Wikipedia has long become one of the most important sources of information on the Internet. But how objective are the articles on historical conflicts in the online encyclopedia? A comparison of different language versions reveals: Many articles are subjectively distorted in a subtle way. Depending on the language, the “own” conflict party is shown more positively. This is particularly pronounced in conflicts in recent history, as scientists have determined.
Even the historians of antiquity demonstrate that historiography is rarely neutral: the report on conflicts and wars is often biased – members of their own nation are presented more positively, opponents and their motivation are more negative. The reason for this is deeply rooted in our psychology, because people tend to rate their own social group more positively than the foreign group. “In psychology we call this the own group error,” explains Aileen Oeberst from the Hagen University. No wonder that there are such subtle distortions in the present: Who is to blame for the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, for example? And who is blocking the peace process between Israel and Palestine? The answer to this question depends heavily on who you ask.
Language versions in the comparison test
However, it has so far been unclear whether this distorted view of conflicts also exists on a collective level. Oeberst and her colleagues have now examined this in more detail using the best-known example of international teamwork: the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. On this collaborative platform, authors from different countries and with a wide variety of backgrounds take notes. Most entries are therefore joint productions. The exciting thing about finding your own group errors is that there are entries about conflicts in different language versions. This makes it possible to investigate whether a conflict is described in the language of one of the parties to the conflict in different judgmental nuances than in the language of the opponent.
For her study, Oeberst and her team each selected these two language versions for 35 conflicts from early modern times to modern times. The English-Spanish war from 1585 to 1604 and the Prussian-French war from 1870/71 were represented, but also the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombing of the USA on Japan. Among the more recent conflicts were the Falklands War between Argentina and England, the Russo-Georgian War and the dispute over Cyprus. In order to detect possible distortions, the researchers first had all articles translated into German. Then both versions were presented to dozens of different judges who were supposed to judge the weighting of the articles according to certain rules – without knowing which of the two language versions they were reading.
Detectable distortion
The result: The influence of own group errors was demonstrable across all 35 conflicts, as Oeberst and her colleagues report. Although the Wikipedia articles are written by a collective of authors and do not have country versions, but only language versions, there are therefore evaluative distortions in many articles about conflicts. “Many articles systematically present their own group better or more powerful and the other party to the conflict as more immoral and more responsible for the conflict,” emphasizes Oeberst. This distortion of the perspective is usually noticeable in the introductory paragraph of the articles and sometimes even appears in the title: “Even seemingly neutral titles of conflicts such as the French-Prussian War can convey a rating by naming your own group first,” the researchers explain .
However, there are certainly differences in the extent of the distortion: “But there are also some conflicts without differences between the language versions, as well as examples with the opposite pattern,” reports Oeberst. For example, the English entry on Hiroshima’s atomic bombing is even tougher with the Americans than its Japanese counterpart. In addition, the scientists found that the tendency towards self-group errors was more pronounced in conflicts of the present or more recent past than in events that occurred earlier.
“Diversity increases balance”
Oeberst and her team see several factors as the cause of these distortion effects: On the one hand, mostly people from the respective countries are writing an article about a particular conflict. And even if, for example, Spanish-speaking authors from countries other than Argentina write about the Falklands War, the linguistic and cultural ties could provide a stronger identification with Argentina. In addition: “Wikipedia articles must always be based on sources. Spanish-speaking people are more likely to refer to texts that could themselves contain their own group error – for example because they come from the Argentine news, ”explains Oeberst.
“Wikipedia is not free from errors. It depends on the people who write it down, ”summarizes the psychologist. But precisely because of the authors’ collectives, Wikipedia is no worse than other sources: “It may still be that the Wikipedia articles provide more balanced information about some conflicts than various news reports, lexicons or history books.” In any case, according to the research team, the more diversity there is among the authors, the smaller the error in the own group.
Source: FernUniversität in Hagen; Professional article: British Journal of Social Psychology, doi: 10.1111 / bjso.12356