Poster #42 - Colombian children and adults' moral evaluations of direct and structural violence: Reasoning about peace

• In Event: Poster Session 04

Abstract

Peace is one of the sustainable developmental goals (United Nations, 2015), and it has special relevance in countries, such as Colombia, where this study was carried out. Colombia has experienced an internal armed conflict for more than 60 years, with associated factors such as great social inequality and violence that has permeated all parts of society. The Colombian government signed a peace agreement with one of the main illegal armed groups despite losing by a slim margin in a plebiscite on the agreement. This raises questions about the understandings that people, growing up in a society marked by violence, have about peace. With the recognition that peace implies social justice, well-being for people and the enjoyment of their rights (Galtung, 2016; Nussbaum, 2012; Ife, 2007), it is pertinent that such discussion be approached from the moral character of the phenomenon. This research specifically explored how moral, conventional, and/or personal concepts interact in the evaluation of situations in which peace is threatened.
Studies have shown that peace conceptions are built based on information that provides the developmental level (de Souza, et al., 2006; Hakvoort & Oppenheimer, 1998), and the context in which the person grows (Myers-Bowman, et al., 2005). Taking as its starting point the concept of negative peace (Galtung & Fischer, 2013), defined as the absence of violence, both in its direct and structural expressions, in this study we explored negative peace understandings of inhabitants of Bogota, Colombia, from a developmental approach.
Specifically, we examined how children, adolescents, and adults reason about direct (e.g., when stealing and hurting others) and structural violence (e.g., when militarism or limited access to quality education in a country that experience an internal armed conflict, and poverty) especially when those matters come into conflict with concerns of justice, welfare, and rights. Events depicting direct and structural violence were presented in three conditions (one for direct violence and two for structural violence) in a within-subjects design, to 112 participants divided in three age groups, children (ages 8-10), adolescents (15-17), and adults (30-40). Participants were interviewed individually; assessments included evaluations and justifications of an initial violent transgression and of a violent response in each condition, as well as perceptions of seriousness of those types of violence.
As expected, participants had an understanding of peace more associated with the absence of direct violence than with structural violence, as shown by their different evaluations of the situations presented (p<0.001). Also, the results showed that all participants judged as wrong acts of direct violence when the victim was innocent (p<0.01), offered more moral justifications (p<0.01), and rated it more serious (p<0.001). However, when the victim was not shown as innocent (i.e., when the violent act was a response to a perpetrator), or where the participant must coordinate more social domains, there were age differences (ps<0.01), being adults and adolescents who tended to be more indulgent. The lack of an integrative understanding of peace is discussed, insofar as structural violence does not enjoy the same recognition and condemnation as direct violence.

Authors

• Roberto Posada, Universidad Nacional de Colombia

• Maria Angelica Alvarez, Universidad Nacional de Colombia
  Presenting Author