What is it about?
After a war, members of the group that suffered most often assume their former opponents still see them as less than fully human. This research tested what happens when that assumption is challenged. Across three studies in Kosovo, involving Kosovo Albanians and their views of Serbs, people who were told or came to believe that their former opponents saw them as fully human, equally civilized and evolved, showed warmer attitudes overall. They reported less dehumanization of the outgroup, more support for them, more willingness for future contact, a greater sense of peace, and lower perceived threat. However, this same belief did not translate into more support for political negotiation between the two nations. People who believed their group was still seen as less than human, or who received no information either way, were actually more supportive of negotiation than those who felt humanized.
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Why is it important?
Reconciliation initiatives often assume that reducing dehumanization and improving daily attitudes will naturally lead to political progress, such as support for negotiation. This research shows that assumption may not hold. Feeling humanized by a former adversary can create a sense that the relationship is already fine, reducing the perceived urgency to pursue formal negotiation. For policymakers and practitioners working on post-conflict reconciliation, this means that improving everyday intergroup attitudes and building support for political dialogue may need to be pursued as separate goals, not as a single combined outcome.
Perspectives
Kosovo's history gives this question real weight for me. I wanted to understand not just whether feeling humanized by a former adversary helps, but where its benefits stop. What I found unexpected was that the same belief that softened everyday attitudes also seemed to lower the perceived need for negotiation. It is a reminder that reconciliation is not one process but several, and that progress on one front does not guarantee progress on another.
Dr Islam Borinca
National University of Ireland Maynooth
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: How meta-humanization leads to conciliatory attitudes but not intergroup negotiation: The mediating roles of attribution of secondary emotions and blatant dehumanization, Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, January 2024, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.cresp.2024.100198.
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