More than half of the ongoing conflicts can be considered as relapses from the past. Researcher in Social Psychology, Sabina Cehajic-Clancy, works on using science for developing the most effective way to reconcile people and in that way effectively and durably solve long-term conflicts among different groups.

– Intergroup conflicts are challenging to resolve. Even once politically resolved, intergroup reconciliation is extremely difficult to achieve, says Sabina Cehajic-Clancy, Associate Professor of Social Psychology.

The social and psychological barriers to resolving long-term intergroup conflicts and reconciling groups are many, and can include beliefs that members of opposing groups are mostly bad and that they are all essentially the same.

Photo: Sandra Matic, Mostphotos.

As a social psychologist, Sabina Cehajic-Clancy is interested in understanding how individuals’ thoughts and behaviors are affected by their group belonging, how group-based emotions influence intergroup relations, and the impact of the social context on people’s attitudes and behaviors. Her research is centered on developing interventions for intergroup reconciliation by exposing people to information about members of the other group, which have been shown to be effective in changing intergroup attitudes and behaviors.

A long-term research interest

Sabina Cehajic-Clancy’s research interest began very early on, stemming from her personal experience of intergroup conflict in former Yugoslavia during the Bosnian War.  

– I wrote about intergroup conflicts already during my undergraduate studies. Since then, my focus has been on finding effective ways to reconcile people from different conflicting groups and in that way prevent intergroup conflict.

In recent years, Sabina Cehajic-Clancy and colleagues have developed evidence-based and novel interventions aimed at challenging the negative perceptions of the other group. By exposing people to stories of individuals who, for example, risked certain parts of their lives to save the lives of members of other social groups, attitudes towards each other can be improved. The effects of this intervention method, called “moral exemplars”, were tested in several conflict contexts with members of real antagonistic groups, using online and field experiments. 

By exposing people to stories of individuals who, for example, risked certain parts of their lives to save the lives of members of other social groups, attitudes towards each other can be improved.

Acknowledging good in the other group

Research shows that psychological responses (our reactions and behaviors) to intergroup conflicts – often involving human rights violations and mass atrocities – are not very helpful in promoting reconciliation. People are generally more likely to deny or justify atrocities committed by their own group and less likely to acknowledge their own group’s responsibility. This absence of acknowledgement of responsibility undermines prospect of reconciliation. 

– In addition to this, research points to very low levels of intergroup trust and increased levels of negative perceptions, emotions and social distance towards the other group. 

Communicating positive information about the other group to challenge these beliefs has therefore been shown to be very effective in improving intergroup attitudes and behaviors. Such a story could be, for example, a person from the adversary group helping people from your group.

Photo: Sandra Matic, Mostphotos.

Finding new effective intergroup interventions

Sabina Cehajic-Clancy says that the very fact that over 60% of the intergroup conflicts we see today have been going on for such a long time underlines the importance of finding ways to resolve conflicts sustainable by reconciling people.

– Because, if we don’t, then we always face the risk of the conflict re-occurring.

Psychological intergroup interventions are a new and rapidly developing area of research in social psychology, explains Sabina Cehajic-Clancy. 

– Traditionally, interventions or strategies aimed at improving intergroup relations have taken the form of intergroup contact, such as bringing people from different social groups together in some form of interaction. 

Over the past decade, this field has expanded to include many different forms and formats. A recent example of an intervention is the so-called story telling approach, which Sabina Cehajic-Clancy has incorporated into the design of the moral exemplar intervention.

What remains to be discovered is how to effectively change these psychological realities, including people’s attitudes and behaviors to foster reconciliation and long-term peace.

Different methods for different conflicts

Photo: Gökhan Sirkeci, Pexels.

Sabina Cehajic-Clancy sees great potential going forward as the previous years of developing and testing interventions have proven to be effective. She recently received the prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant from the European Union to carry out the research project Healing societies: The impact of social context on intergroup reconciliation (HEAL).

The funding will enable Sabina Cehajic-Clancy to further test and establish reconciliation interventions aimed at resolving intergroup conflict.  

– What remains to be discovered is how to effectively change these psychological realities, including people’s attitudes and behaviors to foster reconciliation and long-term peace.

Sabina Cehajic-Clancy aims to specify the content and the conditions of the intervention for real-life applications. She has been collaborating with many NGOs throughout her career and would like to continue this work.

– These collaborations focused primarily on designing and evaluating different peacebuilding initiatives such as the “Ordinary Heroes” project conducted by the Post-Conflict Research Center based in Sarajevo. Now, we aim to investigate how different peacebuilding initiatives can be optimized and effectively adapted to different contexts. Ultimately, our goal is to identify the most effective reconciliation approach for different social contexts. 

The project will involve large-scale longitudinal online and field studies in four European countries: Sweden, Ukraine, Israel and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The studies will test and compare established and context-adapted reconciliation interventions on intergroup attitudes and real-life behaviours of ethnic majorities and minorities living in different social contexts. 

– I want to identify effective reconciliation interventions for different social contexts and avoid the fallacy of “one approach fits all”. Only by effectively trying to change something, can we truly understand it, says Sabina Cehajic-Clancy.

How will you evaluate the effect of the interventions?

Sabina Cehajic-Clancy.
Photo: Henrik Dunér.

– We aim to test the impact of several well-established, intergroup interventions by randomly assigning people to different interventions, including control groups, and measuring changes in their attitudes and behavior over time. The overarching goal is to examine the impact of the social context on the effectiveness and durability of intergroup interventions. To do this, we will collect data from different ethnic groups, both advantaged and disadvantaged, living in both non-conflict and conflict countries, and in different types of neighbourhoods.

Is it possible to pinpoint a moment when the interventions should start in order to have the best effect?

– We don’t know the answer to this question yet. But, we do want to explore how different interventions might influence people’s resilience to future conflict and polarization. In a way, we are about to explore whether interventions could act not only as a post-conflict reconciliation "solution", but also as a conflict prevention strategy.

In what ways do you hope your research could benefit the world?

– I hope that this project will provide answers to which interventions are effective and why in improving intergroup relations in different types of contexts. In this way, we will be able to inform not only policies, such as how to teach the history of conflict, but also programming aimed at intergroup reconciliation and peacebuilding. Ultimately, our goal is to contribute to peacebuilding through science. 
 

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