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Repairing broken intergroup relations after conflict is a challenging process that becomes particularly complex when perpetrators and victims continue to live in the same community. In the present study, we have asked participants from different sides of the 1991-1995 conflict in Croatia to disentangle their understanding of apology and forgiveness 20 years after the war. We conducted focus groups with people who suffered war-related personal losses, those with no such losses, and young adults born after the conflict. The major research question was as follows: How do different community actors understand intergroup apology and forgiveness and its relevance for the peaceful future in the postconflict ethnically mixed communities? A total of 65 persons participated in 11 focus groups (36 Serbs and 29 Croats; 35 women and 30 men; aged 20-78 years) who had lived in two ethnically mixed towns (Knin and Vukovar) before and during the war. Our results showed no substantial differences in how people with different experiences or from different sides of conflict understood intergroup apology and forgiveness. However, the meaningfulness of apology-forgiveness cycles was impaired by mistrust in the sincerity of apologies and by strong differences in opinions about preconditions for intergroup apology and forgiveness between two ethnic groups. Our results show that an outright apology and forgiveness may not be necessary for the communities that suffered mutual massive violence. Rather, exchange of mutual social gestures showing readiness for contact and moving on with everyday living could be more constructive ways for community social reconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Links between competitive victimhood and discrimination are well documented. However, the mechanisms how victimhood beliefs remain relevant for decades and how conflict survivors can shape attitudes and behaviours of the post‐conflict generations are little understood. Following the Transgenerational Transmission Hypothesis and the Integrated Threat Theory, we propose that the link between parental competitive victimhood and discrimination among their children is mediated through family ethnic socialization and symbolic threat to the in‐group. Participants were families that included youth (N = 227) and their parents (172 mothers, 150 fathers) in Vukovar, Croatia. A multiple group, chain mediation model was conducted with parental competitive victimhood as the predictor; youth ethnic socialization and symbolic threat as sequential mediators; and youth tendency to discriminate against the outgroup and perceived ethnic in‐group discrimination as outcomes. The findings revealed significant indirect effects of the competitive victimhood on both outcomes, via the proposed mediators. The only difference in the model between majority Croats and minority Serbs was the path from symbolic threat to tendency to discriminate, which was positive and significant for both groups, but stronger among Croats. The findings imply that interventions in post‐conflict settings need to address family ethnic socialization processes in addition to directly working with youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing motorized transport has a number of positive effects on the environment and the quality of human life. Studies that provide better understanding of factors relevant to the choice of transport modes can help in creating campaigns to encourage use of environmentally friendly transport. The main goal of this study was to test the usefulness of the Theory of planned behavior (TPB), with the addition of personal norm, in predicting the intention of commuting by bicycle to university among students in Zagreb, Croatia. The data were obtained from 712 students at the University of Zagreb using an on-line survey. The results show that students mostly used public transport to go to university and that cycling is the second most common choice. The frequency of bicycle use differed due to the distance between the university and participant's home. Bicycle use first increased with the distance and then dropped at the category from 2 to 5km when it started to decrease and was the least frequent at distances longer than 10 km. All TPB components were significant predictors and explained 55% of the variance in intention of commuting by bicycle. Adding personal norm to the components of TPB made a small but significant contribution in explaining variance of the intention (additional 2%) at the same time personal norm was the weakest predictor. Practical and theoretical implications of the results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]