Toward an Understanding of Moral Judgments Concerning Violent Behavior

Abstract

The objective of this project was to study the mental dispositions involved in moral judgments concerning violent behaviors. More specifically, we wanted to understand why human beings sometimes judge that violence is acceptable and even obligatory, and to understand how these judgments interfere with the process of peace negotiations in the context of inter-group conflict, dealing with two cultural contexts--Northern Ireland (Protestants vs. Catholics) and South Africa (Afrikaners vs. Blacks). These contexts are interesting because there has been substantial development of a peaceful cohabitation between the two sides of the conflict but there are still radicals in the conflict, a situation that may evince important cross-cultural differences in relation to other conflict areas, such as Palestine, in relation to the way radicals reason about violence. During the first year, we proposed to refine and complete the methodology, get initial IRB approval, and start preparations for data collection. During the second year, we proposed to carry out data collection and analysis.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2014
Accession Number
ADA601736

Entities

People

  • Paulo Sousa

Organizations

  • Queen's University Belfast

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Africa
  • Agreements
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Cognition
  • Cognitive Science
  • Families (Human)
  • Health Care
  • Judgment
  • Negotiations
  • Psychological Phenomena And Processes
  • Psychology
  • Reasoning
  • Social Psychology
  • South Africa
  • Terrorists
  • Violence

Readers

  • International Relations and Conflict Resolution
  • Organizational Psychology.
  • Political Violence and Terrorism Studies.