On 8 May, ELTE will award an honorary doctorate to Michał Bilewicz, professor of social psychology at the University of Warsaw. Anna Kende, professor at ELTE Faculty of Education and Psychology, discusses in her interview not only the personal significance of the award for the Polish researcher, but also how his career led him to study prejudice, antisemitism, and hate speech. The conversation touches on the burdens of the past, the social responsibility of science, as well as the current challenges faced by Hungarian and Polish academic life.
The Senate of ELTE is awarding you the title of doctor et professor honoris causa, which you will receive in Budapest on May 8, 2026. What do you think about this recognition?
I feel extremely honoured by this distinction. An honorary doctorate is the highest honour a scholar can receive. At the same time, ELTE is particularly close to me – I have been collaborating with researchers from this university for many years, and I also feel that it is, in a way, a counterpart to my own university – the University of Warsaw being also a large public capital-city university in Poland.
This distinction is also important to me because the recipients of honorary doctorates at ELTE include the most eminent psychologists in history, starting with the founder of psychology as a science, Wilhelm Wundt, who received this honour back in the 19th century. When I worked as a visiting professor at the University of Leipzig, my office was next to Wundt’s former laboratory, where I could see the devices he used for his first psychophysiological studies. One of his students was the founder of Polish psychology, Professor Kazimierz Twardowski. He, in turn, was the advisor of the advisor of the advisor of my own doctoral advisor. In this sense,
I now receive a doctorate that was previously awarded to my academic great-great-great-grandfather
Why did you choose social psychology as your profession?
As a student, I did not expect to become a social psychologist. I studied sociology, and it was there that I became interested in issues of prejudice, discrimination, and intergroup relations. Soon, however, I concluded that I wanted not only to describe reality but also to explain it.
What fascinated me about social psychology was the experimental method, which allows us to precisely test the causes of social problems. The fact that we can apply treatments that allow us to build theories explaining human behaviour. To this day, I consider experimentation the most beautiful aspect of social psychology as a science. It is also important to me to seek the causes of social phenomena in psychological processes related to human emotions, motivation, or certain automatic tendencies in explaining behaviour. I find these explanations more interesting than strictly social or economic causes explored by other disciplines.
Among your main research topics are anti-Semitism, post-genocide reconciliation, the political and historical aspects of intergroup relations, and hate speech. Why do you find these topics relevant, particularly as a researcher in Poland?
I should probably begin with the building that housed the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Warsaw for many years. During World War II, this building served as the headquarters of the SS in the Warsaw Ghetto. From this place, hundreds of thousands of Jews were deported to the extermination camp in Treblinka. As a student, I felt some reluctance to enter this dark building. However, over time, I realized that the place itself provides a historical justification for our research.
Where else should we study issues of prejudice, discrimination, or antisemitism if not at the site of the greatest crime in human history?
Despite many decades having passed, crimes still occur around the world, genocides still happen, and people continue to discriminate and act on racist prejudice. Comparative studies show that prejudice is particularly high in Poland and Hungary. That is why studying these phenomena in this part of Europe is such an important task. It seems that history has not taught us much.
Despite your international recognition as an outstanding scholar, your career has not been completely smooth. What kind of difficulties you had to face and how do you explain these difficulties?
Researchers who reopen national wounds are not always treated kindly by their societies. The topic of antisemitism in Poland or crimes committed by Poles against Jews has the status of a national taboo. In recent years, many lawsuits have been brought against historians. I have had similar experiences related to my research on secondary antisemitism. Many people in Poland believe that speaking about antisemitism is somehow offensive to the Polish nation. The right-wing President of Poland described my research as “anti-Polish” in an interview which surprised me greatly, because I consider addressing such issues very pro-Polish. By studying social problems concerning Poland and Poles, we can contribute to eliminating them and improving society.
On the occasion of his honorary doctorate, you have proposed a lecture at the ELTE PPK entitled “The epidemic of hate speech and psychological ways to overcome it”. Why did you choose this topic?
I have been studying hate speech for many years, and it is the subject of my most widely cited papers. Together with Wiktor Soral, we developed an epidemic model explaining the spread of hate speech.
We demonstrated that people exposed to hate speech fundamentally change the way they think and feel.
Their empathy diminishes, and they become desensitized to aggression. As a result, they begin to accept hate speech at face value. Today, this problem is global and linked to the increasing use of social media. I would like to discuss this with Hungarians, who have also been exposed to hate speech from media and politicians for many years. I hope that they will now, in some way, recover from it.
How do you see the current state of higher education, scientific research and academic freedom in Hungary and Poland, especially with regard to the current political changes?
In recent days, I have felt genuine euphoria about the situation in Hungary. Few places in the world have managed to move away from populist governance and return to democratic paths. This, of course, fundamentally affects the situation of academics. I watched with concern the privatization and political control of many Hungarian universities. I was also troubled by the remedy proposed by the European Union: excluding privatized universities from research cooperation networks such as Horizon or Erasmus. These measures did not affect politicians but rather harmed their faculty and students.
Fortunately, in Poland, during the years of populist rule, universities were not privatized, and they became the last bastions of independent thought. We did have to deal with minor forms of harassment: for example, I was not granted the title of full professor despite successfully completing the procedure. The title is awarded by the president, who, as it turns out, may be guided by political motives.
The most important thing for me is the freedom of scientific research, even at the cost of such minor difficulties. Fortunately, the system of research funding in Poland was never subordinated to political will.
What is your connection with the Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology at ELTE?
For many years, I have admired colleagues from ELTE, as well as from other Hungarian universities, such as the University of Pécs. Perhaps the first important foreign scholar in my career was the late Professor János László from the University of Pécs. He invited me, as a doctoral student, to the first international conference which was an extremely formative experience.
Today, I collaborate with many outstanding researchers at ELTE, studying the psychological aspects of populism, history, reconciliation, and perceptions of the Holocaust. I am particularly pleased that
Hungarian scholars are developing the moral exemplars model of reconciliation, which we created together with Sabina Čehajić-Clancy.
I consider Hungarian research in this area especially significant.
What are your plans and aspirations for the future?
Currently, I am establishing a UNESCO Chair in the Study of Antisemitism and Group Hatred at the University of Warsaw. The aim of this chair is not only to conduct scientific research but also to collaborate more closely with practitioners of social life: non-profit organizations, politicians, and local governments.
In our region, both in Poland and Hungary, academics often hold two jobs and also work outside universities in NGOs, think-tanks or research companies. I believe this is somewhat detrimental to universities themselves. We should be able to meaningfully integrate academic and applied work within our university roles, not outside them. I envision a university that conducts applied research alongside basic research. I would like politicians and decision-makers to turn to universities and their staff when they need knowledge.
Photo: Arek Markowicz / PAP