Young generations’ hopelessness perpetuates long-term conflicts
Loading...
Access rights
openAccess
URL
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
This publication is imported from Aalto University research portal.
View publication in the Research portal (opens in new window)
View/Open full text file from the Research portal (opens in new window)
Other link related to publication (opens in new window)
View publication in the Research portal (opens in new window)
View/Open full text file from the Research portal (opens in new window)
Other link related to publication (opens in new window)
Date
2023-03-25
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
13
Series
Scientific Reports, Volume 13, issue 1
Abstract
Transforming long-term conflicts into peaceful intergroup relations is one of the most difficult challenges for humanity. Such meaningful social changes are often driven by young people. But do young people living in contexts of long-term conflicts believe that change is even possible? In a series of six studies (Ntotal = 119,671) over two decades and across two unrelated intractable conflicts in Israel/Palestine and Cyprus, we found that younger (compared to older) generations from both respective rival groups have less hope for peace, and consequently less conciliatory attitudes. We also show that this gradual improvement of peace-promoting emotions and attitudes with increasing age can be experimentally accelerated in young people through a virtual reality-based aging simulation. These findings provide a new perspective on the fundamental question of why long-term conflicts are so difficult to resolve and highlight the importance of instilling hope in young generations to advance peace processes.Description
Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Roni Porat for their valuable contribution in the conceptualization stage of the research, and Shir Harpaz, Natali Afrimov, and Dan Heskia for their assistance in the data analysis. This work was supported by an Israel Science Foundation Grant (3105/21) to the first author (BSH). Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Roni Porat for their valuable contribution in the conceptualization stage of the research, and Shir Harpaz, Natali Afrimov, and Dan Heskia for their assistance in the data analysis. This work was supported by an Israel Science Foundation Grant (3105/21) to the first author (BSH). Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s).
Keywords
Other note
Citation
Hasler, B S, Leshem, O A, Hasson, Y, Landau, D H, Krayem, Y, Blatansky, C, Baratz, G, Friedman, D, Psaltis, C, Cakal, H, Cohen-Chen, S & Halperin, E 2023, ' Young generations’ hopelessness perpetuates long-term conflicts ', Scientific Reports, vol. 13, no. 1, 4926 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31667-9