Promoting reconciliation in separatist conflict: The effect of morality framing

Abstract

In separatist conflict, the majority group and the separatist group alternate in their roles as victim and perpetrator. We examined how framing prior ingroup wrongdoings in terms of violations of moral ideals or violations of moral obligations affects the majority’s willingness to reconcile with the separatist group. We conducted a field experiment (N = 208) in the Republic of Indonesia, where separatist conflict is rife. As expected, among members of the majority who were high in national identification, a moral ideals violation frame produced stronger positive intergroup orientations (e.g., perspective-taking, intergroup trust) and collective emotions of guilt and shame, whereas a moral obligations violation frame produced stronger positive intergroup orientations and collective emotions among low identifiers. In turn, positive intergroup orientations and collective emotions promoted reconciliatory attitudes (e.g., willingness to apologise, support for intergroup cooperation). These findings suggest that policymakers can gain a better insight into the effect of framing ingroup wrongdoings as violations of either moral ideals or moral obligations when taking national identification into account.