How psychology and psychologists can and can’t contribute to peace processes? A prolegomenon for a critical peace psychology

Abstract

There may be at least three ways through which psychology and psychologists can contribute to peace processes: 1. Psychological research findings can be usual for peace processes. 2. Psychologists as a professional group can involve in negotiations or other peace-related processes. 3. Applied psychological counseling skills such as active listening, basic empathy, multicultural competency, acceptance, rapport-building etc. can be utilized to train both sides of the conflict for a smooth transition to peace processes. Unfortunately, these three options are rarely taken into consideration. The article discusses various ways through which psychology and psychologists can and can’t contribute to peace processes, errors, biases and fallacies typically observed in the relevant research and the applied fields, and the distinction between medical and social models of peace. The introduction of new terms to the field of peace studies in general, and peace psychology in particular is another key strength of this article.

Keywords

• Peace psychology,critical peace psychology,critical psychology,organic peace psychologist,medical model of peace,and analogical inference error

References

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