Twenty years later, the cognitive portrait of openness to reconciliation in Rwanda

Abstract

With this work, we intended to draw a cognitive portrait of openness to reconciliation. No study had yet examined the potential contribution of high-level cognitive functioning, in addition to psychological health, to explaining attitudes towards reconciliation in societies exposed to major trauma such as post-genocide Rwanda. We measured the contribution of general cognitive capacity, analytical thinking, and subjective judgements. Our results show that higher cognitive capacity is not associated with greater openness to reconciliation. On the other hand, proneness to think analytically about the genocide predicts more favorable attitudes towards reconciliation. The latter effect is associated with more tempered judgements about retrospective facts (e.g., number of genocide perpetrators) and prospective events (e.g., risk of genocide reoccurrence). This work establishes the importance of cognitive functioning in the aftermath of political violence: A better understanding of the influence of information processing on openness to reconciliation may help improve reconciliation policies and contribute to reducing risks of conflict reoccurrence.

The local perceptual bias of a non-remote and educated population

“…Finally, because Rwanda was exposed to wide-scale violence in 1994, with the genocide of the Tutsi causing an estimated 800 000 deaths, we controlled for the effect on perceptual bias of genocide impact and any psychopathology, namely posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Years after the genocide, the latter two pathologies remain more prevalent in Rwanda than in Western societies (Caparos, Giroux, Rutembesa, Habimana, & Blanchette, 2018;Munyandamutsa, Nkubamugisha, Gex-Fabry, & Eytan, 2012), though still present only in a minority of our sample. While PTSD may increase global processing (Vasterling, Duke, Tomlin, Lowery, & Kaplan, 2004), depression may decrease it (De Fockert & Cooper, 2014).…”

The psychological correlates of transitional justice in Rwanda: A long-term assessment.

“…Testing sessions lasted between 2 and 3 hr and consisted of questionnaires and a battery of cognitive tests, notably verbal fluency, short-term memory, and reasoning. The results of the latter are presented in parallel publications (Blanchette et al, 2019; Caparos et al, 2018). Importantly, the groups who attended, testified, and did not attend the Gacaca did not differ on these cognitive variables.…”

“…Given that psychological health is related to openness to reconciliation (Caparos et al, 2018; Pham, Weinstein, & Longman, 2004; Schaal, Weierstall, Dusingizemungu, & Elbert, 2012), if transitional justice negatively impacts psychological health, it may also have a negative impact on social cohesion. As we will see next, this is not always the case, and several recent studies allow for a more optimistic conclusion.…”

“…Openness to reconciliation. Participants filled an opennessto-reconciliation questionnaire made of three subscales (Caparos et al, 2018): coexistence, forgiveness, and trust and security. Four statements measured participants' opinions about coexistence between former rivals (e.g., "In the future, for the good of our country, we need to welcome those who will come back among us after having served a sentence following the Gacaca trials").…”

“…In 1994, in Rwanda (central Africa), one of the most disastrous events of the 20th century took place: the 1994 genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi. An estimated 10% of the population was decimated in three months (representing around one million individuals), and the major part of the rest of the population was left deeply injured, both physically and psychologically (e.g., Blanchette, Rutembesa, Habimana, & Caparos, 2019; Brounéus, 2010; Caparos, Giroux, Rutembesa, Habimana, & Blanchette, 2018). In this study, we were interested in the long-term psychological correlates of the Gacaca (pronounced “Ga-tcha-tcha”), an unprecedented transitional justice program that took place between 2005 and 2012.…”