Poster #139 - Colombian Youths’ Reasoning about Justice in Intergroup Conflict: Associations with Severity and Reparability of Harm

• In Event: 2-002 - Special Poster Session 05 with Continental Breakfast Reception
  In Poster Session: PS 05 - International Section

Integrative Statement

In 2016, the Colombian people narrowly rejected a peace accord signed by the government and guerrillas; disagreements on balancing morally-laden issues such as accountability and victim restoration appeared to be at the roots of the divide between voters. Scholarship suggests that variations in how moral situations are evaluated may be due to differences in experiences with conflict and injustice, and relatedly, youths’ understandings of their social worlds (e.g., Posada & Wainryb, 2008; Wainryb, 1991). However, less is known about how adolescents’ reasoning about justice is coloured by intrinsic features of specific types of harms, such as variations in harm severity and reparability, or how their judgments are interrelated with their beliefs about perpetrators in the context of intergroup violence. Thus, this study examined the conflict-resolution expectations and preferences of urban Colombian adolescents as a function of the severity and reparability of intergroup harm.
A sample of 14- to 19-year old Colombian adolescents (N=74; 38 boys) was drawn from schools in low-to-middle income neighbourhoods. Participants were presented with four intergroup conflict vignettes; two depicted ecologically valid conflicts between groups of peers and two others were constructed from actual events within the armed conflict. Due to the realities of the armed conflict, harms framed within the political sphere were more severe than harms occurring in day-to-day interactions with peers (e.g., losing loved ones vs. losing opportunities). In each case, one scenario depicted reparable harm and another scenario depicted irreparable harm. Participants evaluated three solutions for each vignette (apologies, compensation and punishment) and also rated the probability of each solution actually occurring.
The results (Table 1) indicated that youth rated apologies as a better way to handle peer-based conflicts as compared to transgressions within the armed conflict, while irreparable harm at the hands of guerrillas was deemed as deserving the most punishment. Compensation was also evaluated negatively for irreparable harm involving loss of loved ones. Distinctions also emerged between participants’ views of what is and ought to be: while apologies and compensation were rated as good ways to handle peer-based conflicts, youth noted that they were unlikely to actually happen. Adolescents also believed that punishment was more likely to occur when harm within the armed conflict was irreparable vs. reparable (i.e., damage to infrastructure).
These findings underline youths’ nuanced reasoning about justice across contexts. While the familiar nature of peer-based harms may have allowed participants to consider situational concerns that mitigated the wrongness of others’ acts (Slomkowski & Killen, 1992), findings suggested that adolescents did not indiscriminately make judgments based on heuristics (e.g., group membership of victimizers). Rather, youths’ justifications implied varied concerns with victims’ well-being (in the case for restoring reparable harms) and restoring relationships (in the case of irreparable peer harm). Even so, participants did refer to perpetrators’ internal attributes when endorsing punishment, particularly in reference to their incapacity to rehabilitate and lack of sincerity when displaying remorse. Implications will be considered vis-à-vis the moral and social outcomes of youth growing up in the context of political unrest and intergroup violence.

Authors

• Angelica Restrepo, Concordia University
  Presenting Author

• Holly Recchia, Concordia University
  Non-Presenting Author