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As societies like Northern Ireland, Israel, and South Africa strive to resolve social conflict, there is growing theoretical and empirical interest in the role of intergroup forgiveness. This study examined intergroup forgiveness among 340 young adults in Northern Ireland. A short form of the Enright Forgiveness Inventory explored possible influences on propensity to forgive. All participants were Catholic and female (mean age 17.36 years), and had experienced verbal or physical injury or bereavement due to the Northern Irish political violence. Overall forgiveness levels were low in comparison with previous studies of interpersonal forgiveness but similar to previous studies of intergroup forgiveness in Northern Ireland. The strongest (negative) predictor of forgiveness was the perceived degree of hurt caused by the injury.

Protestant primary school children (N = 181) from 3 schools representing areas in Northern Ireland with high and low political and sectarian violence, and 1 area in England with no political and sectarian violence, were asked to draw pictures of peace and war. Three hypotheses were explored: (a) Northern Irish children to a greater extent than English children would emphasise the concept of peace as the absence of war; (b) children from the high-violence area of Northern Ireland would be more likely to emphasise the concrete aspects of war such as weapons, soldiers, and war activities; and (c) boys would demonstrate greater knowledge of war than would girls. Hiloglinear analyses of the images in the drawings confirmed the first and third hypotheses.Children's concepts of peace and war have been the subject of research for decades

This study compares the attitudes of young people in Northern Ireland to con ict and con ict resolution, before and after the 1994 cease re announcements. Content analysis on the responses of 117 adolescents aged 14-15 years showed differences in their attitudes to war and peace and in their strategies to attain peace. Concepts of war as static and unchanging showed a signi cant difference after the cease re. In addition, the perception of war as a struggle between national leaders before the cease re shifted signi cantly to a more general view of war in terms of war activities and their negative consequences. Perceptions of peace as "active" showed a marked swing after the cease re to a more abstract view of peace as freedom, justice, and liberty after the cease re. Before the cease re, adolescents were reluctant to provide strategies to attain peace, but after the cease re, strategies were suggested with more con dence. Results also indicated that adolescents prefer an alternative to violence in the resolution of con ict. Although the proportion of adolescents who said the country was at peace did not change signi cantly after the cease re, the percentage who expressed ambivalent feelings about the status of Northern Ireland in terms of peace increased signi cantly. This suggests that, at the time of this study, many young people had not fully accepted the reality of the peace process.