Collective narcissism and a concept of a “just war”: Cross-cultural perspective

The current project focuses on the concept of just war from political and cross-cultural psychology perspectives, addressing the roles of personality, beliefs, and cultural factors (Lopez & Johnson, 2020). The concept of just war refers both to reasons for war and the way the war is conducted (Coates, 2018; McMahan, 2005; Watkins, 2020). Therefore, we will examine the extent to which people of different nationalities and religious background perceive the war as justified, while testing the role of individual-level and macro-level factors in shaping these perceptions. To explain the possible psychological underpinnings of just war, we focus on collective narcissism (CN); right-wing authoritarianism [RWA], religiosity and spirituality. We will examine agentic/communal CN in conjunction with national and religious identifications, as particularly relevant for intergroup conflict (Böhm et al., 2020). Warfare studies typically address three levels of analysis (Lopez & Johnson, 2020). The international level refers to the policy-related factors or distribution of power, the domestic level refers to state-related factors, like kind of regime, while the individual level focuses on such factors as beliefs, personality, or culture (Lopez & Johnson, 2020). The concept of just war refers both to reasons for the war and the way it is conducted (Walzer, 1977). In the current project we plan to validate three-dimensional model of just war beliefs described above. We supplement self-report part by an index of extremal war means, rejected by most participants, like using tortures, nuclear weapon or targeting civilians in aim to intimidate the opponent.

Ukrainan sodan herättämän huolen ja kiinnostuksen takia, tarkastelemme kansainvälisessä projektissamme "Just-war" ihmisten käsityksiä oikeutetusta sodasta – miten sodan syyt ja keinot käydä sotaa oikeutetaan. Meitä kiinnostaa kulttuurien väliset erot siinä, miten sota ilmiönä nähdään. Meitä kiinnostaa myös näkemyksiin vaikuttavat persoonallisuuden piirteet ja maailmankuvat, sekä samaistuminen tärkeisiin ryhmiin. Tutkimushankkeen koordinaattorina toimii Varsovan yliopiston Professori Magdalena Żemojtel-Piotrowska ja kansallisena koordinaattorina Rasmus Mannerström, Helsingin yliopistosta.