General inclusive victimhood predicts willingness to engage in intergroup contact: Findings from Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Basque Country

Abstract

We investigated the relationship between general inclusive victimhood (i.e., perceived similarity between the ingroups’ and other victim groups’ experiences of collective victimization) and willingness to engage in direct, intimate (e.g., intimate relationships) and distant (e.g., neighbors) contact with the adversary group in the aftermath of collective violence. We tested this link across two post-conflict contexts: Bosnia-Herzegovina (N = 147 students) and the Basque Country (N = 351 adults). We found that general inclusive victimhood was linked to greater willingness to engage in distant intergroup contact in two contexts (e.g., having an outgroup member as a neighbor), but only predicted more intimate forms of intergroup contact (e.g., having a former adversary member as a romantic partner) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The link between general inclusive victimhood and both types of contact was sequentially mediated by conflict-specific inclusive victimhood and trust in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Basque Country, and via conflict-specific inclusive victimhood and empathy in the Basque Country. Theoretical and practical implications for reconciliation in the aftermath of ethnic conflict are discussed.