Political Violence and Adolescent Out-group Attitudes and Prosocial Behaviors: Implications for Positive Inter-group Relations.

The negative impact of political violence on adolescent adjustment is well-established. Less is known about factors that affect adolescents' positive outcomes in ethnically-divided societies, especially influences on prosocial behaviors toward the outgroup, which may promote constructive relations. For example, understanding how intergroup experiences and attitudes motivate outgroup helping may foster intergroup cooperation and help to consolidate peace.

Social identity and youth aggressive and delinquent behaviors in a context of political violence.

The goal of the current study was to examine the moderating role of in-group social identity on relations between youth exposure to sectarian antisocial behavior in the community and aggressive behaviors. Participants included 770 mother-child dyads living in interfaced neighborhoods of Belfast. Youth answered questions about aggressive and delinquent behaviors as well as the extent to which they targeted their behaviors toward members of the other group.

Longitudinal relations between sectarian and nonsectarian community violence and child adjustment in Northern Ireland.

Although relations between political violence and child adjustment are well documented, longitudinal research is needed to adequately address the many questions remaining about the contexts and developmental trajectories underlying the effects on children in areas of political violence. The study examined the relations between sectarian and nonsectarian community violence and adolescent adjustment problems over 4 consecutive years. Participants included 999 mother-child dyads (482 boys, 517 girls), M ages = 12.

Adolescents' Educational Outcomes in a Social Ecology of Parenting, Family, and Community Risks in Northern Ireland.

This study examines the influence of social ecological risks within the domains of parenting, family environment, and community in the prediction of educational outcomes for 770 adolescents (49% boys, 51% girls, = 13.6 years, = 2.0) living in a setting of protracted political conflict, specifically working class areas of Belfast, Northern Ireland.

The protective role of group identity: sectarian antisocial behavior and adolescent emotion problems.

The protective role of strength of group identity was examined for youth in a context of protracted political conflict. Participants included 814 adolescents (Mage = 13.61, SD = 1.

Relations between political violence and child adjustment: a four-wave test of the role of emotional insecurity about community.

This study further explored the impact of sectarian violence and children's emotional insecurity about community on child maladjustment using a 4-wave longitudinal design. The study included 999 mother-child dyads in Belfast, Northern Ireland (482 boys, 517 girls). Across the 4 waves, child mean age was 12.

It's never too late for 'us' to meet 'them': prior intergroup friendships moderate the impact of later intergroup friendships in educational settings.

Background: In this paper, we focused on mixing in educational settings between members of Catholic and Protestant ethnoreligious groups in Northern Ireland.

Aims: In Study 1, we examined whether opportunities for contact at home and at university were associated with greater actual out-group friendships, and whether this friendship was associated with a reduction in prejudice. We also assessed whether the impact of out-group friendships at university was moderated by experience of out-group friendships outside university, such that the prejudice-reducing effect of university friendships was stronger for those with fewer friendships at home.

Maternal Religiosity, Family Resources and Stressors, and Parent-Child Attachment Security in Northern Ireland.

This study explores the associations between mothers' religiosity, and families' and children's functioning in a stratified random sample of 695 Catholic and Protestant mother-child dyads in socially deprived areas in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a region which has experienced centuries of sectarian conflict between Protestant Unionists and Catholics Nationalists. Findings based on mother and child surveys indicated that even in this context of historical political violence associated with religious affiliation, mothers' religiosity played a consistently positive role, including associations with multiple indicators of better family functioning (i.e.

Nations' income inequality predicts ambivalence in stereotype content: how societies mind the gap.

Income inequality undermines societies: The more inequality, the more health problems, social tensions, and the lower social mobility, trust, life expectancy. Given people's tendency to legitimate existing social arrangements, the stereotype content model (SCM) argues that ambivalence-perceiving many groups as either warm or competent, but not both-may help maintain socio-economic disparities. The association between stereotype ambivalence and income inequality in 37 cross-national samples from Europe, the Americas, Oceania, Asia, and Africa investigates how groups' overall warmth-competence, status-competence, and competition-warmth correlations vary across societies, and whether these variations associate with income inequality (Gini index).

Micro-ecological behavior and intergroup contact.

Research evaluating intergroup contact has tended to rely on self-report measures. Drawing on recent micro-ecological research, the two studies reported here used a multi-method approach to examine contact in a more holistic fashion. This involved the measurement of observable behavior at the micro-level, intergroup attitudes via infrahumanization and focus groups.

Risk and resilience: the moderating role of social coping for maternal mental health in a setting of political conflict.

Violence can threaten individual wellbeing and tear at the social fabric of communities. At the same time, suffering can mobilize social coping and mutual support. Thus, the backdrop of political violence increases risk factors and stimulates resilience.

Political violence and child adjustment: longitudinal tests of sectarian antisocial behavior, family conflict, and insecurity as explanatory pathways.

Understanding the impact of political violence on child maladjustment is a matter of international concern. Recent research has advanced a social ecological explanation for relations between political violence and child adjustment. However, conclusions are qualified by the lack of longitudinal tests.

Examining non-racial segregation: a micro-ecological approach.

A number of studies in both South Africa and the United States of America have indicated the presence of an 'informal' segregation that is active in everyday life spaces and which is resistant to changes in macro level social policy. This research has however been conducted in societies where segregation and division has been based on skin colour. We sought to adapt a micro-ecological technique for use in a non-racially segregated setting, in this case lecture theatres at a University in Northern Ireland.

Sectarian and Nonsectarian Violence: Mothers' Appraisals of Political Conflict in Northern Ireland.

Past research on peace and conflict in Northern Ireland has focused on politically-motivated violence. However, other types of crime (i.e.

ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN MOTHERS' EXPERIENCE WITH THE TROUBLES IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND MOTHERS' AND CHILDREN'S PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONING: THE MODERATING ROLE OF SOCIAL IDENTITY.

Relatively little research has examined the relations between growing up in a community with a history of protracted violent political conflict and subsequent generations' well-being. The current article examines relations between mothers' self-report of the impact that the historical political violence in Northern Ireland (known as the Troubles) has on her and her child's current mental health. These relations are framed within the social identity model of stress, which provides a framework for understanding coping responses within societies that have experienced intergroup conflict.

Parenting Control in Contexts of Political Violence: Testing Bi-directional Relations between Violence Exposure and Control in Post-Accord Belfast.

OBJECTIVE: The goal of the present study is to examine bi-directional relations between youth exposure to sectarian and nonsectarian antisocial behavior and mothers' efforts to control youth's exposure to community violence in Belfast, Northern Ireland. DESIGN: Mother-child dyads (N=773) were interviewed in their homes twice over 2 years regarding youth's exposure to sectarian (SAB) and nonsectarian (NAB) community antisocial behavior and mothers' use of control strategies, including behavioral and psychological control. RESULTS: Youth's exposure to NAB was related to increases in mothers' use of both behavioral and psychological control strategies over time, controlling for earlier levels of these constructs.

Direct contact as a moderator of extended contact effects: cross-sectional and longitudinal impact on outgroup attitudes, behavioral intentions, and attitude certainty.

Cross-group friendships (the most effective form of direct contact) and extended contact (i.e., knowing ingroup members who have outgroup friends) constitute two of the most important means of improving outgroup attitudes.

Longitudinal pathways between political violence and child adjustment: the role of emotional security about the community in Northern Ireland.

Links between political violence and children's adjustment problems are well-documented. However, the mechanisms by which political tension and sectarian violence relate to children's well-being and development are little understood. This study longitudinally examined children's emotional security about community violence as a possible regulatory process in relations between community discord and children's adjustment problems.

Secondary transfer effects of intergroup contact: Alternative accounts and underlying processes.

Although intergroup contact is one of the most prominent interventions to reduce prejudice, the generalization of contact effects is still a contentious issue. This research further examined the rarely studied secondary transfer effect (STE; Pettigrew, 2009), by which contact with a primary outgroup reduces prejudice toward secondary groups that are not directly involved in the contact. Across 3 cross-sectional studies conducted in Cyprus (N = 1,653), Northern Ireland (N = 1,973), and Texas (N = 275) and 1 longitudinal study conducted in Northern Ireland (N = 411), the present research sought to systematically rule out alternative accounts of the STE and to investigate 2 potential mediating mechanisms (ingroup reappraisal and attitude generalization).

Political violence and child adjustment in Northern Ireland: Testing pathways in a social-ecological model including single-and two-parent families.

Moving beyond simply documenting that political violence negatively impacts children, we tested a social-ecological hypothesis for relations between political violence and child outcomes. Participants were 700 mother-child (M = 12.1 years, SD = 1.

Testing a social ecological model for relations between political violence and child adjustment in Northern Ireland.

Relations between political violence and child adjustment are matters of international concern. Past research demonstrates the significance of community, family, and child psychological processes in child adjustment, supporting study of interrelations between multiple social ecological factors and child adjustment in contexts of political violence. Testing a social ecological model, 300 mothers and their children (M = 12.

Antecedents and consequences of social identity complexity: intergroup contact, distinctiveness threat, and outgroup attitudes.

Social identity complexity defines people's more or less complex cognitive representations of the interrelationships among their multiple ingroup identities. Being high in complexity is contingent on situational, cognitive, or motivational factors, and has positive consequences for intergroup relations. Two survey studies conducted in Northern Ireland examined the extent to which intergroup contact and distinctiveness threat act as antecedents, and outgroup attitudes as consequences, of social identity complexity.

Children and political violence from a social ecological perspective: implications from research on children and families in Northern Ireland.

The effects on children of political violence are matters of international concern, with many negative effects well-documented. At the same time, relations between war, terrorism, or other forms of political violence and child development do not occur in a vacuum. The impact can be understood as related to changes in the communities, families and other social contexts in which children live, and in the psychological processes engaged by these social ecologies.

The Differential Impact on Children of Inter- and Intra-Community Violence in Northern Ireland.

This study explores distinctions in Northern Ireland between inter-community (i.e. sectarian) and intra-community (i.

Intergroup trust in Northern Ireland.

Although prominent political agendas have placed a great deal of importance on building trust in postconflict areas, there has been a lack of empirical research on its role in areas of intergroup conflict. The authors conducted two studies to examine the relationship between trust and intergroup behavioral tendencies-and the potential for intergroup contact to build trust in Northern Ireland. Study 1 showed that outgroup trust mediates the impact of intergroup contact on behavioral tendencies toward the outgroup.