Individual-level and community-level effects of war trauma on social representations related to humanitarian law

Theoretical and empirical accounts of violent intergroup conflict or reactions to victimization suggested psychosocial processes that are likely to paradoxically enhance war victims' justification of violations of humanitarian norms. To test for differences and similarities between individual and community reactions, multilevel analyses of the ‘People on War’ dataset were conducted. This data combines survey responses from fourteen different communities recently involved in armed conflict (N = 12, 047). At the individual level, findings support a specific cycle-of-violence hypothesis, indicating that victims of war report less support for a legal conception of humanitarian norms than do non-victims. In contrast, at the community level, the higher the rate of victims, the more frequently community members adopt a legal conception of humanitarian norms. Further, the strength of condemnation of humanitarian norm violations is positively related to war duration and magnitude of fatalities. These findings are interpreted within a social-representational framework. The collective experience of generalized vulnerability strengthens a shared perception of the need for formal justice, which cannot be reduced to the sum of the psychological consequences of community members' individual experiences of war trauma. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.