עברית

Prof. Gilad Hirschberger

Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology Ph.D., Bar-Ilan University

Vice Dean

Areas of expertise

  • Social Psychology
  • Political Psychology
  • Political Violence and Resistance
  • Prof. Gilad Hirschberger is an experimental social and political psychologist who studies collective threats and their relevance to group survival concerns and to intergroup relations. Based on a multidimensional existential threat (MET) model he developed, he studies how the shadow of past threats, such as the Holocaust, and the specter of threats looming in the future influence attitudes, behaviors and cognitions.

    Prof. Hirschberger's research has been funded by an Alon Fellowship and by grants from the Israel Foundation Trustees, the Israel Science Foundation, the Binational Science Foundation, the German Israeli Foundation, and grants from the NSF-BSF, and the Israeli Ministry of Science.

  • Imhoff, R., Bilewicz, M., Hanke, K., Kahn, D. T., Henkel-Guembel, N., Halabi, S., Shani-Sherman, T., & Hirschberger, G.  (2017). Explaining the inexplicable: Differences in attributions for the Holocaust in Germany, Israel and Poland.  Political Psychology, 38, 907-924.


    Hirschberger, G., Hayes, J., Shtrul, A., & Ein-Dor, T. (2017).  The existential underpinnings of intergroup helping: When normative and defensive motivations collide. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43, 1469-1484. 


    Hirschberger, G., Ein-Dor, T., Lifshin, U., Seeman, S., & Pyzczynski, T. (2017). When criticism is ineffective: The case of historical trauma and unsupportive allies. European Journal of Social Psychology, 47, 304-319.


    Canetti, D., Hirschberger, G*., Rapaport, C., Elad-Strenger, J., Ein-Dor, T., Rosenzvieg, S., Hobfoll, S., & Pyszczynski, T.  (2018)  Holocaust from the Real World to the Lab: The effects of historical trauma on contemporary political cognitions. Political Psychology, 39, 3-21.*shared first authorship


    Hirschberger, G. (2018).  Collective trauma and the social construction of meaning.  Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1441.


    Caspi-Berkowitz, N., Mikulincer, M., Hirschberger, G., Ein-Dor, T., & Shaver, P. R. (2019).  To die for a cause but not for a companion: Attachment-related variations in the terror management function of self-sacrifice.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117, 1105-1126. 


    Hirschberger, G., & Ein-Dor, T.  (2020). A temporal account of collective victimization as existential threat: Reconsidering adaptive and maladaptive responses.  In J.R. Vollhardt (Ed.), The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood. New York: Oxford University Press.