Following the signing of peace agreements, post-accord societies often remain deeply divided across group lines. There is a need to identify antecedents of youth's support for peace and establish more constructive intergroup relations. This article explored the effect of out-group trust, intergroup forgiveness, and social identity on support for…

Identifying developmental patterns in intergroup contact and its relation with bias is crucial for improving prevention strategies around intergroup relations. This study applied time-varying effects modeling (TVEM) to examine age-based changes in relations between contact and bias in a divided community that included 667 youth (M age = 15.74, SD…

Does violence beget violence among youth in a setting of protracted conflict? Framed by a developmental intergroup approach, this paper examines the mediating roles of family ethnic socialization and intergroup bias. Two time points from 466 (50% female/50% male, 51% Catholic/49% Protestant) 14- to 16-year-olds in Northern Ireland were analyzed.…

The present study examined the direction of effects between peer likeability and youth's school adjustment and psychological well-being, and the moderation of these effects by students' immigrant status. One thousand one hundred and eighteen students (63% immigrants) nested in 57 Greek middle-school classrooms took part in the study (Wave 1; age M…

We examined how two different definitions of cross-ethnic friendships, namely reciprocal peer nominations for shared activities and mutual trust, predict attitudes towards immigrant students among non-immigrant Swiss children and early adolescents (N = 309). Among both Swiss children and early adolescents, only the number of mutually trusting peer…

Two-hundred-and-fifty-eight White British (ethnic majority) and British South Asian (minority) children (5, 9 and 13 years old) chose potential friends from descriptions of peers who had traits and preferences that were either consistent (normative) or inconsistent (deviant) with ethnic group membership. White children chose peers from the ethnic…

We investigated romantic relationships in a sample of 380 adolescents who formed 190 heterosexual couples (mean age: females 17 years; males 18 years): 173 intra-ethnic (German) couples and 17 inter-ethnic couples. Factor analyses revealed two types of love experiences: (a) experiences of attraction and a passionate focus on the partner…

The war-related process of disintegration of a highly integrated and multi-ethnic community is described using a series of studies done in the city of Vukovar (Croatia) as a case example. After analyzing the key points of the community social breakdown, the three roots of ongoing ethnic division are explored: the feelings of being betrayed by…

This study characterizes several aspects of emerging ethnic identity in childhood and its associations with interethnic group social preferences. Understanding these processes is important, as early interethnic group social practices may form a foundation for later interethnic group attitudes and behaviors in adolescence. Children of Cambodian,…

This article reports a study comparing self-concept among 114 immigrant children and adolescents of Ethiopian origin in Israel and among 164 native-born Israelis, including an exploration of how age, gender, and first-language proficiency affect various dimensions of this construct. For the younger children (aged 8-9 years), self-concept was found…

Individuals vary in the degree to which they are representative, or typical, of their social groups. To investigate the effects of atypicality on intergroup attitudes, elementary-school-age children (N = 97) attending a summer school program were assigned to novel color groups that included typical (blue or green) and atypical (light blue or light…

A cross-sectional design was used to inquire about peer relations of 85 second and fifth grade students in two integrated Anglophone and Francophone schools in Montreal, Canada. Data on same- and cross-ethnic identification, interactive companions and mutual best friends were collected for each student. Overall findings were that students had more…

Developmental theory suggests that a well-developed ethnic identity serves as a secure position which allows people to be more open and accepting to people from other ethnic groups. To examine this prediction, two studies were carried out. In Study 1, 713 college freshmen from four ethnic groups were surveyed regarding positive attitudes toward…

This study examined the effects on 6- and 8-year old children (n = 160) of rejection versus acceptance by an initial group, the reason for the rejection or acceptance (personal versus category-based), and the norms (inclusion versus exclusion) of a new group to which the children were assigned, on their negative affect and attitudes towards the…