendly Good-humoured Popular 2

3

Russians 1991

4

Romanians 1991

5

6

Russians 1981

7

Romanians1981

The change of the political system—through the disappearance of the Eastern block as a frame of reference and the widening of perspective— caused a significant drop in national self-esteem among Hungarians, as expressed by a shift in national

5 auto-stereotype. National auto-stereotype typically also felt back with respect to other elements of social identity (e.g. being a student) and became problematic just at the beginning of liberation and self-determination.

Stereotypic description of "Hungarians" before (1981) and after (1991) the democratic changes Intelligent Educated Interest in politics Self-Assertive Patriotic Honest Diligent Friendly Good-humoured Popular

4

4,5

5

1981

5,5

6

6,5

1991

c) Stereotyped characterization of “Europeans”: delimitation and connection The first time respondents were asked to characterize “Europeans” was in 1991; at that time the respondents were 500 students. To open ended questions three quarters of the sample indicated Germany, 60% said France, and almost half considered Great Britain as a prototypical European nation. Switzerland, Italy and Austria were under 10%, while Russia and Sweden were even farther back. The other side of the definition is delimitation. It was asked on a Hungarian national sample in 2000 which area or continent differed definitely from Europe. The respondents chose Africa the most often, followed by Asia (where specific countries were mentioned more, almost 3% said China). These replies constituted about one third of the sample, only a quarter of the sample mentioned the American continent in one way or another (half of them definitely pointed at the United States). It should be noted that the Balkan appeared as separated from Europe, and even as opposed to Europe, in a moderate (3%) proportion. After setting the limits by contrasting continental categories we can turn now to stereotypic content: What are Europeans like? We have to admit that this stereotypic description is not always an easy task, but the anthropomorphous

6 thinking about societies does not stand far from many people either. In 1991, intellectual features and self-assertion were in the fore, moral and social traits were less pronounced, although the level of evaluation proved to be evenly high. At a level of higher than 5 on the seven-point scale “Europeans” were seen, self-assertive, interested in politics, educated and patriotic. Europeans’ honesty, diligence and friendliness were evaluated positively, but at a lower level.

Descritpition of continental categories, 1991 Friendly Honest Intelligent Patriotic Good-humoured Educated Popular Self-asserted Interest in politics Diligent 3

3,75

4,5

European

Asian

5,25

6

Balkan

In addition to “Europeans”, the characterization of the “Asians” and “the Balkan people” were also asked for. “Europeans” won the first place in the global evaluation received form the trait judgements (an average of 5.0 on the seven point scale), followed by “Asians” (4.41), and “the Balkan people” were the third (with the definitely neutral average of 4.0). Looking at the content of the three characterizations, the advantage of “Europeans” is striking in the intellectual-cultural field, the difference is more than one scale-point in the case of erudition, and almost one point in the case of intelligence, while in the case of sense of humor it is exactly one point. In this comparison “Asians” are clearly superior to the others in moral traits, they are seen as the most honest, diligent and patriotic. “The Balkan people” are at the bottom of the hierarchy in every respect: their popularity, diligence, intelligence, honesty, and sense of humor are particularly doubted. Their evaluation in these respects is negative not only relatively, but absolutely, too. Only political

7 interest is assumed in their case, even scoring higher that the seemingly apathetic “Asians”. When in 1994 we asked for characterization of a number of nations and regions; this was done by the same dimensions of traits, thus, the three continental categories could also be inserted into the multidimensional scale depicting the perceived relations as a kind of mental map. It is striking that they separate from each other as the vertices of a triangle, as they were forming sensible points of reference for the interpretation of the positions of the regional nations. It is noteworthy as “the Balkan people” is positioned in the circle of Slavic people and Romanians. 1,5

Szerb

1

Balkáni

Bolgár

Német

0,5

Lengyel Magyar

Szlovák -2

-1,5

-1 Román

-0,5

Orosz

0,5

1

1,5

2

-0,5

-1

-1,5

Ázsiai

Európai

-2

When studying the effects of in-group categorization on perceiving other nations, in 1998 we found that Hungarian regard their country as being halfway between East and West. Most of the respondents classified Hungary as being part of Central Europe, but there was ambivalence in classifying Hungary as (West) European, or East European.

8

Simple East Eu 3% Simple Central Eu 39%

Twofold CentralEuropean 32% Twofolds 35%

Simple European 5%

Twofold CentralEastern 3%

Other 18%

In the answers (West) European and East European categorization were both attached to the Central European (national) in-group categorization. As a result there appeared two groups both with a twofold in-group categorization. One was more Western the other was more Eastern. The differences in national in-group categorization did make a difference in how they saw the similarities and dissimilarities of a set of neighboring nations. Those with a Twofold Central-Western in-group categorization tended to homogenize the “Eastern” nations (Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia) as out-groups, considering them similar to each other and different from Hungary and Austria. Whereas those who had a twofold Central-Eastern in-group categorization did not see that much of difference between Hungary and the other neighboring nations, and saw these “Eastern” countries more heterogeneous. Thus twofold Central-Eastern European in-group categorization result in a perspective is similarly to that of a Central European in-group categorization, but emphasizes even more the heterogeneity of and relatedness of the

With twofold Central-Eastern categorisation of H

With twofold "Western" categorisation of Hungary

Euclidean distance model

Euclidean distance model

1,5

1,5 hungarian

romanian

hungarian

1,0

1,0

,5

ukrainian

0,0

cr oatian ukr ainian 0,0

-,5 serbian

slovenian

Dimension 2

Di m en sio n

romanian

,5 croatian

austrian

serbian slov enian

-,5

austrian

With simple Central Eu categorisation of Hungary -1,0

-1,0 -2

-1

0

1

2

3

-1,5

-1,0

Euclidean distance model

Dimension 1

Dimension 1

,8 ,6 hungarian

,4 serbian ,2 0,0

romanian

slovenian

-,2

Di m en sio n 2

austrian

-,4 ukrainian

-,6 -,8 -2

-1

Dimension 1

0

1

2

3

-,5

0,0

,5

1,0

1,5

2,0

2,5

9 representation of the “Eastern” neighbors.

d) Social models in the perception of nations and continents National stereotype means the attribution of large social groups with personal traits. It is an open question, however, whether national or supranational (continental) categories exist in our minds exclusively as personal traits without any mediation, or they do so as compared to societal prototypes as well. These images of prototypical societies might play a mediating role in between the comprehensive social category and the stereotypic personal traits. Preferences towards different nations could be influenced by the attractiveness of their societies as represented in the mind of perceivers. The first comprehensive study of the social-occupational association of national and continental categories was done in 1991. The members of the national representative sample were completely free to associate and formulate occupations to the names of these categories. It was concluded that a) occupations associated with national (and continental) categories do not vary at random, but there is a certain degree of agreement across the respondents (even in 20–30% of the national sample!), b) although almost every occupation can be found in almost every nation, the responses are selective, and give a special societal image to the different categories, c) considering the evaluations of the different social-occupational and national categories, the general evaluation of the typical social components and that of the nation are consistent. Let us go in the direction of East to West and consider the continents and the nations, and let us see which occupational categories the respondents found characteristic or typical of them. Almost 50% of the respondents indicated agricultural activity when asked about the typical occupation of “Asians”. The proportion of intellectual or non-physical work was present in a much smaller proportion, including “monk”, “priest”, “natural healer”, and occasionally “philosopher”. “Intellectuals” in general was rarely mentioned, but the appearance of “engineers” and “computer specialist” indicates that the technical development of

10 the Far East was perceived. “ Although a quarter of all occupations regarding Asians were referring to economic activity, businessmen were barely mentioned with respect to Asians, merchants at the best, although within this category all kinds of sellers were brought up. As a comparison, the characterization of “Europeans” showed a totally different overall image, with business life (32%) and intellectual life (32%) pronounced markedly. Business activity was represented by businessmen, banker, merchants and contractors alike. A quite tinted image appeared when the general “intellectuals” were specified as Europeans being scientists, teachers, doctors, lawyers, clerks and politicians. Artists in general, painters in particular and the fashion business were also present. The concept “Europeans” was much less often associated with agricultural workers and farmers than with the quite often mentioned laborers. If Europe is “Western”, then the United States identified as America is even more extremely so. Half of the responses were associated to business life, economy. With businessmen, managers, industrialists, and even brokers appearing particularly often. This is the only national group where plutocrats and millionaires were also mentioned. In addition to business life, farmers and cowboys appeared as agricultural occupations in a significant proportion. Arts took the third position, primarily as actors/actresses and screen actors/actresses. As opposed to Europe, intellectual occupations are mentioned only moderately ferquences, mostly as lawyers. Other occupations are met with only sporadically. It can be seen from the above that there are consistent and also subtle differences along the East–West dimension in the overall image of occupations: how is agriculture represented (this is typical of the East), what is the proportion of industrial workers (this is a Russian specialty, a reminder of the Soviet times), how often and in what proportions are intellectual occupations present (this loads heavily in Western Europe), how business life leaves its mark on the overall image of occupations (this is characteristic of Europe, but is especially dominant in America),

11 and the tinted differentiation between the English and the American business life deserves special attention. With this background, it can be particularly interesting and important how the typical occupations of “Hungarians” were taken into account. Here the European characteristic, the intellectual occupations prevailed, the first position was taken by teachers, followed by the intellectuals in general, but white collar workers, doctors, engineers, scientists in general, and inventors in particular also appeared. Arts were represented

by

writers,

and

sometimes

by

poets.

Contractors

were

the

representatives of second place winner economy here, then came businessmen, merchants and its subgroups of boutique-shop owners, salesmen and vendors. Indications of industrial work (laborers, manual workers, craftsmen) were more frequent than those of the agricultural sphere. Farmers, agricultural workers, stockbreeders and the specific horse-breeders also appeared. Similarly to Romanians, Hungarians were also associated with the unemployed. To make a counter-proof, in 2000 we also investigated what countries the respondents mention if they think of different occupations. The occupation “laborer” reminded 40% of the respondents of Hungary, much less said Poland and Russia, and a mere 5% said Germany, and an insignificant number brought up England. “Soldiers” were associated with Russia in a quarter of the sample, one fifth said Germany, less than 15% mentioned the United States, and it is a sign of the times that almost 6% brought up Serbia. “Engineers” reminded the respondents mostly of Germany (almost 40%), a smaller proportion, but still more than 10% said Hungary and England, while the United States was the fourth with 6%. Commercial activity elicited varied and low frequency responses. The combined proportion of Israel and the Jews (sic!) was almost 15%, Hungary had less than 10%, then came Turkey, China, Italy, Poland (with more than 5%). “Bankers” elicited a response of Switzerland in 30%, then came England (20%), the United States did not reach 15%, and Germany was under 10%. Managers, the participants of economic life elicited a different order of responses: the United States reached 40%, England was mentioned more often than 20% again, Germany did not reach the limit of 10%, while only 5% of the respondents thought of Hungary. It was the association to poets where Hungary,

12 the country of the respondents came to the mind the most often (more than 30%), France approached 25%, while other European countries like England, Germany and Italy appeared in a proportion of 5%. All these frequency data indicate that the system of associations in public thinking show similar pictures if approached from two directions, thus it is well-founded and meaningful make a more refined and systematic statistical analysis of the relationships.

PEASANT % MANAGER

% ENGINEER

% WORKER

% TEACHER

%

Hungary 34.4 Great Britain 10.7 Germany

43.2 Hungary

21.9 Hungary

23.9

China

7.9 Hungary

25.2 Russia

17.9 Great Britain

23

France

7.5 USA

11.2 USA.

8.7

Russia

5.8

10.3 Hungary 58 Great Britain France

6.4 Roumania 6 Great Britain

6.8

Poland

5.6

Germany

5.2

It is an old thesis in the nation-characterology that climatic conditions influence the temperament of people. Perceived difference in between Northerners and the Southerners in self control is widely known and mutually accepted, and is a fundamental factor in the evaluation hierarchy of nations. Breaking with this line of thoughts, we emphasize the importance of the perceived difference between the Easterners and the Westerners, and this is where we believe to identify another new, fundamental factor in the evaluation hierarchy of nations. With a little exaggeration we maintain that Hungarians do not perceive the Earth as round, but that it extends from the eastern end to the western end.

References Hunyady, Gy. (1990) From the national character to the mechanism of stereotyping: The withdrawal of social psychology in the history of sciences. In J.C. Nyíri (Ed.) Perspectives on Ideas and Reality, pp. 174-200. Budapest: FPIK.

13 Hunyady, Gy. (1996) Stereotypes During the Decline and Fall of Communism. London: Routledge. Hunyady, Gy. (1998) Történeti bevezetés a szociálpszichológiába: a meghonosítás lépései. Budapest: ELTE Eötvös Kiadó. Hunyady Gy. (1998) Characterization of Social Categories in Psychological and Societal Context. Budapest: Eötvös University Press. Kiss, P & Hunyady, Gy (1997) A ”Mental Map” of Social Groups: How can Age, Profession and Nationality be Interconnected? Dublin: European Congress of Psychology. Kiss P. & Hunyady, Gy (1999) Social representations of inter-group relations and society in the Carpathian Basin. Rome: European Congress of Psychology.