Izvorni znanstveni članak
Willingness to Forgive and Be Reconciled after the Croatian War of Independence in Croatia
Goran MILAS
Ivan RIMAC
Nenad KARAJIĆ
Sažetak
The paper deals with the empirical research of the process of
forgiveness and reconciliation in Croatia after the War of
Independence. Research conducted within the field of
psychology indicates that the victim benefits from forgiving the
perpetrator in many ways which is reflected in better mental
health and lack of negative mood, while forgiveness and
reconciliation also have their broader social dimension. In the
paper three basic questions are being addressed: how are
considerations (attitudes) on forgiveness and reconciliation
structured; what part of the Croatian population is prepared to
forgive and be reconciled and what are the correlates of
willingness to forgive. The research was conducted towards the
end of the year 2000. The results indicate that attitudes on
forgiveness and reconciliation can be grouped into three
broader viewpoints: scepticism in forgiveness and
reconciliation, faith in positive processes and support to
conditional forgiveness. Most citizens, more than four fifths,
are inclined towards forgiveness under the condition of
damage compensation and/or apology. Persons prepared to
forgive unconditionally are in the minority, while a not-to-be-
-neglected number is even prone to revenge. Based on the
information gathered, a hypothesis is presented treating
unconditional forgiveness and revenge as insufficiently
adjusted behaviour influenced by frequent and superficial
social contacts in the urban environment, which results in an
automatic reaction ultimately dependent upon the type of
trauma the person (is) was exposed to.
Ključne riječi
forgiveness; reconciliation; attitudes; Croatia; post-war period
Hrčak ID:
19254
URI
Datum izdavanja:
31.12.2007.
Posjeta: 4.076 *