What is it about?
People who lived through war often carry disturbing memories that continue to shape how they see former adversaries long after the conflict ends. This research examined how those memories relate to reconciliation in postwar Kosovo, where Kosovo Albanians experienced ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces in 1998 to 1999. Across three studies with over 600 participants, we investigated two things: first, how disturbing war-related memories connect to dehumanization and reduced openness to peace; and second, whether a strategy called meta-humanization, which involves learning that the outgroup sees your group as fully human, can help improve conciliatory attitudes. Study 1 found that more disturbing memories predicted greater perceptions that Serbs dehumanize Albanians, which in turn predicted more dehumanization of Serbs and less openness to contact and peace. Studies 2 and 3 experimentally showed that meta-humanization improved contact willingness, feelings of peace, and competitive victimhood compared to meta-dehumanization, though effects were stronger for people with lower levels of disturbing memories. Reduced outgroup dehumanization was the key mechanism throughout.
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Why is it important?
Post-conflict reconciliation is one of the most pressing challenges in peace psychology, yet most interventions do not account for how traumatic memories shape people's readiness to respond to them. This research shows that war-related memories are not just a background variable but a meaningful moderator of whether reconciliation strategies work. The finding that meta-humanization helps even those with high levels of disturbing memories, though less powerfully, is practically significant: it suggests this approach has broad reach while also highlighting where more intensive support may be needed. For peacebuilders and policymakers working in contexts where direct contact between former adversaries is limited, the results point to a viable and scalable alternative pathway through changing perceptions of how one's group is seen by the other side.
Perspectives
This paper addresses questions that sit at the core of the research programme: how do the psychological residues of war shape the prospects for peace, and what kinds of interventions can make a difference even for the most affected individuals? Working with communities in Kosovo who experienced the conflict directly made the stakes of these questions very concrete. The finding that meta-humanization can promote conciliatory attitudes even among people carrying high levels of disturbing memories is perhaps the most important result, because it suggests that psychological interventions do not simply work for those who are already ready to reconcile. At the same time, the limits we found, particularly around competitive victimhood among the most affected, point honestly to where the work still needs to go.
Dr Islam Borinca
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Ameliorating War’s Shadows: The Role of War-related Memories and Meta-humanization on Intergroup Reconciliation, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, May 2025, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/01461672251338559.
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