Does remembering past ingroup harmdoing promote postwar cross-group contact? Insights from a field-experiment in Liberia

High-Quality Contact With Fellow Majority Group Students Is Associated With Better Academic Performance of Minority Group Students

We examined the association between intergroup contact and academic performance at university among minority students in a context with a segregated pre-university school system. Study 1 tested whether participation in a group dynamics course, which involves intimate interpersonal contact between Israeli Arab (n = 125) and Jewish students, was associated with better grade point average (GPA). As expected, Arab students who participated in the course had a higher GPA than those who did not, even when controlling for pre-university achievements. The corresponding difference among Jews was substantially smaller. Study 2 (N = 90), a longitudinal study, revealed that the quality of contact with Jewish students at university was associated with Arab students' subsequent higher GPA, even when controlling for pre-university contact, proxies of academic achievements, and perceptions of intergroup relations. The quality of contact with Jewish students was also associated with Arab students' sense of academic belonging. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Victimhood beliefs are linked to willingness to engage in intergroup contact with a former adversary through empathy and trust

After intergroup conflicts end, beliefs about past suffering of the ingroup compared to an outgroup influence relations between former adversaries. In Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, we simultaneously examined the effects of inclusive victimhood (i.e., a belief that both the ingroup and a former adversary suffered similarly) and competitive victimhood (i.e., a belief that the ingroup suffered more than a former adversary) on willingness to engage in contact with a former adversary, a precursor of positive changes in postconflict societies. In one correlational ( nAlbanians = 159; nCroat s = 227) and two experimental studies ( NAlbanians = 161; NCroats = 341, preregistered), inclusive victimhood was linked to higher willingness to engage in contact with former adversaries through higher empathy (Studies 1 to 3) and trust (Studies 1 and 2). In contrast, competitive victimhood was associated with lower willingness to engage in contact through lower empathy (Study 1) and trust (Studies 1 and 3). We discuss the practical implications of our findings for interventions in postconflict societies.

Physical Couple and Family Violence Among Clients Seeking Therapy: Identifiers and Predictors

Introduction

Couple violence (CV) affects many, and the consequences of those actions are grave, not only for the individual suffering at the hand of the perpetrator but also for the other persons in the family. Violence often happens among more than just the adults within one family. Even if CV has been thoroughly investigated in the general population very few studies have investigated this objective on a clinical sample, and none of these have included family violence.

Aim

This article identifies and describes the group of clients that have issues of physical couple and family violence. It analyses a model that can help to discover physical violence and help therapists to assess what actions to take in therapy to prevent further physical violence.

Methodology

Descriptive analysis, t-tests, and structural equation modeling (SEM) are used on a sample of clients receiving couple and family therapy (CFT) in Norway (N = 830). Family violence is modeled by the partner’s expectations toward each other, levels of anger, sexual satisfaction, and self-control.

Results

One-in-five clients experienced physical CV in their current relationship and one-in-four experienced physical family violence. The group of clients who experienced CV differed from those without such experiences in having lower income, more prior experience with psychotherapy, more experience with alcohol abuse in childhood, and far more physical family violence in their current family. Our model predicting physical couple and family violence explained as much as 53% of family violence and had three positive, significant predictors (expectation, anger, and sexual satisfaction) and one, significant negative predictor (self-control). Somewhat unexpected, sexual satisfaction was a positive, and not a negative, predictor of violence.

Conclusion

Our study identified one-in-four clients in CFT experience physical CV. Unreasonable expectation from one partner toward the other, anger and sexual satisfaction were positive predictors of physical violence, while self-control was found to be a negative predictor of physical violence. Implications for therapeutic work and the prevention of physical violence are discussed.

Remember your crimes: How an appeal to ingroup wrongdoings fosters reconciliation in separatist conflict

The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of appeals to ingroup wrongdoings, as opposed to ingroup rightdoings, on reconciliation between groups in a real-world conflict. We conducted an experiment in Indonesia, where separatist conflict in the province West Papua is currently unresolved. Participants were a sample of Javanese residents (N = 502), representing the majority group in Indonesia. Compared to ingroup rightdoings, being reminded of ingroup wrongdoings significantly increased participants' sense of perpetratorhood. These feelings of being a perpetrator in turn fostered participants' reconciliatory attitudes towards the separatist group. These findings reveal that an appeal to ingroup wrongdoings can be effective in promoting intergroup reconciliation. In addition to theoretical implications, we discuss practical implications in terms of highlighting the importance of acknowledging ingroup wrongdoings as part of an intervention programme.

Positive weighing of the other's collective narrative among Jewish and Bedouin-Palestinian teachers in Israel and its correlates

Teachers play a pivotal role in the educational discourse around collective narratives, and especially the other's narrative. The study assumed that members of groups entangled in a conflict approach the different modules of the other's narrative distinctively. Jewish and Palestinian teachers, Israeli citizens, answered questionnaires dealing with the narrative of the other, readiness for interethnic contact, negative between-group emotions and preferences for resolutions of the Israeli-Palestinian (I-P) conflict. Positive weighing of the other's narrative among Jewish teachers correlated with high levels of readiness for interethnic contact and low levels of negative between-group emotions, across the various modules of the Palestinian narrative. Preferences for a peaceful resolution of the I-P conflict and rejection of a violent one were noted in two of the modules. Among Palestinian teachers, positive weighing of the other's collective narrative was exclusively noted for the Israeli narrative of the Holocaust, and this stance negatively related to negative between-group emotions and preference for a violent solution of the I-P conflict, and positively related to readiness for interethnic contact and preference of a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Practical implications of these findings for peace education are discussed.

The Role of Agency and Morality in Reconciliation Processes

According to the needs-based model of reconciliation, transgressions threaten victims’ sense of agency and perpetrators’ moral image. Consequently, victims and perpetrators experience heightened needs for empowerment and acceptance, respectively. Exchange interactions (e.g., expressions of apologies and forgiveness) through which victims and perpetrators satisfy each other’s needs facilitate reconciliation. We present research that has supported the model in both interpersonal and intergroup contexts. We then extend the model to “dual” conflicts, in which both parties transgress against each other and compete over the victim status, and to intergroup contexts of structural inequality. Finally, we discuss need satisfaction outside the victim-perpetrator dyad as an intriguing avenue for future research.

Trust, Individual Guilt, Collective Guilt and Dispositions Toward Reconciliation Among Rwandan Survivors and Prisoners Before and After Their Participation in Postgenocide Gacaca Courts in Rwanda

A field experiment compared the level of personal and collective guilt in survivors (N = 200) and accused perpetrators (N = 184) of the Rwandan genocide before and after participation in Gacaca community courts and in control groups of survivors (N = 195) and prisoners (N = 179) who did not participate in Gacaca. Participation in Gacaca led to a marked reduction in survivors’ personal and collective guilt and to an increase in prisoners' personal guilt. Prisoners’ collective guilt was unaffected by participation but collective guilt was higher for prisoners participating in Gacaca suggesting an effect of the mere anticipation of participation. Survivors who participated in Gacaca had greater doubts about Gacaca, trusted the prisoners' apologies less, were less inclined to forgive, were more revengeful, and opted more for intragroup contact and less for intergroup contact. In sum, participation in Gacaca failed to have direct effects upon dispositions to reconciliation but it produced important indirect effects in this direction by drastically reducing survivors' guilt feelings, which may have enhanced their empowerment.

Feeling Both Victim and Perpetrator

Victimized versus perpetrating individuals or groups are known to experience enhanced needs for empowerment or acceptance, respectively. The present research examined the emotional needs and consequent anti- and prosocial behaviors (e.g., vengefulness vs. helpfulness) of individuals or groups serving both as victims and perpetrators simultaneously (“duals”). Focusing on interpersonal transgressions, Study 1 used variations of the dictator game to induce participants with victimization, perpetration, duality, or none (control). Duals showed heightened needs for both empowerment and acceptance and equal willingness to reconcile following either empowering or accepting messages from their adversaries. However, duals’ need for empowerment overrode their need for acceptance in determining behavior. Similar to victims, and unlike perpetrators, duals showed greater antisocial (rather than prosocial) behavior. Study 2 replicated this pattern on the intergroup level, inducing Israeli Jews with victimization, perpetration, or duality using a recall task referring to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.