Acknowledgment of Collective and Subcategorical Moral Responsibility and Propensity Toward Reconciliation Among Young People in Vukovar (Croatia)

The study is based on the findings from postconflict Croatia. The aim was to investigate whether accepting that some in-group members have moral responsibility for war crimes (subcategorical moral responsibility) could facilitate openness to dialogue and reconciliation between groups. Two hundred seventy-six students read one of four stories that manipulated the level of collective moral responsibility by indicating the responsibility of "some members" versus "the whole group." The study is based on four quasi-experimental conditions and a control condition. At the end of the experiment, participants completed a questionnaire. The results confirmed that in both groups (Croatian and Serbian), acknowledging the subcategorical moral responsibility of in-group members can help people to be more open to dialogue and intergroup reconciliation.