ArticlePDF Available

Stress and depression as pathways between violent conflict exposure and moral beliefs: Why people sometimes condone “bad” things.

March 2022
Peace and Conflict Journal of Peace Psychology 28(2)

DOI:10.1037/pac0000603

Authors:

Anastasiia Timmer

California State University, Northridge

Robert J Johnson

University of Miami

Olena Antonaccio

University of Miami

Ekaterina Botchkovar

Northeastern University

Content uploaded by Ekaterina Botchkovar

Content may be subject to copyright.

Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology

Stress and Depression as Pathways Between Violent Conflict Exposure and

Moral Beliefs: Why People Sometimes Condone “Bad” Things

Anastasiia Timmer, Robert J. Johnson, Olena Antonaccio, and Ekaterina V. Botchkovar

Online First Publication, March 24, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pac0000603

CITATION

Timmer, A., Johnson, R. J., Antonaccio, O., & Botchkovar, E. V. (2022, March 24). Stress and Depression as Pathways

Between Violent Conflict Exposure and Moral Beliefs: Why People Sometimes Condone “Bad” Things. Peace and Conflict:

Journal of Peace Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pac0000603

Stress and Depression as Pathways Between Violent Conﬂict Exposure and

Moral Beliefs: Why People Sometimes Condone “Bad”Things

Anastasiia Timmer

, Robert J. Johnson

, Olena Antonaccio

, and Ekaterina V. Botchkovar

Department of Criminology and Justice Studies, California State University, Northridge

Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of Miami

School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University

Sometimes nations at war have the support of their citizens, at other times, civilians with little tolerance for

human casualties and violence demand peaceful solutions. This study examines why moral attitudes can

erode during violent conﬂicts and what factors may explain how it happens. Using a random sample of

civilians in a vulnerable lower- and middle-income country, Ukraine, we explore the consequences of

exposure to a prolonged war. Speciﬁcally, we assess the relationship between vicarious war exposure and

moral beliefs about violence subsequently including daily stressors and depressive symptoms as potential

pathways between them. We ﬁnd that civilians who report more vicarious exposure to an ongoing war are

less likely to disapprove of violence. Daily stressors and depression further serve as important pathways

linking war exposure to moral beliefs about violence. Our study illustrates the need for appropriate mental

health services, stress management, and other critical interventions to help populations experiencing war

and other traumatic occurrences. It also suggests that future studies should pay particular attention to how

vital life events affect individual beliefs and attitudes.

Public Signiﬁcance Statement

Vicarious exposure to violent conﬂicts (e.g., hearing and reading about traumatic war events on the

news, social media) erodes moral beliefs, making violence more acceptable among civilians. Daily

stressors and depression explain the inﬂuence of war exposure on moral beliefs. Therefore, there need to

be nuanced peacemaking strategies focused on improving the daily lives and health of those living in

vulnerable countries embroiled in violent conﬂicts, such as Ukraine.

Keywords: war, violent conﬂict, moral beliefs, mental health, Ukraine

War exposure is a traumatic experience that has enduring effects

on any population. Military conﬂicts are associated with the loss of

human lives, personal injuries, health problems, ﬁnancial and family

strains, stigma, psychosocial adjustment issues, changes in decision-

making processes, and a multitude of other problems around the

world (Akello et al., 2010;Betancourt et al., 2010;Cairns, 1987;

Cummings et al., 2017;Dubow et al., 2009;Morina et al., 2011;

Schiffer et al., 2020). Just as importantly, violent conﬂicts may

involve dehumanization of the enemy and desensitization to the pain

and suffering of others, both theorized to be preceded by moral

disengagement (Bandura, 1999;Bandura et al., 1975). Unsurpris-

ingly, empirical literature indicates that major traumatic events and

victimization may have substantial effects on different aspects of

morality (Ferguson & Cairns, 1996;Rosler & Branscombe, 2020;

Soares et al., 2018). For example, in the context of war, people could

be more likely to accept violence as the norm and perceive destruc-

tive actions in the form of violence as serving moral purposes

(Bandura, 1999;McAlister et al., 2006). In fact, the indiscriminate,

yet persistent, violence experienced in wartime may promote lasting

changes in moral values not only among veterans, but also civilians.

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Anastasiia Timmer https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6523-5711

ANASTASIIA TIMMER is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Crimi-

nology and Justice Studies at California State University, Northridge.

Anastasiia Timmer is a global crime and justice researcher. She focuses

on causes of crime and violence in different countries and the role of mental

health and trauma in crime and criminal justice outcomes.

ROBERT J. JOHNSON is a Professor of Sociology at the University of

Miami. He has research interests in the sociology of health, mental health,

the life course, trauma, and the structure of multiple antecedents

and consequences of health and illness.

OLENA ANTONACCIO is a Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the

University of Miami. Her interests include theory testing and development,

comparative criminology, and applications of sociological and criminologi-

cal theories to cybercrime.

EKATERINA V. BOTCHKOVAR is an Associate Professor of Criminology and

Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. Her interests include global

criminology, criminological theory testing, and comparative criminology.

This work was supported by the grants from University of Miami and

Northeastern University.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Anastasiia

Timmer, Department of Criminology and Justice Studies, California State

University, Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff Street, Sierra Hall, Northridge, CA

91330, United States. Email: anastasiia.timmer@csun.edu

Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology

ISSN: 1078-1919 https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000603

It is reasonable to conclude that, as violence becomes acceptable, it

is more difﬁcult to establish peace, promote health, and recover from

war trauma. As such, understanding and addressing the complex

processes altering people’s moral beliefs about violence are crucial

for developing better policies and peacemaking strategies in war and

postwar contexts.

Although prior studies point to the connection between war

experiences and different aspects of morality (Cairns, 1996;

DiPietro, 2019;Ferguson & Cairns, 1996,2002), there are still

gaps in the literature integrating major theoretical perspectives in

medical sociology and social psychology to outline and explain the

complex links between vicarious exposure, daily stressors, depres-

sion, and moral beliefs. Moreover, there is scarce research on how

and why war exposure and moral beliefs are related in vulnerable

countries currently embroiled in violent conﬂicts, such as Ukraine.

Using data from random household samples from two major

Ukrainian cities and drawing on the important aspects of the stress

process model (Pearlin, 1989) and the theoretical framework of war

and moral beliefs (Bandura, 1999;Bandura et al., 1975), we focus

on less explored links between war experiences and civilian moral

beliefs. Considering the stress process model is comprehensive and

difﬁcult to fully test in one paper (Aneshensel & Mitchell, 2014), we

speciﬁcally address its two important but understudied components.

First, we focus on vicarious war exposure, because vicarious

exposure to critical life events has been argued to be an inﬂuential

form of trauma requiring more scholarly attention (Cougle et al.,

2012;Johnson et al., 2017). Vicarious exposure may involve

watching war-related traumatic events on the news and social media,

reading about them, and hearing from those who experienced them

in a war zone. Second, we incorporate the concept of moral beliefs

about violence as the outcome (Bandura, 1999;McAlister et al.,

2006). Although various traumatic life events have been theorized to

push individuals to redeﬁne their concepts of right and wrong

(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984;Pearlin, 1989), these theoretical pre-

mises have yet to be comprehensively tested in different sociocul-

tural contexts. Finally, further drawing on the stress process model,

we frame the role of daily stressors and depressive symptoms as

important intervening links between vicarious war exposure and

moral beliefs. Overall, our study provides an extension and a more

comprehensive model that links unique forms of stressors and moral

beliefs in the context of a contemporary violent conﬂict in Ukraine

(2014–ongoing).

Literature Review

The Detrimental Consequences of War

To date, literature has underscored a variety of negative con-

sequences of past and ongoing violent conﬂicts. Both veterans and

civilians have been found to experience trauma and mental health

disorders including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, sui-

cidal ideation, psychological distress, anxiety, addictions as well as

psychopathological and neuropsychological deﬁcits (Cairns &

Darby, 1998;Cairns et al., 1995;Dieter & Engel, 2019;Ferry

et al., 2010;McLafferty et al., 2016;Rozanov et al., 2019;

Turnip et al., 2010). Individuals from countries engulfed in violent

conﬂicts also tend to suffer from high levels of physical and

communicable diseases (Hoefﬂer, 2008;Maia et al., 2011).

Wars and violent conﬂicts further change societal structure by

generating more female-headed households, intergenerational

poverty, and social inequalities (Buvinic et al., 2012;Justino,

2007). Moreover, exposure to violent conﬂicts has been found to

increase behavioral problems among children (Cairns, 1987,

1990;Keresteš,2006) and violent and aggressive behaviors

among adults including civilians and combatants (Castano

et al., 2020;Catani, 2010;Gartner & Kennedy, 2018;Saile

et al., 2014). For example, focusing on combatants from four

conﬂict-ridden countries, a recent study by Castano et al. (2020)

reveals that those who have been exposed to such extreme

stressor as victimization are also more likely to engage in viola-

tions of international humanitarian law including different vio-

lent actions toward other people. Furthermore, there are also

numerous collateral consequences of violent conﬂicts. For

instance, children whose parents have experienced war or violent

conﬂict including those who have been deployed tend to suffer

from different mental health problems (Forrest et al., 2018;Lester

& Flake, 2013). It is important to note that war exposure does not

affect everyone equally as certain social contexts as well as social

groups including children and women can be particularly sus-

ceptible to the effect of violent conﬂicts (Cairns, 1987;Cairns &

Wilson, 1985;Cummings et al., 2011,2017;Fields, 2013;Joseph

et al., 1993).

Notably, the development of media and technology has changed

the world in many ways including the manner in which violent

conﬂicts inﬂuence societies (Rozanov et al., 2019). Individual

exposure to armed conﬂicts vicariously, via television and social

media, in near real time creates strong feelings of anxiety and

instability globally (Rozanov et al., 2019). Researchers underscore

various detrimental consequences of such exposure to violent

conﬂicts around the world (Hopwood & Schutte, 2017;Kira

et al., 2008;Lerman et al., 2013;Silver et al., 2013). For example,

Cairns and colleagues have noted that exposure to television news

about violent conﬂict can change violence perceptions and aware-

ness levels among children in Northern Ireland (Cairns, 1987,

pp. 42–43; 1990;Cairns et al., 1980). Focusing on the Iraq war,

Kira et al. (2008) have revealed that exposure to media news about

the war has a strong inﬂuence on the mental and physical health of

civilians. Overall, this research demonstrates that vicarious exposure

to violent conﬂicts is associated with detrimental life outcomes. Yet,

there is still a gap in the literature examining the inﬂuence of

vicarious exposure on moral beliefs about violence. Speciﬁcally,

to our knowledge, no research has focused on the complex links

between vicarious war exposure and moral beliefs during the

contemporary violent conﬂict taking place in a vulnerable country

of Ukraine.

The Role of Violent Conﬂicts in Moral Attitudes and

Development

One of the critical consequences of war exposure is changes in

people’s moral beliefs and attitudes. Empirical literature points to

the existence of a relationship between violent conﬂicts and different

aspects of morality including the degree to which people view

violence as acceptable (DiPietro, 2019;Lorenc & Branthwaite,

1986). In-depth interviews with veterans reveal that exposure to

intense human suffering and cruelty in the course of military duty

has changed their core moral beliefs. Of particular salience are such

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

2TIMMER, JOHNSON, ANTONACCIO, AND BOTCHKOVAR

events as personal exposure to disproportionate violence, incidents

involving civilians, and news media and family members/friends

sharing war-related stories including visual images of death and

carnage, especially of women and children (Drescher et al., 2011;

Ferrajão & Oliveira, 2015a,2015b;Nash & Litz, 2013). In a similar

vein, DiPietro (2019), drawing on life history data, ﬁnds that certain

groups of Bosnian war male refugees and nationals have justiﬁed

and normalized the use of violence.

Finally, several recent quantitative studies have also examined the

relationship between traumatic events and certain aspects of moral-

ity. Using a sample of 1,449 Americans, McAlister et al. (2006) ﬁnd

that those exposed to September 11 terrorist attacks are more likely

to morally justify military attacks on other countries. Studies also

ﬁnd that terrorism-related trauma increases the support for political

violence in Israel (Hobfoll et al., 2006;Johnson et al., 2009).

Focusing on terrorist attacks, Michalski (2019) also points to the

idea of moralistic violence in various contexts and notes that certain

groups can justify their existence or behavior as the opposition to

other groups. Furthermore, focusing on the 2014 Gaza War, Zipris et

al. (2019) underscore the role of emotions as potential links between

war and support for militancy.

Another body of research has focused on moral development and

reasoning, particularly of children and youth who have been

exposed to violent conﬂicts (Cairns, 1996;Elbedour et al., 1997;

Ferguson & Cairns, 1996,2002). The ﬁndings regarding the rela-

tionship between violent conﬂicts and moral development have been

mixed. For example, whereas Ferguson and Cairns (1996) illustrate

the adverse effects of living in a midst of violent conﬂict on moral

maturity of children and adolescents, Ferfuson and Cairns (2002)

ﬁnd that youth exposed to violent conﬂict have not experienced

issues related to moral development. Some studies also report the

opposite effects suggesting that children residing in areas of North-

ern Ireland with more violence have had higher levels of moral

development than those in areas with less violence (see

Breslin, 1982).

Because the relationship between exposure to violent conﬂicts

and different life outcomes is complex (Cairns, 1987;Cummings et

al., 2017;Dawes, 1990), there is the need for more studies on the

consequences of violent conﬂicts with the focus on speciﬁc theo-

retical mechanisms underlying these relationships and explicating

“how”and “why”(Cummings et al., 2017;DiPietro, 2016;Dubow

et al., 2009;McLernon et al., 2014). It is particularly important to

examine such aspects of morality as moral beliefs about violence as

this domain has not received full attention in prior literature and has

yet to be studied in some social contexts with ongoing violent

conﬂicts, such as Ukraine.

Theoretical Framework

War and Moral Beliefs

Morality is commitment to beliefs discriminating between right

and wrong (Bandura et al., 1975). Whereas generations of social

scientists have emphasized its overall importance to social organi-

zations and understanding of human behavior (e.g., Durkheim,

1951/1897), Pearlin (1988) calls for examination of the moral value

component within the stress process paradigm, prompting us to

focus speciﬁcally on the relationship between war exposure as a

unique stressor and moral attitudes. Several theoretical perspectives

hint at the existence of the relationship between war exposure and

moral beliefs about violence.

First, Bandura (1991,1999) recognizes the importance of envi-

ronmental factors in deﬁning and changing moral values. As moral

agency develops, people actively construct the standards of right and

wrong serving as guidelines and deterrents for their conduct includ-

ing violence. The moral self, inﬂuenced by the context in which it

develops, encompasses self-organizing, proactive, self-reﬂective,

and self-regulative processes. The moral agency of individuals is

thus revealed in the ability to refrain from acting inhumanely (e.g.,

violently) and the proactive power to act humanely. In Bandura’s

theoretical framework, war is a structural condition that places

severe limitations on the ability of individuals to control their lives

pushing them toward moral disengagement (Bandura, 1999). In the

state of moral disengagement, violent conduct is often made per-

sonally and socially acceptable by portraying it as serving socially

worthy or morally justiﬁed purposes.

In addition, war can also morally injure individuals when they

participate in or witness “inhumane or cruel actions failing to

prevent [them]”(Litz et al., 2009, p. 700). Moral injury is a state

of cognitive dissonance and loss of faith in previously deeply held

beliefs and expectations about own or others’ability to conform to

moral rules (Nash & Litz, 2013). Those “morally injured”in

wartime may lose their moral compass, eventually ﬁnding violence

to be more and more acceptable.

The Role of Daily Stressors

To address the role of major life events in people’s lives, Pearlin et

al. (1981) introduced the stress process model. According to them,

various adverse life events and conditions (e.g., divorce, job loss)

can be understood as stressors that affect people mentally and

physically and increase the likelihood of different health problems

(Pearlin, 1989;Pearlin et al., 1981). Drawing on Pearlin’s (1989)

framework, war exposure can be conceptualized as a primary

stressor, which adversely restructures social and economic condi-

tions of life (Pedersen, 2002;Zipris et al., 2019). During war, people

may witness violence, lose their loved ones, live in fear, get

forcefully displaced, have their property destroyed, and experience

other traumatic war-related events (Akello et al., 2010;Cohen,

2018;Kwon, 2012;Morina et al., 2011).

Consistent with Pearlin’s (1989) framework, one pathway for the

war exposure (as a major or primary stressor) to detrimentally affect

individual outcomes is through proliferating secondary stressors.

Drawing on the stress process paradigm, we conceptualize war

exposure to be a primary stressor, notably a potentially traumatic

and highly disruptive major life event. Major life events such as

these are “of sufﬁcient magnitude to change the usual activities of

most persons”(Aneshensel & Mitchell, 2014, p. 56). They are

characterized by high severity and are normally “outside of the

range of human experience”(Aneshensel & Mitchell, 2014, p. 61).

On the other hand, daily stressors are day-to-day frustrations, which

are normally less severe and include such stressors as arguments

with people, ﬁnancial concerns, and others. Major life events are

argued to shape and exacerbate daily stressors including economic

hardship, loss of employment, inability to ﬁnish education, inter-

personal conﬂict, social isolation, stigma, and other daily problems

(Miller & Rasmussen, 2010;Vinck & Pham, 2013). Overall,

consistent with the stress process paradigm, major life events and

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

WAR AND MORAL BELIEFS 3

daily stressors are conceptually distinct, and the former is a predictor

of the latter.

Further drawing on this perspective, we argue that daily stressors

that have been created or exacerbated because of war exposure,

including vicarious exposure, may lead to the erosion of individ-

ual moral beliefs. For instance, the chaos of the wartime may

heighten one’s fear of violence and crime, provoke interpersonal

conﬂict, exacerbate ﬁnancial hardship as well as cause many

other daily issues. These chronic secondary stressors encountered

daily may, in turn, negatively affect social relationships that

reinforce moral boundaries. These processes may lead to dis-

counting the effects of one’s actions toward others and the

distortion of their moral meanings (Bandura, 1999). Individuals

might perceive their own harmful actions as excusable, justify

abuse and cruelty, and accept violence as a necessary means to an

end in certain situations.

The Role of Depression

Studies have shown that wars and violent conﬂicts have detri-

mental effects on mental health (Akello et al., 2010;Morina et al.,

2011), with depression being one of the most common mental health

outcomes of war (Hobfoll et al., 2006;Morina et al., 2011). At least

two lines of thought suggest that depression may also mediate the

relationship between war and moral beliefs. On the one hand, those

who are depressed may be prone to experiencing moral emotions

such as guilt, self-blame, and shame (Bortolan, 2017;Pulcu et al.,

2013). Bandura (1999) argues that to avoid such emotions indivi-

duals may refrain from any behaviors that violate their moral

standards. Thus, it is possible that depressed individuals may be

particularly intolerant of violence and perceive it as morally unac-

ceptable because of their propensity to feel guilty about any

misbehavior.

On the other hand, depressive symptoms may lead to social

isolation, resulting in the breakdown of moral beliefs in the absence

of social control (Durkheim, 1951/1897). As a result, individuals

may be less likely to disapprove of violence. In addition, because

daily stressors are a common consequence of major life events

resulting in detrimental mental health outcomes (Avison et al., 2009;

Pearlin & Johnson, 1977), depression may also act as a link between

proliferating daily stressors and weakening moral beliefs.

The Ukrainian Context

Since the collapse of the former Union of Soviet Socialist

Republics (USSR), Ukraine has undergone dramatic socioeconomic

shifts associated with the transition to market economy. In the early

1990s, Ukraine experienced the state of widespread normlessness

and the new “anything goes”mentality, which exacerbated the

preexisting problem of corruption penetrating various spheres of

life (Foglesong & Solomon, 2001). Proliferation of poverty and

social isolation in post-Soviet countries have also contributed to

numerous health issues among Ukrainians (Roberts et al., 2010).

The armed conﬂict in Ukraine began in February 2014 with the

invasion of the country by the troops from Russia, which used the

political instability in Ukraine to annex the Crimea region. Next, the

pro-Russian protests developed in the region of Lugansk and

Donetsk (aka Donbas), further destabilizing the situation and,

with the military support from Russia, the insurgency quickly

developed into a full-blown war (Judah, 2016;Mykhnenko,

2020). Since the beginning of the Donbas conﬂict, there have

been more than 10,000 civilian deaths, more than 1.5 million people

have been dislocated from war zones, and millions of people have

been experiencing other war-related events (Council on Foreign

Relations, 2021).

The two cities, Lviv and Kharkiv, are especially suitable for the

study. They are major regional centers and among the largest

Ukrainian cities most affected by war. Lviv is the biggest city in

Western Ukraine (pop. 728,350), and Kharkiv—in Eastern Ukraine

[pop. 1,450,361] (State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, 2018).

Kharkiv is located next to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of

Ukraine that are controlled by the pro-Russian separatists. Hundreds

of thousands of people ﬂed from the ongoing war to Kharkiv. Lviv

has been one of the primary sources for the government troops and

volunteer battalions ﬁghting the separatists in Donbas. In both cities,

residents have faced various conﬂict-related issues. Overall, given

the timeliness of research on war exposure and moral beliefs, the

current historical context in Ukraine provides an unfortunate yet

opportune place for such an examination. Investigating the theorized

links between war exposure, daily stressors, depression, and moral

beliefs about violence in this unique setting will help establish their

generality.

The Present Study

This study focuses on the role of contemporary war exposure on

civilian moral beliefs in a vulnerable country and, drawing on

theories in social psychology and medical sociology, investigates

the understudied, yet important, pathways linking vicarious war

exposure and shifts in moral beliefs about violence (i.e., the level

of violence disapproval). First, it assesses the effects of vicarious

war exposure on moral beliefs. Second, it investigates the effects of

daily stressors and depression as links between war exposure and

moral beliefs. Major stressors such as war exposure may produce

or exacerbate daily stressors as well as the state of depression,

which, in turn, may alter the levels of individual violence disap-

proval (see Figure 1). Finally, it puts these links to the test using a

random household sample of civilians in two major Ukrainian

cities.

Overall, this study tests the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Higher levels of vicarious war exposure are

associated with weakened moral beliefs (i.e., lower levels of

violence disapproval).

Hypothesis 2: Daily stressors mediate the relationship between

vicarious war exposure and moral beliefs.

Hypothesis 3: Depression mediates the relationship between

vicarious war exposure and moral beliefs.

Hypothesis 4: Daily stressors mediate the relationship between

vicarious war exposure and depression.

Hypothesis 5: Depression mediates the relationship between

daily stressors and moral beliefs.

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

4TIMMER, JOHNSON, ANTONACCIO, AND BOTCHKOVAR

Method

Data and Sample

This study employs survey data collected from respondents in

two large Ukrainian cities, Kharkiv and Lviv, in 2017 using a

multistage stratiﬁed random sampling. The study was reviewed and

approved by the U.S. university Institutional Review Boards.

SOCIOINFORM: Center for Sociological Research, a Ukrainian

research organization with an extensive record of conducting sur-

veys for many international organizations including United Nations,

collected the data. The survey instrument contains items validated in

prior survey of adults in Ukraine conducted by SOCIOINFORM

(e.g., see Antonaccio et al., 2017;Antonaccio & Tittle, 2008) as well

surveys in other cross-national locations (e.g., Hobfoll et al., 2006).

The questionnaire was written in English, translated into Ukrainian

and Russian, and then back translated into English by linguists ﬂuent

in these languages. Finally, the survey was pretested with 50 Lviv

and 50 Kharkiv residents and revised based on those pretests. The

procedures used to obtain our ﬁnal sample are explained below.

Each city was mapped into neighborhoods deﬁned as at least two

parallel or perpendicular streets with a shared playground or similar

area, grocery store, and access to public transportation (70 in Lviv

and 83 in Kharkiv). These neighborhoods were also perceived by

residents to be separate residential areas and informally identiﬁed by

speciﬁc names (e.g., “Rogan”in Kharkiv or “Pidzamche”in Lviv).

This approach is consistent with the deﬁnition of a neighborhood as

a geographical and social subsection of a larger community where

residents share a common sense of identity that persists over time

(Bursik & Grasmick, 1993). Twenty-six neighborhoods in Lviv and

26 neighborhoods in Kharkiv were randomly sampled. Next, eligi-

ble houses and apartments from these 52 neighborhoods were

randomly selected utilizing a stratiﬁed two-stage selection proce-

dure, in which, ﬁrst, street routes within each neighborhood were

randomly selected; and second, along each street route, households

were randomly selected (between 23 and 30 in each neighborhood).

This multistage neighborhood-clustered sampling procedure has

been validated in previous research in Ukraine (e.g., Antonaccio

et al., 2017). Within each sampled household, one adult (18 years

and older) whose birthday was closest to the date of the interview

was selected to participate in the survey. Respondents received

modest ﬁnancial incentives for their participation. Altough most

data from respondents were elicited with face-to-face conﬁdential

interviews, certain sensitive questions including those on moral

beliefs were self-administered and sealed in envelopes by respon-

dents being a few feet away from interviewers.

The ﬁnal sample consisted of 616 respondents in Lviv and 631 in

Kharkiv (n=1,247 total). As is common in household surveys,

selected respondents who could not be interviewed were randomly

replaced. The household replacement rate was generally comparable

to those of other random sample household surveys conducted in

Ukraine (e.g., Antonaccio et al., 2017;Antonaccio & Tittle, 2008).

Reassuring of the representativeness of the samples, all the major

demographic characteristics of our samples, including gender, age,

and marital status, are similar to those of the populations of

respective cities (State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, 2018;

see Appendix A). Only 3% of cases had some missing data allowing

us to use listwise deletion resulting in a ﬁnal analytic sample size

of 1,211.

Measures

Dependent Variable

The index of moral beliefs about violence includes survey items

asking about the acceptability of different types of interpersonal

violent behaviors such as hitting another person on purpose in an

emotional outburst and physically harming or threatening to harm

another person on purpose (see Antonaccio & Tittle, 2008;Brauer &

Tittle, 2017 for similar measures). In addition, the index includes

three survey items assessing respondents’views on political vio-

lence, placing moral attitudes in the context of war and political

conﬂict, and tapping the degree to which civilians ﬁnd political

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Figure 1

Theoretical Model Representing the Relationship Between Vicarious War Exposure, Daily Stressors, Depression,

and Moral Beliefs

WAR AND MORAL BELIEFS 5

violence acceptable (see Hobfoll et al., 2006;Johnson et al., 2009;

Pedahzur et al., 2000 for similar measures). They include statements

on the acceptability of the use of weapons, physical assault on

politicians, and physical violence by the government toward its own

citizens (see Appendix B for the list of items). The response

categories for all ﬁve items were coded in the same direction

with higher index scores indicating higher intolerance or disap-

proval of violence (i.e., stronger moral beliefs).

Our choice of morality index combining interpersonal and politi-

cal violence items was guided by both theoretical and empirical

reasons. Theoretically, it is critical to account for the social context

when creating morality-related measures (see Ferguson et al., 1994).

In the context of war in vulnerable countries, such as Ukraine, moral

beliefs about interpersonal violence may not be particularly distinct

from moral beliefs about political violence. Ukrainians have com-

mon distrust and negative emotions toward their own and other

governments, courts, politicians as well as individuals who oppose

their certain views (Cancio et al., 2020;Korostelina, 2008;Trochev,

2010). This overarching distrust and negative attitudes “make

personal political”and are likely shaped by the long history of

conﬂict with Russia and neighboring countries, the disagreements

among individuals from different regions of Ukraine including the

language conﬂict, and subsequent historical trauma [i.e., trauma

passed through generations] (Cancio et al., 2020;Judah, 2016).

Further, we conducted factor analyses to corroborate our decision to

construct a measure encompassing both attitudes toward interper-

sonal and political violence. The principle component analyses

revealed that all factor loadings on a ﬁxed-single factor were

high (above .6), which is well above the acceptable threshold

(Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). This index also had a high reliability

of .7 supporting our decision to use the combined index in the

context of these analyses.

Independent Variables

Vicarious War Exposure. Because most civilians are exposed

to war vicariously and research has recently underscored the impor-

tance of addressing detrimental vicarious events as a unique form of

trauma (Cougle et al., 2012;Johnson et al., 2017), we constructed an

additive index comprised of multiple types of vicarious war expo-

sure. They include the frequency of hearing accounts, witnessing

media portrayal, or reading about violence related to the Crimea and

Donbas armed conﬂict (see Pfefferbaum et al., 2001 for similar

measures). Response categories range from 1 (never)to4(many

times; see Appendix B for the list of items). Cumulative indices

representing factors related to such life events are not expected to

have internal homogeneity (Hobfoll et al., 2009) because experienc-

ing one kind of exposure or life event does not necessarily mean that

another kind will occur.

Daily Stressors. Following prior research (Almeida et al.,

2002;Keles et al., 2016), we created an additive index including

12 survey items tapping various stressors Ukrainian residents

experience in their everyday life. Those daily stressors include

ﬁnancial, work, and family concerns, being affected by rude beha-

viors as well as stressors speciﬁcally occurring because of the

Donbas conﬂict (see Appendix B for the list of items). Responses

were recoded to range from 1 (never)to5(very often) and summed

into a cumulative index with higher scores indicating more daily

stressors (α=.8).

Depression. Depression is an established measure operationa-

lized as a 9-item additive scale of depression symptoms (Kroenke

et al., 2001). Respondents were asked about the extent to which,

during the past 2 weeks, they had been bothered by certain problems

including little interest or pleasure in doing things; feeling low,

depressed, or hopeless; trouble falling or staying asleep or sleeping

too much; and feeling bad about themselves (see Appendix B for the

list of items). Response categories range from 1 (not at all)to4(a

very great degree), with higher scores indicating higher levels of

depression (α=.8).

Control Variables

Following prior research in Ukraine, we incorporated several

control variables indicative of individual social positions and ante-

cedent or related to the examined concepts (Antonaccio & Tittle,

2008;Antonaccio et al., 2017).These variables include age (in years)

and a series of dummy variables as follows: gender (female; male—

reference group); ethnicity (Russian; Other; Ukrainian—reference

group); city (Lviv; Kharkiv—reference group); marital status (mar-

ried; living with a partner, divorced/widowed/separated; single—

reference group); and employment status (employed full-time; not

employed full-time—reference group). We also included the level of

respondent’s education measured on the scale from 1 (incomplete

secondary) to 6 (graduate degree). Finally, we measured personal

religiosity by asking about the extent to which respondents consider

themselves religious ranging from 1 (not religious at all)to5(very

religious). Descriptive statistics for all variables are displayed in

Table 1.

Analytic Strategy

We conducted a series of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression

analyses in STATA software to test the relationships between

vicarious war exposure, daily stressors, depressive symptoms,

and moral beliefs about violence (the dependent variable is rela-

tively normally distributed). In all models, standard errors were

adjusted for clustering by neighborhoods. No multicollinearity was

detected in any of the models (all variance inﬂation factors [VIFs]

were <2.3). Further, we followed the steps discussed by Baron and

Kenny (1986) to test the mediating effects of daily stressors and

depressive symptoms. The speciﬁc steps we took for each of the

mediating paths are described in the Results section. Further, to

evaluate whether mediating effects are signiﬁcant, we used the test

of mediation employing the KHB method developed by Karlson,

Holm, and Breen (Karlson & Holm, 2011). This method permits

empirical assessment of the relative magnitudes and signiﬁcance of

direct and indirect effects. In addition, the Hayes PROCESS method

was used to corroborate the results on mediating effects (Hayes,

2017). Conducting additional mediation tests permitted to further

specify our models and overcome certain challenges related to

Baron and Kenny’s approach (see Hayes, 2009 for more details).

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

We conducted additional factor analyses to verify empirically that

vicarious exposure and daily stressors are distinct concepts. Both the rotated

and unrotated principal component factor analyses showed that the four

vicarious exposure items formed a single component, whereas the 12 daily

stressors’items—separate component. These analyses support the premise

that, consistent with the stress process paradigm, war exposure and daily

stressors are distinct theoretical constructs.

6TIMMER, JOHNSON, ANTONACCIO, AND BOTCHKOVAR

Finally, to account for potential differences based on the respon-

dents’location, we examined whether there were any differences

between Lviv and Kharkiv using interaction terms incorporating city

in each of our models. We found no signiﬁcant differences by city

and, consistent with prior research that focused on similar samples

(see Antonaccio et al., 2017), we chose to present our ﬁndings from

a merged sample controlling for a city of residence.

Results

Table 1 reveals that an average respondent is an ethnic Ukrainian,

married, 46 years old, attended some college, and is moderately

religious. Females constitute 56% of the sample. Further, our sample

is, on average, characterized by mild depression (the score is about

6.3 when rescaling to Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9).

Next, bivariate correlations show signiﬁcant negative correlations

between our main independent variables (vicarious war exposure,

daily stressors, and depressive symptoms) and moral beliefs about

violence (see Appendix C).

Model 1 in Table 2 presents regression coefﬁcients evaluating the

direct effect of vicarious war exposure on moral beliefs. Overall, the

results demonstrate support for Hypothesis 1. Vicarious war expo-

sure weakens moral beliefs about violence among Ukrainian civi-

lians. Speciﬁcally, 1-unit increase in vicarious war exposure

produces .147 units decrease in moral beliefs, CI [−.276, −.018].

As to effects of other variables, women, older, and married or

divorced/widowed/separated people have signiﬁcantly stronger

moral beliefs about violence than men, younger, and single people,

respectively. Finally, Lviv residents score signiﬁcantly lower on

moral beliefs than Kharkiv residents.

To investigate the mediation effects, we, ﬁrst, illustrate the

signiﬁcant link between vicarious war exposure and mediating

variables (Baron & Kenny, 1986). Relevant ﬁgures shown in Table 3

reveal that vicarious war exposure is signiﬁcantly related to both

mediators, daily stressors, b=.811; p<.001; CI [.532, 1.090], and

depressive symptoms, b=.209; p<.01; CI [.060, .359], in the

expected direction (Table 3, Models 1 and 2). Speciﬁcally, higher

levels of vicarious war exposure correspond to higher levels of daily

stressors, and higher levels of vicarious war exposure correspond to

higher levels of depressive symptoms, net of all controls. In addi-

tion, results reveal that women report higher levels of daily stressors

and depressive symptoms than men. Furthermore, compared to their

counterparts, those who are married and have higher levels of

education are signiﬁcantly less likely to be depressed. Finally,

respondents of Russian ethnicity are signiﬁcantly less likely to be

depressed than Ukrainians (Table 3, Model 3).

Next, we assess whether mediators are signiﬁcantly related to

moral beliefs. Model 2 in Table 2 displays the results from the

regression models estimating the effect of daily stressors on moral

beliefs about violence. Daily stressors are signiﬁcantly related to

moral beliefs about violence in the expected direction. Higher levels

of exposure to daily stressors correspond to weaker moral beliefs,

b=−.132; p<.001; CI [−.179, −.085]. Model 3 in Table 2 shows a

negative relationship between depression and moral beliefs about

violence, with the regression coefﬁcient indicating that higher levels

of depressive symptoms correspond to lower levels of moral beliefs,

b=−.175; p<.001; CI [−.241, −.108].

Finally, we present the results illustrating the effects of vicarious

war exposure and mediators on moral beliefs (Table 2, Models 2–4).

Model 2 shows the effect of vicarious war exposure on moral beliefs

about violence when daily stressors are included, Model 3 shows the

effect of vicarious war exposure on moral beliefs about violence

when depression is included, and Model 4 shows the effect of

vicarious war exposure on moral beliefs about violence with both

daily stressors and depressive symptoms included. Overall, we can

observe a decrease in coefﬁcients of vicarious war exposure when

mediators are included in the model. These ﬁgures show that, once

the measure of daily stressors is included, the coefﬁcient for

vicarious war exposure decreases from −.147 (Model 1) to

−.040 (Model 2; Hypothesis 2). When depressive symptoms are

included, the coefﬁcient for vicarious war exposure decreases from

−.147 (Model 1) to −.111 (Model 3; Hypothesis 3). When both

mediators are included in the model, the coefﬁcient for vicarious war

exposure decreases from −.147 (Model 1) to −.043 (Model 4).

Moreover, the coefﬁcient for vicarious war exposure loses signiﬁ-

cance in each of the models when the mediators are included,

suggesting full mediation through these intervening pathways. As

to the effects of control variables, when daily stressors and depres-

sive symptoms are accounted for, higher levels of moral beliefs are

found among females, older people, married, divorced/widowed/

separated, and those with higher levels of religiosity and from

Kharkiv.

We used the same method to assess whether daily stressors

mediate the relationship between vicarious war exposure and

depression (Hypothesis 4) and whether depressive symptoms medi-

ate the relationship between daily stressors and moral beliefs

(Hypothesis 5). The ﬁgures from Models 2 and 4 in Table 3

show that the signiﬁcant effect of vicarious war exposure in Model

2 becomes nonsigniﬁcant in Model 4 when the measure of daily

stressors is included providing support for Hypothesis 4. Further-

more, the ﬁgures from Models 2 and 4 in Table 2 show a decreased

effect of the measure of daily stressors when depressive symptoms

are incorporated providing support for Hypothesis 5. Results from

regression analyses illustrated in Tables 2 and 3are also summarized

in Figure 2.

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics of Independent and Dependent Variables

(N =1,211)

Variable MSDMin Max

Moral beliefs 19.973 3.682 8 25

Vicarious war exposure 10.706 2.570 4 16

Daily stressors 28.938 7.349 12 58

Depression 15.291 4.674 9 36

Female .557 .497 0 1

Age 45.547 17.304 18 94

Ukrainian (ref) .870 .337 0 1

Russian .106 .308 0 1

Other .025 .155 0 1

Single (ref) .208 .406 0 1

Married .522 .500 0 1

Living with a partner .038 .191 0 1

Divorced/widowed/separated .232 .422 0 1

Education 3.842 1.227 1 6

Religiosity 3.191 .955 1 5

Employed .496 .500 0 1

Lviv .495 .500 0 1

WAR AND MORAL BELIEFS 7

Next, in support of Hypothesis 2, results from the KHB mediation

analyses presented in Model 1a, Table 4, show that daily stressors

produce the largest mediating effect (61% mediated between vicari-

ous war exposure and moral beliefs). Depressive symptoms fail to

signiﬁcantly mediate the link between vicarious war exposure and

moral beliefs when daily stressors are included as a covariate, thus

not conﬁrming the support for Hypothesis 3 (Model 2a). Yet, as

shown in Model 3a, when both daily stressors and depression are

included in the model, they account for 56% and 15% of the

mediated effect of war exposure on moral beliefs, respectively.

Finally, daily stressors mediate the effect of vicarious war exposure

on depression (Model 4a) and depression mediates the effect of daily

stressors on moral beliefs about violence (Model 5a). Next, we

estimated the Hayes PROCESS mediation models (Hayes, 2017)to

corroborate our ﬁnding on the proposed mediating links. Overall,

results from these models shown in Table 4 conﬁrm all ﬁndings

supported by the KHB mediation analyses. Moreover, they reveal

that the effect of vicarious exposure on moral beliefs is serially

mediated by daily stressors and depression with three relevant

mediation pathways (one serial and two simple) reported in Models

3b, 4b, and 5b, respectively. The ﬁgures from Model 3b conﬁrm that

the indirect pathway of the effect of vicarious war exposure on

morality via serial mediation (vicarious war exposure →daily

stressors →depression →moral beliefs) is signiﬁcant. Along

with one signiﬁcant indirect effect mediated only via daily stressors

(Model 1b), these pathways fully account for the any signiﬁcant

impact of vicarious war exposure on moral beliefs, with the direct

effect no longer signiﬁcant.

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Table 2

Regression Coefﬁcients Representing the Direct Effects of Vicarious War Exposure, Daily Stressors, and Depression on Moral Beliefs

(N =1,211)

Independent variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Vicarious war exposure −.147*−.040 −.111 −.043

(.064)

[−.276, −.018]

(.066)

[−.173, .092]

(.060)

[−.232, .011]

(.064)

[−.172, .085]

Daily stressors —−.132*** —−.101***

—(.024)

[−.179, −.085]

—(.023)

[−.148, −.054]

Depression ——

−.175*** −.107**

——(.033)

[−.241, −.108]

(.032)

[−.171, −.042]

Female 1.043*** 1.227*** 1.180*** 1.268***

(.190)

[.661, 1.425]

(.179)

[.867, 1.587]

(.190)

[.799, 1.561]

(.181)

[.904, 1.631]

Age .027*** .023*** .028*** .025***

(.007)

[.014, .040]

(.006)

[.010, .036]

(.007)

[.015, .042]

(.006)

[.012, .038]

Russian .120

(.362)

−.001

(.369)

−.019

(.351)

−.058

(.359)

[−.606, .846] [−.742, .740] [−.724, .686] [−.778, .663]

Other .586 .343 .539 .371

(.541)

[−.500, 1.672]

(.524)

[−.709, 1.395]

(.588)

[−.643, 1.720]

(.550)

[−.732, 1.475]

Married .676*.709*.545 .621*

(.319)

[.036, 1.316]

(.289)

[.129, 1.289]

(.302)

[−.061, 1.151]

(.289)

[.040, 1.202]

Living with a partner −.026 −.105 −.128 −.149

(.461)

[−.952, .899]

(.423)

[−.955, .745]

(.414)

[−.959, .702]

(.407)

[−.966, .668]

Divorced/widowed/separated .793*

(.328)

.819*

(.311)

.688*

(.314)

.749*

(.309)

[.135, 1.451] [.197, 1.443] [.059, 1.318] [.129, 1.369]

Education .119 .092 .066 .066

(.104)

[−.090, .329]

(.096)

[−.101, .285]

(.100)

[−.135, .268]

(.096)

[−.127, .259]

Religiosity .237 .284*.287*.304**

(.123)

[−.011, .485]

(.114)

[.054, .514]

(.111)

[.064, .511]

(.109)

[.085, .523]

Employed −.306 −.282 −.286 −.275

(.243)

[−.793, .182]

(.221)

[−.726, .162]

(.218)

[−.723, .151]

(.212)

[−.702, .151]

Lviv −1.406** −1.671*** −1.485*** −1.657***

(.407)

[−2.224, −.589]

(.380)

[−2.435, −.907]

(.370)

[−2.229, −.742]

(.362)

[−2.384, −.930]

.129 .192 .177 .206

Note. Unstandardized coefﬁcient; standard errors in parentheses; 95% conﬁdence intervals.

*p<.05. ** p<.01. *** p<.001; two-tailed.

8TIMMER, JOHNSON, ANTONACCIO, AND BOTCHKOVAR

Finally, because our index of daily stressors includes Donbas

conﬂict-speciﬁc items, which can possibly inﬂate the estimates of

the relevant mediating effect, we reestimated our model excluding

these war-related items from the measure of daily stressors. The

results including the index containing only non-war-related stressors

were consistent with our main ﬁndings (available upon request).

Discussion

Our study addresses an important detrimental consequence of war

exposure—erosion of moral beliefs among civilians occurring amid

an ongoing war in Ukraine. Although civilians might not be directly

exposed to war events, consistent with past research (Cairns, 1990;

Cairns et al., 1980;Hopwood & Schutte, 2017;Kira et al., 2008),

our results suggest that vicarious war exposure including watching

war-related news and hearing about war may have harmful effects

on people’s lives. Further, our study contributes to the literature by

illustrating the link between vicarious war exposure and moral

beliefs about violence in the Ukrainian context. Lviv and Kharkiv,

the two cities examined in this research, are not currently directly

exposed to the military conﬂict. However, their residents are

repeatedly exposed to war by frequently watching news, browsing

the internet, and hearing the accounts of veterans and others

returning from war and moving to these cities from the Donbas

war zone. The war events in Ukraine are also accompanied by

interpersonal tensions based on language differences, heightened

emotions, misunderstanding, pain, and trauma (Cancio et al., 2020;

Judah, 2016). In this environment, individuals residing in Ukraine

may develop lower levels of moral beliefs about violence and

perceive violence as a defense mechanism against the harmful

actions of others. These ﬁndings show that the war context may

promote moral disengagement, and thus support the theoretical

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Table 3

Regression Coefﬁcients Representing the Effect of Vicarious War Exposure on Daily Stressors and Depression, and Daily Stressors on

Depression (N =1,211)

Independent variable

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Daily stressors Depression Depression Depression

Vicarious war exposure .811*** .209** —−.026

(.139)

[.532, 1.090]

(.074)

[.060, .359]

—(.054)

[−.135, .083]

Daily stressors ——

.288*** .290***

——

(.022)

[.244, .332]

(.022)

[.246, .335]

Female 1.397** .786*.395 .380

(.435)

[.523, 2.269]

(.298)

[.187, 1.384]

(.273)

[−.153, .943]

(.280)

[−.183, .943]

Age −.028 .010 .018 .018

(.018)

[−.064, .008]

(.012)

[−.013, .033]

(.011)

[−.003, .039]

(.011)

[−.003, .040]

Russian −.917

(.625)

−.798*

(.379)

−.531

(.354)

−.532

(.354)

[−2.172, .339] [−1.559, −.037] [−1.241, .179] [−1.242, .178]

Other −1.843*−.271 .264 .265

(.912)

[−3.674, −.012]

(.843)

[−1.963, 1.421]

(.865)

[−1.473, 2.001]

(.866)

[−1.474, 2.003]

Married .250 −.752*−.831*−.824*

(.579)

[−.911, 1.412]

(.374)

[−1.502, −.002

(.329)

[−1.492, −.171]

(.323)

[−1.472, −.176]

Living with a partner −.597 −.585 −.429 −.411

(1.172)

[−2.950, 1.757]

(.649)

[−1.887, .718]

(0.503)

[−1.439, .581]

(.494)

[−1.404, .581]

Divorced/widowed/separated .201

(.874)

−.600

(.571)

−.666

(0.498)

−.659

(.494)

[−1.553, 1.955] [−1.746, .546] [−1.666, .334] [−1.650, .332]

Education −.207 −.303*−.246*−.243*

(.178)

[−.564, .150]

(.136)

[−.577, −.029]

(.111)

[−.468, −.023]

(.112)

[−.467, −.019]

Religiosity .358 .288 .179 .184

(.246)

[−.137, .853]

(.145)

[−.003, .578]

(.142)

[−.106, .464]

(.145)

[−.107, .475]

Employed .180 .114 .053 .062

(.542)

[−.907, 1.268]

(.332)

[−.551, .780]

(.256)

[−.461, .568]

(.254)

[−.449, .572]

Lviv −2.005*−.451 .100 .132

(.916)

[−3.844, −.167]

(.502)

[−1.459, .558]

(.386)

[−.675, .875]

(.387)

[−.644, .908]

.094 .034 .223 .223

Note. Unstandardized coefﬁcients; standard errors in parentheses; 95% conﬁdence intervals.

*p<.05. ** p<.01. *** p<.001; two-tailed.

WAR AND MORAL BELIEFS 9

premises of Bandura (1999). These results also add to the body of

literature, which suggests the importance of addressing different

aspects of moral beliefs, moral development, and moral reasoning of

those who have been exposed to violent conﬂicts (DiPietro, 2019;

Drescher et al., 2011;Elbedour et al., 1997;Ferguson & Cairns,

1996;Ferrajão & Oliveira, 2015a,2015b).

Further our ﬁndings shed light on complex processes underlying

the relationship between war exposure and moral beliefs and

uncover important mediators of this relationship. First, consistent

with prior research (Miller & Rasmussen, 2010;Pearlin & Johnson,

1977), we ﬁnd a signiﬁcant direct effect of daily stressors on mental

health. Second, we add to the literature by illustrating that daily

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Figure 2

Regression Coefﬁcients Representing the Effects of Vicarious War Exposure on Daily Stressors, Depression, and

Moral Beliefs

Note. This ﬁgure illustrates coefﬁcients from Model 4, Table 2 and Models 1–3, Table 3; solid lines indicate signiﬁcant effects

and dashed lines—nonsigniﬁcant.

Table 4

Results of Mediation Analyses: KHB Test and Hayes PROCESS Model (N =1,211)

Variable

Mediation Models

a. KHB Model

1a. Vicarious war exposure

→daily stressors →moral

beliefs

2a. Vicarious war

exposure →depression

→moral beliefs

3a. Vicarious war exposure

→daily stressors and depression

→moral beliefs

4a. Vicarious war

exposure →daily

stressors →depression

5a. Daily stressors

→depression →

moral beliefs

Coefficient/(SE)/%mediated

Daily stressors −.068***

(.019)

61%

—−.082***

(.023)

56%

.236***

(.044)

112%

—

Depression —.003

(.006)

N/A

−.022*

(.010)

15%

—−.031**

(.010)

23%

b. Hayes PROCESS Model (5,000 bootstrap samples)

1b. Vicarious war exposure

→daily stressors →moral

beliefs

2b. Vicarious war

exposure →depression

→moral beliefs

3b. Vicarious war exposure

→daily stressors →depression

→moral beliefs

4b. Vicarious war

exposure →daily

stressors →depression

5b. Daily stressors

→depression →

moral beliefs

Coefﬁcient/(SE)

Daily stressors −.068***

(.014)

—−.082***

(.016)

.238***

(.029)

—

Depression —.003

(.006)

−.025***

(.007)

—−.031***

(.008)

*p<.05. ** p<.01. *** p<.001; two-tailed.

10 TIMMER, JOHNSON, ANTONACCIO, AND BOTCHKOVAR

stressors serve as an important intervening link between vicarious

war exposure and depression among civilians in Ukraine. Third, our

results demonstrate that daily stressors fully mediate the relationship

between vicarious war exposure and moral beliefs about violence. It

is possible that vicarious war exposure affects some aspects of moral

beliefs of citizens because it creates and exacerbates difﬁcult life

situations and proliferates strain producing high levels of uncer-

tainty. In this research, constant stressors, including ﬁnancial pro-

blems, concerns about the war, discrimination, and other issues,

appear to further normalize the use of violence.

Next, our results support the theoretical arguments positing that

people who report more depressive symptoms are more likely to

perceive violent acts as morally acceptable. It is important to position

this ﬁnding in the unique context of Ukraine. Historically, the

relationship between Ukraine and Russia has been very complex.

Although Ukrainians often perceived Russia as the “brother country,”

they have also been negatively affected by Russia’s anti-Ukrainian

policies and actions (Cancio et al., 2020;Judah, 2016). The most

recent war in Ukraine has further exacerbated the situation, and thus it

is understandable that a signiﬁcant number of people livingin Ukraine

are particularly prone to depression, which affects their moral beliefs.

Furthermore, consistent with our theoretical expectations, we ﬁnd

that those who experience high levels of daily stressors are more

likely to become depressed, which further leads to lower levels of

moral beliefs about violence. These results advance the past research

that hinted at complex mechanisms underlying the relationships

between vicarious war exposure and shifts in morality by uncover-

ing different pathways that can provide explanations of how vicari-

ous war exposure affects mental health and moral beliefs. This

study’sﬁndings also conﬁrm the usefulness of incorporating value-

related concepts, different types of moral values in particular, to

better understand the complex stress process among individuals

exposed to traumatic events such as war and experiencing different

stressors (Pearlin, 1988,1989).

Taken together, the ﬁndings of this study have important policy

implications. Because vicarious war exposure can be intrusive and

affect the moral compass of civilian populations, there need to be more

nuanced peacemaking strategies focused on preventing the erosion of

moral beliefs in vulnerable populations. Designing these successful

interventions requires an in-depth focus on the processes underlying the

war-morality relationship. First, because the proliferation and exacer-

bation of daily stressors is an important pathway to reduced moral

beliefs, policymakers, researchers, and other stakeholders need to work

in tandem to design programs to reduce these stressors among civilians.

Such efforts may involve stress management counseling helping war-

affected people manage their everyday problems including economic

strain, family conﬂict, etc. There is also an urgent need to help

vulnerable civilians cope with depression resulting from war exposure.

Importantly, the delivery of mental health services is not well devel-

oped in Ukraine, and Ukrainians often distrust and feel stigmatized by

mental health professionals (Roberts et al., 2019). Thus, the govern-

ment and health care agencies should collaborate with different

international organizations to improve mental health care in Ukraine

and provide civilians with more information and necessary coping

resources to address their mental health.

However, this study is not without its limitations. First, we use

cross-sectional data making it difﬁcult to ﬁrmly establish the causal

ordering. Therefore, we focus on theoretically important associations

between levels of our independent and dependent variables as

opposed to establishing causality. Yet, we are generally conﬁdent

about the time-order of our variables for several reasons. First, the

proposed relationships are theoretically sound and reasonable in the

context of our data. Second, the results strongly support our model

and, to further conﬁrm their robustness, we tested a nonrecusive

model for effects involving the mediating variables. These results

support our fully recursive theoretical model with depression and

daily stressors as intervening links between vicarious war exposure

and moral beliefs about violence (available upon request). Further-

more, we focused on two cities only vicariously affected by war. This

may underestimate the effect of war, as studies have shown that those

who experience direct war exposure have a very high likelihood of

moral injury (e.g., Ferrajão & Oliveira, 2015a,2015b). Finally, self-

report data may be prone to exaggeration, telescoping, or withholding

information. However, to avoid bias, questions known to be of

sensitive nature (e.g., moral acceptability of violent acts) were

self-administered by the respondents, which has been shown to

improve the accuracy of the information provided.

Despite these limitations, this study signiﬁcantly contributes to

the extant literature by proposing pathways connecting vicarious

war exposure to moral attitudes among civilians in a war-torn

country. Those who are exposed to war events, even vicariously,

experience the exacerbation of daily stressors and further become

depressed, which, in turn, lowers their disapproval of violence. As,

such to promote peace and health of the communities, we need to

target those important stress and health-related links. Moreover, our

study hints on the importance of placing war exposure and moral

beliefs in their unique historical and social contexts, which is

consistent with prior literature recognizing the role of culture in

shaping war trauma (Kwon, 2012).

Overall, our study moves the ﬁeld forward by showing the

importance of developing integrative approaches to better address

the unique consequences of wars and violent conﬂicts in different

sociocultural contexts. We emphasize that war can demoralize the

nation by changing people’s attitudes and beliefs, which can take

place through various pathways reﬂecting daily life and mental

health. Research in sociology, criminology, social psychology, and

other ﬁelds should pay closer attention to different aspects of moral

beliefs and the meanings of such beliefs. Further development of the

theoretical understanding of different dimensions of moral beliefs

and related concepts as well as necessary interventions, including

those addressing mental health, may help reduce societal support for

ongoing violence. Importantly, future studies can elaborate on and

test other aspects of the stress process such as the role of one’s social

background (e.g., gender, ethnicity) in the relationships between

war exposure and moral beliefs. Fear, distrust, and guilt in the

context of war and similar environments could be also some unique

concepts to explore in the future as these concepts have been shown

to change moral cognition and affect other aspects of moral beliefs

(Weiss et al., 2018). In addition, future research should explore the

relationships between war exposure and various aspects of morality

drawing on different approaches. For example, future studies should

focus on the neo-Kohlbergian approach to explore how violent

conﬂicts shape different schemas related to moral judgment includ-

ing personal interest and maintaining norms (Mechler & Thoma,

2013). In addition, considering the expansive impact of violent

conﬂicts and other forms of violence on civilians around the world,

future studies should conduct more cross-national and comparative

analyses of effects of various vital events including police brutality,

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

WAR AND MORAL BELIEFS 11

terrorist attacks, violent political acts, and violence in various social

institutions on moral beliefs.

Another important avenue for future research is considering how

and why war exposure not only leads to the justiﬁcation of violence,

but to actual violent behaviors among different groups. Making steps

in this direction, a recent study of combatants by Castano et al. (2020)

illustrates the link between conﬂict-related victimization and viola-

tions of international humanitarian law including violent actions in

different countries. This ﬁnding is also consistent with the extant

literature in criminology (see Agnew, 2006), which suggests that

major life stressors can lead to violence, largely because they create an

array of negative emotions that individuals desire to “ﬁx”via criminal

and violent behavior. Further, as pointed by Castano et al. (2020),itis

important to address different mediating and moderating mechanisms

(e.g., combatant status, knowledge of the law, self-justiﬁcation

processes) to better explain the relationship between victimization,

past violations of law, and future intentions to violate the law. As

individuals who self-justify the demonization of the enemy are more

likely to violate the law (Castano et al., 2020), it is also important to

further link war-related experiences, justiﬁcation of various violent

actions toward others, and future violent behavior.

Notably, not all individuals who justify and tolerate violence will

engage in violent behavior themselves. As stated by Antonaccio and

Tittle (2008),“there is no necessary correspondence between what

people say about the moral acceptability to them of various acts and

what they actually do”(p. 491). As such, it is critical for future

studies to better understand under which conditions demoralization

will lead to further violent behaviors among civilians and comba-

tants. To accomplish this, there is a need for more interdisciplinary

approaches integrating perspectives in social psychology and crim-

inology to provide a comprehensive explanation of how and why

exposure to war leads to demoralization and violent behavior. For

example, violence becomes more justiﬁed largely due to the belief

that it serves certain important purposes (Bandura, 1999), and

violent behavior can be a result of social learning processes

(Akers, 1998;Bandura & McClelland, 1977), where individuals

exposed to war learn deﬁnitions favorable to violence. By drawing

on and integrating social psychological and criminological perspec-

tives, we can address how people’s perceptions and attitudes as well

as moral and immoral exemplars during the time of war shape

violence. This, in turn, will allow us to develop more nuanced

policies and programs aimed at reducing the erosion of moral beliefs

as well as violent behavior in war-torn social contexts.

References

Agnew, R. (2006). Pressured into crime. Roxbury Publishing.

Akello, G., Reis, R., & Richters, A. (2010). Silencing distressed children in

the context of war in northern Uganda: An analysis of its dynamics and its

health consequences. Social Science & Medicine,71(2), 213–220. https://

doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.03.030

Akers, R. L. (1998). Social structure and social learning. Roxbury Publishing.

Almeida, D. M., Wethington, E., & Kessler, R. C. (2002). The daily

inventory of stressful events: An interview-based approach for measuring

daily stressors. Assessment,9(1), 41–55. https://doi.org/10.1177/

1073191102091006

Aneshensel, C. S., & Mitchell, U. A. (2014). The stress process: Its origins,

evolution, and future. In R. J. Johnson, J. R. Turner, & B. G. Link (Eds.),

Sociology of mental health: Selected topics from forty years 1970s–2010s

(pp. 53–74). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/

978-3-319-07797-0_3

Antonaccio, O., Botchkovar, E. V., & Hughes, L. A. (2017). Ecological

determinants of situated choice in situational action theory: Does neigh-

borhood matter? Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency,54(2),

208–243. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427816678908

Antonaccio, O., & Tittle, C. R. (2008). Morality, self-control and crime.

Criminology,46(2), 479–510. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2008

.00116.x

Avison, W. R., Aneshensel, C. S., Schieman, S., & Wheaton, B. (2009).

Advances in the conceptualization of the stress process: Essays in honor of

Leonard I. Pearlin. Springer Science & Business Media.

Bandura, A. (1991). Social cognitive theory of moral thought and action. In

W. M. Kurtines & J. L. Gewirtz, (Eds.), Handbook of moral behavior and

development (Vol. 1, pp. 45–103). Lawrence Erlbaum.

Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumani-

ties. Personality and Social Psychology Review,3(3), 193–209. https://

doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0303_3

Bandura, A., & McClelland, D. (1977). Social learning theory. Prentice Hall.

Bandura, A., Underwood, B., & Fromson, M. E. (1975). Disinhibition of

aggression through diffusion of responsibility and dehumanization of

victims. Journal of Research in Personality,9(4), 253–269. https://

doi.org/10.1016/0092-6566(75)90001-X

Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable

distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic,

and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology,51(6), 1173–1182. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514

.51.6.1173

Betancourt, T. S., Agnew-Blais, J., Gilman, S. E., Williams, D. R., & Ellis,

B. H. (2010). Past horrors, present struggles: The role of stigma in the

association between war experiences and psychosocial adjustment among

former child soldiers in Sierra Leone. Social Science & Medicine,70(1),

17–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.09.038

Bortolan, A. (2017). Affectivity and moral experience: An extended

phenomenological account. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences,

16(3), 471–490. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-016-9468-9

Brauer, J. R., & Tittle, C. R. (2017). When crime is not an option: Inspecting

the moral ﬁltering of criminal action alternatives. Justice Quarterly,34(5),

818–846. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2016.1226937

Breslin, A. (1982). Tolerance and moral reasoning among adolescents in

Ireland. Journal of Moral Education,11(2), 112–127. https://doi.org/10

.1080/0305724820110206

Bursik, R. J., & Grasmick, H. (1993). Neighborhoods and crime: The

dimensions of effective neighborhood control. Lexington Books.

Buvinic, M., Das Gupta, M., Casabonne, U., & Verwimp, P. (2012). Violent

conﬂict and gender inequality: An overview. The World Bank Research

Observer,28(1), 110–138. https://doi.org/10.1093/wbro/lks011

Cairns, E. (1987). Caught in crossﬁre: Children and the Northern Ireland

conﬂict. Syracuse University Press.

Cairns, E. (1990). Impact of television news exposure on children’s percep-

tions of violence in Northern Ireland. The Journal of Social Psychology,

130(4), 447–452. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1990.9924605

Cairns, E. (1996). Children and political violence. Blackwell Publishing.

Cairns, E., & Darby, J. (1998). The conﬂict in Northern Ireland: Causes,

consequences, and controls. American Psychologist,53(7), 754–760.

https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.53.7.754

Cairns, E., & Wilson, R. (1985). Psychiatric aspects of violence in Northern

Ireland. Stress Medicine,1(3), 193–201. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi

.2460010309

Cairns, E., Wilson, R., Gallagher, T., & Trew, K. (1995). Psychology’s

contribution to understanding conﬂict in Northern Ireland. Peace and

Conﬂict,1(2), 131–148. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327949pac0102_3

Cancio, R., Kuptsevych-Timmer, A., & Omori, M. (2020). Perpetual war

with the Brother Nation: An analysis of Ukrainian veterans, cultural

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

12 TIMMER, JOHNSON, ANTONACCIO, AND BOTCHKOVAR

identity and historical trauma. Journal of War & Culture Studies,13(3),

219–236. https://doi.org/10.1080/17526272.2018.1558536

Carns, E., Hunter, D., & Herring, L. (1980). Young children’sawarenessof

violence in Northern Ireland: The inﬂuence of Northern Irish television in

Scotland and Northern Ireland. The British Journal of Social and

Clinical Psychology,19(1), 3–6. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8260.1980

.tb00920.x

Castano, E., Mu˜noz-Rojas, D., & Čehaji ´c-Clancy, S. (2020). Thou shalt not

kill: Social psychological processes and international humanitarian law

among combatants. Peace and Conﬂict,26(1), 35–46. https://doi.org/10

.1037/pac0000410

Catani, C. (2010). War at home: A review of the relationship between war

trauma and family violence. Verhaltenstherapie,20(1), 19–27. https://

doi.org/10.1159/000261994

Cohen, S. F. (2018). War with Russia?: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump &

Russiagate. Hot Books.

Cougle, J. R., Kilpatrick, D. G., & Resnick, H. (2012). Deﬁning traumatic

events: Research ﬁndings and controversies. In G. J. Beck & D. M. Sloan

(Eds.), The Oxford handbook of traumatic stress disorders (pp. 11–27).

Oxford University Press.

Council on Foreign Relations. (2021). Global conﬂict tracker.https://www

.cfr.org/global-conﬂict-tracker/conﬂict/conﬂict-ukraine

Cummings, E. M., Merrilees, C. E., Schermerhorn, A. C., Goeke-Morey,

M. C., Shirlow, P., & Cairns, E. (2011). Longitudinal pathways between

political violence and child adjustment: The role of emotional security

about the community in Northern Ireland. Journal of Abnormal Child

Psychology,39(2), 213–224. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-010-9457-3

Cummings, E. M., Merrilees, C. E., Taylor, L. K., & Mondi, C. F. (2017).

Developmental and social-ecological perspectives on children, political

violence, and armed conﬂict. Development and Psychopathology,29(1),

1–10. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579416001061

Dawes, A. (1990). The effects of political violence on children: A consideration

of south African and related studies. International Journal of Psychology,

25(1), 13–31.https://doi.org/10.1080/00207599008246811

Dieter, J. N. I., & Engel, S. D. (2019). Traumatic brain injury and posttrau-

matic stress disorder: Comorbid consequences of war. Neuroscience

Insights,14,1–17. https://doi.org/10.1177/1179069519892933

DiPietro, S. M. (2016). Criminology and war: Where are we going and where

have we been? Sociology Compass,10(10), 839–848. https://doi.org/10

.1111/soc4.12413

DiPietro, S. M. (2019). Roads diverged: An examination of violent and

nonviolent pathways in the aftermath of the Bosnian war. Criminology,

57(1), 74–104. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12196

Drescher, K. D., Foy, D. W., Kelly, C., Leshner, A., Schutz, K., & Litz, B.

(2011). An exploration of the viability and usefulness of the construct of

moral injury in war veterans. Traumatology,17(1), 8–13. https://doi.org/

10.1177/1534765610395615

Dubow, E. F., Huesmann, L. R., & Boxer, P. (2009). A social-cognitive-

ecological framework for understanding the impact of exposure to persis-

tent ethnic-political violence on children’s psychosocial adjustment.

Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review,12(2), 113–126. https://

doi.org/10.1007/s10567-009-0050-7

Durkheim, E. (1951/1897). Suicide: A study in sociology (J. A. Spaulding &

G. Simpson, Trans.). The Free Press.

Elbedour, S., Baker, A. M., & Charlesworth, W. R. (1997). The impact of

political violence on moral reasoning in children. Child Abuse & Neglect:

The International Journal,21(11), 1053–1066. https://doi.org/10.1016/

S0145-2134(97)00065-3

Ferfuson, N., & Cairns, E. (2002). The impact of political conﬂict on moral

maturity: A cross-national perspective. Journal of Adolescence,25(5),

441–451. https://doi.org/10.1006/jado.2002.0495

Ferguson, N., & Cairns, E. (1996). Political violence and moral maturity in

Northern Ireland. Political Psychology,17(4), 713–725. https://doi.org/10

.2307/3792135

Ferguson, N., McLernon, F., & Cairns, E. (1994). The sociomoral reﬂection

measure—Short Form: An examination of its reliability and validity in a

Northern Irish setting. The British Journal of Educational Psychology,

64(3), 483–489. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8279.1994.tb01119.x

Ferrajão, P. C., & Oliveira, R. A. (2015a). From self-integration in personal

schemas of morally experiences to self-awareness of mental states: A

qualitative study among a sample of Portuguese war veterans. Trauma-

tology,21(1), 22–31. https://doi.org/10.1037/trm0000019

Ferrajão, P. C., & Oliveira, R. A. (2015b). Portuguese war veterans: Moral

injury and factors related to recovery from PTSD. Qualitative Health

Research,26(2), 204–214. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732315573012

Ferry, F., Bolton, D., Bunting, B., O’Neill, S., & Murphy, S. (2010). The

experience and psychological impact of “Troubles”related trauma in

Northern Ireland: A review. The Irish Journal of Psychology,31(3–4), 95–

110. https://doi.org/10.1080/03033910.2010.10446328

Fields, R. M. (2013). Sanctioned mass atrocities: Women in Afghanistan. In

Against violence against women (pp. 77–98). Springer.

Foglesong, T. S., & Solomon, P. H. (2001). Crime, criminal justice, and

criminology in post-soviet Ukraine. U.S. Department of Justice.

Forrest, W., Edwards, B., & Daraganova, G. (2018). The intergenerational

consequences of war: Anxiety, depression, suicidality, and mental health

among the children of war veterans. International Journal of Epidemiol-

ogy,47(4), 1060–1067. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyy040

Gartner, R., & Kennedy, L. (2018). War and postwar violence. Crime and

Justice,47(1), 1–67. https://doi.org/10.1086/696649

Hayes, A. F. (2009). Beyond Baron and Kenny: Statistical mediation

analysis in the new millennium. Communication Monographs,76(4),

408–420. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637750903310360

Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional

process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford publications.

Hobfoll, S. E., Canetti-Nisim, D., & Johnson, R. J. (2006). Exposure to

terrorism, stress-related mental health symptoms, and defensive coping

among Jews and Arabs in Israel. Journal of Consulting and Clinical

Psychology,74(2), 207–218. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.74.2.207

Hobfoll, S. E., Palmieri, P. A., Johnson, R. J., Canetti-Nisim, D., Hall, B. J.,

& Galea, S. (2009). Trajectories of resilience, resistance, and distress

during ongoing terrorism: The case of Jews and Arabs in Israel. Journal of

Consulting and Clinical Psychology,77(1), 138–148. https://doi.org/10

.1037/a0014360

Hoefﬂer, A. (2008). Dealing with the consequences of violent conﬂicts in

Africa: African development bank report. University of Oxford. Centre for

the Study of African Economies.

Hopwood, T. L., & Schutte, N. S. (2017). Psychological outcomes in

reaction to media exposure to disasters and large-scale violence: A

meta-analysis. Psychology of Violence,7(2), 316–327. https://doi.org/

10.1037/vio0000056

Johnson, R. J., Canetti, D., Palmieri, P. A., Galea, S., Varley, J., & Hobfoll,

S. E. (2009). A prospective study of risk and resilience factors associated

with posttraumatic stress symptoms and depression symptoms among

Jews and Arabs exposed to repeated acts of terrorism in Israel. Psycho-

logical Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy,1(4), 291–

311.https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017586

Johnson, R. J., Hobfoll, S. E., & Beaulaygue, I. (2017). Mental health and

terrorism. In T. L. Scheid & E. R. Wright (Eds.), A handbook for the study

of mental health: Social contexts, theories, and systems. Cambridge

University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316471289.022

Joseph, S., Cairns, E., & McCollam, P. (1993). Political violence, coping,

and depressive symptomatology in Northern Irish children. Personality

and Individual Differences,15(4), 471–473. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-

8869(93)90076-F

Judah, T. (2016). Wartime. Stories from Ukraine. Tim Duggan Books.

Justino, P. (2007). On the links between violent conﬂict and household

poverty: How much do we really know? MICROCON Research Working

Paper 1, Brighton.

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

WAR AND MORAL BELIEFS 13

Karlson, K. B., & Holm, A. (2011). Decomposing primary and secondary

effects: A new decomposition method. Research in Social Stratiﬁcation

and Mobility,29(2), 221–237.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2010.12.005

Keles, S., Friborg, O., Idsøe, T., Sirin, S., & Oppedal, B. (2016). Depression

among unaccompanied minor refugees: The relative contribution of

general and acculturation-speciﬁc daily hassles. Ethnicity & Health,

21(3), 300–317. https://doi.org/10.1080/13557858.2015.1065310

Keresteš, G. (2006). Children’s aggressive and prosocial behavior in relation

to war exposure: Testing the role of perceived parenting and child’s

gender. International Journal of Behavioral Development,30(3), 227–

239. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025406066756

Kira, I. A., Templin, T., Lewandowski, L., Ramaswamy, V., Ozkan, B., &

Mohanesh, J. (2008). The physical and mental health effects of Iraq war

media exposure on Iraqi refugees. The Journal of Muslim Mental Health,

3(2), 193–215. https://doi.org/10.1080/15564900802487592

Korostelina, K. V. (2008). Identity, autonomy and conﬂict in republics of

Russia and Ukraine. Communist and Post-Communist Studies,41(1), 79–

91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2007.12.005

Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R. L., & Williams, J. B. (2001). The PHQ-9: Validity of

a brief depression severity measure. Journal of General Internal

Medicine,16(9), 606–613. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2001

.016009606.x

Kwon, H. (2012). Rethinking traumas of war. South East Asia Research,

20(2), 227–237. https://doi.org/10.5367/sear.2012.0101

Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer.

Lerman, S. F., Rudich, Z., & Shahar, G. (2013). Does war hurt? Effects of

media exposure after missile attacks on chronic pain. Journal of Clinical

Psychology in Medical Settings,20(1), 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1007/

s10880-012-9313-4

Lester, P., & Flake, E. (2013). How wartime military service affects children

and families. The Future of Children,23(2), 121–141. https://doi.org/10

.1353/foc.2013.0015

Litz, B. T., Stein, N., Delaney, E., Lebowitz, L., Nash, W. P., Silva, C., &

Maguen, S. (2009). Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A

preliminary model and intervention strategy. Clinical Psychology Review,

29(8), 695–706. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2009.07.003

Lorenc, L., & Branthwaite, A. (1986). Evaluations of political violence by

English and Northern Irish schoolchildren. British Journal of Social Psychol-

ogy,25(4), 349–352. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1986.tb00751.x

Maia, A., McIntyre, T., Pereira, M. G., & Ribeiro, E. (2011). War exposure

and post-traumatic stress as predictors of Portuguese colonial war veter-

ans’physical health. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping,24(3), 309–325. https://

doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2010.521238

McAlister, A. L., Bandura, A., & Owen, S. V. (2006). Mechanisms of moral

disengagement in support of military force: The impact of Sept. 11.

Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology,25(2), 141–165. https://

doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2006.25.2.141

McLafferty, M., Armour, C., O’Neill,S.,Murphy,S.,Ferry,F.,&Bunting,B.

(2016). Suicidality and proﬁles of childhood adversities, conﬂict related trauma

and psychopathology in the Northern Ireland population. Journal of Affective

Disorders,200,97–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2016.04.031

McLernon, F., Stringer, M., & Wilson, R. (2014). Ed Cairns’contributions and

inﬂuence in the academy, scholarship, and peacemaking of Northern Ireland.

Peace and Conﬂict,20(1), 13–25. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035650

Mechler, H. S., & Thoma, S. J. (2013). Moral development theory: Neo-

Kohlbergian theory. In B. J. Irby, G. Brown, R. Lara-Alecio, & S. Jackson

(Eds.), The handbook of educational theories (pp. 643–651). IAP

Information Age Publishing.

Michalski, J. H. (2019). Terrorism and lethal moralism in the United States

and United Kingdom, 1970–2017. The British Journal of Sociology,70(5),

1681–1708. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12635

Miller, K. E., & Rasmussen, A. (2010). War exposure, daily stressors, and

mental health in conﬂict and post-conﬂict settings: Bridging the divide

between trauma-focused and psychosocial frameworks. Social Science &

Medicine,70(1), 7–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.09.029

Morina, N., Reschke, K., & Hofmann, S. G. (2011). Long-term outcomes of

war-related death of family members in Kosovar civilian war survivors.

Death Studies,35(4), 365–372.https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2011

.553340

Mykhnenko, V. (2020). Causes and consequences of the war in Eastern

Ukraine: An economic geography perspective. Europe-Asia Studies,

72(3), 528–560. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2019.1684447

Nash, W. P., & Litz, B. T. (2013). Moral injury: A mechanism for war-related

psychological trauma in military family members. Clinical Child and Family

Psychology Review,16(4), 365–375. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-013-0146-y

Pearlin, L. I. (1988). Social structuring and social values: The regulation of

structural effects. In H. J. O’Gorman (Ed.), Surveying social life (pp. 252–

264). Wesleyan University.

Pearlin, L. I. (1989). The sociological study of stress. Journal of Health and

Social Behavior,30(3), 241–256. https://doi.org/10.2307/2136956

Pearlin, L. I. & Johnson, J. S. (1977). Marital status, life-strains and depression.

American Sociological Review,42(5), 704–715. https://doi.org/10.2307/2094860

Pearlin, M. E. G., Lieberman, M. A., & Mullan, J. T. (1981). The stress

process. Journal of health and social behavior,22(4), 337–356. https://

doi.org/10.2307/2136676

Pedahzur, A., Hasisi, B., & Brichta, A. (2000). A proposed model for

explaining political violence in Israel. World Affairs,163(1), 18–27.

https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/wrldaf16

3&div=6&id=&page=

Pedersen, D. (2002). Political violence, ethnic conﬂict, and contemporary wars:

Broad implications for health and social well-being. Social Science &

Medicine,55(2), 175–190. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(01)00261-1

Pfefferbaum, B., Nixon, S. J., Tivis, R. D., Doughty, D. E., Pynoos, R. S.,

Gurwitch, R. H., & Foy, D. W. (2001). Television exposure in children

after a terrorist incident. Psychiatry,64(3), 202–211. https://doi.org/10

.1521/psyc.64.3.202.18462

Pulcu, E., Zahn, R., & Elliott, R. (2013). The role of self-blaming moral

emotions in major depression and their impact on social-economical

decision making. Frontiers in Psychology,4, Article 310. https://

doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00310

Roberts, B., Abbott, P., & McKee, M. (2010). Levels and determinants of

psychological distress in eight countries of the former Soviet Union.

Journal of Public Mental Health,9(3), 17–26.https://doi.org/10.5042/

jpmh.2010.0459

Roberts, B., Makhashvili, N., Javakhishvili, J., Karachevskyy, A., Kharch-

enko, N., Shpiker, M., & Richardson, E. (2019). Mental health care

utilisation among internally displaced persons in Ukraine: Results from

a nation-wide survey. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences,28(1), 100–

111. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2045796017000385

Rosler, N., & Branscombe, N. R. (2020). Inclusivity of past collective trauma

and its implications for current intractable conﬂict: The mediating role of

moral lessons. British Journal of Social Psychology,59(1), 171–188.

https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12336

Rozanov, V., Frančiškovi´c, T., Marini ´c, I., Macarenco, M.-M., Letica-

Crepulja, M., Mužini´c, L., Jayatunge, R., Sisask, M., Vevera, J., Wieder-

hold, B., & Wiederhold, M. D. (2019). Mental health consequences of war

conﬂicts. In Advances in psychiatry (pp. 281–304). Springer. https://

doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70554-5_17

Saile, R., Ertl, V., Neuner, F., & Catani, C. (2014). Does war contribute to family

violence against children? Findings from a two-generational multi-informant

studyinNorthernUganda.Child Abuse & Neglect: The International

Journal,38(1), 135–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2013.10.007

Schiffer, A. A., Hohn, E. A., & Saucier, D. A. (2020). Lesser of two evils:

The effects of masculine honor beliefs, beliefs in pure good, evil, and the

dark triad on moral decision making. Peace and Conﬂict. Advance online

publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000516

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

(Appendices follow)

14 TIMMER, JOHNSON, ANTONACCIO, AND BOTCHKOVAR

Silver, R. C., Holman, E. A., Andersen, J. P., Poulin, M., McIntosh, D. N., &

Gil-Rivas, V. (2013). Mental- and physical-health effects of acute expo-

sure to media images of the September 11, 2001, attacks and the Iraq War.

Psychological Science,24(9), 1623–1634. https://doi.org/10.1177/

0956797612460406

Soares, M., Barbosa, M., Matos, R., & Mendes, S. M. (2018). Public protest

and police violence: Moral disengagement and its role in police repression

of public demonstrations in Portugal. Peace and Conﬂict,24(1), 27–35.

https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000277

State Statistics Committee of Ukraine. (2018). All Ukrainian population

center.http://www.ukrcensus.gov.ua/

Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2007). Using multivariate statistics. Allyn

& Bacon/Pearson Education.

Trochev, A. (2010). Meddling with justice: Competitive politics, impunity,

and distrusted courts in post-Orange Ukraine. Demokratizatsiya,18(2),

122–147. https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.18.2.122-147

Turnip, S. S., Klungsøyr, O., & Hauff, E. (2010). The mental health of

populations directly and indirectly exposed to violent conﬂict in Indonesia.

Conﬂict and Health,4(1), Article 14. https://doi.org/10.1186/1752-1505-

4-14

Vinck, P., & Pham, P. N. (2013). Association of exposure to intimate-partner

physical violence and potentially traumatic war-related events with mental

health in Liberia. Social Science & Medicine,77,41–49. https://doi.org/10

.1016/j.socscimed.2012.10.026

Weiss, A., Burgmer, P., & Mussweiler, T. (2018). Two-faced morality:

Distrust promotes divergent moral standards for the self versus others.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,44(12), 1712–1724. https://

doi.org/10.1177/0146167218775693

Zipris, I., Pliskin, R., Canetti, D., & Halperin, E. (2019). Exposure to the

2014 Gaza war and support for militancy: The role of emotion dysregula-

tion. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,45(6), 965–977. https://

doi.org/10.1177/0146167218805988

Appendix A

Sample and Census Characteristics

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Table A1

Sample and Census Population Demographic Characteristics

Individual characteristics

Lviv, Ukraine Kharkiv, Ukraine Both cities (average)

Sample Census Sample Census Sample Census

Gender

% female 55 54 56 54 55.5 54

Age

%18–29 22 25 21 26 21.5 25.5

%30–39 20 18 24 18 22 18

%40–49 17 20 17 19 17 19.5

%50–59 15 15 13 14 14 14.5

%60–94 26 22 25 23 25.5 22.5

Marital status

% married/cohabitating 65 63 48 58 56.5 60.5

% divorced/widowed separated 16 18 29 24 22.5 21

% single 19 19 23 18 21 18.5

The most recent census ﬁgures on gender are from 2017.

The most recent census ﬁgures on age are from 2001.

The most recent census ﬁgures on marital

status are on urban settlements of Lviv and Kharkiv regions in 2001.

(Appendices continue)

WAR AND MORAL BELIEFS 15

Appendix B

Survey Items

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Table B1

Moral Beliefs, Vicarious War Exposure, Daily Stressors, and Depression Survey Items

Survey item Response categories

Moral beliefs

Please estimate the extent to which committing each of these acts would be morally acceptable to

you.

1. Hit another person on purpose in an emotional outburst.

2. Physically harm or threatened to harm another person on purpose.

To what extent to you agree with the following statements?

3. There are situations where there is no other alternative and even weapons must be used in

order to stop the government from carrying out its policies.

4. When a political disaster is looming on the horizon, and all other means of protest have

been exhausted and proved futile, physical assault on politicians may be forgivable.

5. When taking into account the bad political situation to which we have come, physical

violence by the government toward citizens is understandable.

1. Always acceptable

2. Usually acceptable

3. Sometime acceptable, sometime unacceptable

4. Usually unacceptable

5. Always unacceptable

1. Strongly agree

2. Agree

3. Neither agree nor disagree

4. Disagree

5. Strongly disagree

Vicarious war exposure

1. How often have you witnessed media portrayal or read about violence related to the

Donbass armed conﬂict?

2. How often have you heard accounts of violence related to the Donbass armed conﬂict from

somebody else you know?

3. How often have you witnessed media portrayal or read about political persecution in

Crimea?

4. How often have you experienced yourself and/or heard accounts of political persecution in

Crimea from somebody else you know?

1. Never

2. Once

3. Few times

4. Many times

Daily stressors

Recently, how often have you experienced the following types of daily hassles?

1. Concerns about making ends meet

2. Other ﬁnancial concerns

3. Having to bribe somebody

4. Problems with your family members

5. Problems at work/study place (if respondent is a student)

6. Getting into arguments (besides those with people already mentioned)

7. Some rude behavior around you (smokers, who do not care about people around them,

people who push you in a bus etc.)

8. Concerns about the Donbas war situation (worries about victims of the Donbass conﬂict,

problems with the inﬂux of migrants from other parts of Ukraine etc.)

9. Prejudice and discrimination from others because of the Donbass conﬂict

10. Prejudice and discrimination from others on any other basis

11. Not enough time to do the things you need to do

12. Other daily hassles like any of those listed above (list them)

1. Never

2. Rarely

3. Sometimes

4. Often

5. Very often

Depression

Please mention to what extent each one of them bothered you in the last 2 weeks.

1. Little interest or pleasure in doing things

2. Feeling low, depressed or hopeless

3. Trouble falling or staying asleep or sleeping too much

4. Feeling tired or having little energy

5. Poor appetite or overeating

6. Feeling bad about yourself—or that you are a failure or have let yourself or your

family down

7. Trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television

8. Moving or speaking so slowly that other people could have noticed. Or the opposite—being

so ﬁdgety or restless that you have been movingaroundalotmorethanusual

9. Thoughts that you would be better off dead, or hurting yourself in some way

1. Not at all

2. To a small degree

3. To a great degree

4. To a very great degree

(Appendices continue)

16 TIMMER, JOHNSON, ANTONACCIO, AND BOTCHKOVAR

Appendix C

Correlations Between Variables

Received June 22, 2021

Revision received December 23, 2021

Accepted January 13, 2022 ▪

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Table C1

Bivariate Correlations (N =1,211)

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

1. Moral

beliefs

2. Vicarious

war

exposure

−.151**

3. Daily

stressors

−.250** .247**

4. Depression −.211** .099** .456**

5. Female .192** −.085** .069*.070*

6. Age .190** .026 −.052 .019 .081**

7. Ukrainian −.095** .064*.063*.051 −.045 −.222**

8. Russian .089** −.065*−.046 −.050 .064*.225** −.888**

9. Other .030 −.009 −.046 −.012 −.029 .036 −.412** −.055

10. Single −.143** −.075** −.008 .026 −.128** −.452** .090** −.097** −.003

11. Married .011 .084** .009 −.040 −.036 .092** .042 −.037 −.018 −.536**

12. Living with

a partner

−.050 .026 −.005 −.002 .004 −.101** .039 −.040 −.004 −.102** −.208**

13. Divorced/

widowed/

separated

.147** −.039 −.000 .024 .164** .372** −.153** .155** .026 −.282** −.574** −.109**

14. Education .004 .065*−.018 −.078** .056 −.098** .002 −.024 .042 −.027 .095** .001 −.087**

15. Religiosity .042 .138** .068*.078** .159** .087** .134** −.139** −.015 −.141** .119** −.058*.021 −.026

16. Employed −.143** .105** .026 −.015 −.201** −.296** .095** −.089** −.031 .040 .061*.053 −.135** .120** −.051

17. Lviv −.200** .261** −.046 −.006 −.003 .016 .153** −.163** −.009 −.056*.178** −.007 −.154** .102** .264** .097**

*p<.05. ** p<.01; two-tailed.

WAR AND MORAL BELIEFS 17

Ethno-Cultural Features of Mental Health and Psychosomatic Risks of Ukrainians in the Conditions of a Full-scale Russian Invasion

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2022

More than three hundred different theories of psychosomatic diseases are known, but none of them is fundamental. Preference is given to systemic theories, which consider the role of several factors in their occurrence, including personal characteristics of the patient, features of the psychotraumatic factor, heredity, etc. (Voloshyn, 2008). Despite a significant number of works devoted to the problems of psychosomatics, there is no single concept of psychosomatic disease and, in connection with this, etiopathogenetic psychotherapy, insufficiently developed approaches to early diagnosis, organization of psychoprophylactic measures, psychotherapeutic correction for specific diseases. Until now, the question of the impact on the internal picture of the disease and the quality of life of the form and severity of the disease, as well as the psychophysiological features, age, gender, and social status of the patient remains open. According to various authors, the frequency of psychosomatic disorders ranges from 30% to 57% of the total number of patients in the primary medical network and ranges from 11% to 52% in the general population (Maruta, 2010). Psychosomatic diseases are secondary functional and organic disorders of internal organs and systems, the root cause of which are psychogenic factors. Somatopsychic diseases are mental disorders that develop secondary to somatic ailments that do not affect the brain. Somatoform disorders are psychogenic functional disorders of organs in which no morphological or structural disorders of these organs are observed. Psychosomatics is an interdisciplinary scientific direction in which psychological, social, and cultural factors of the occurrence of somatic diseases are studied. Of note is the spread of war-related psychosomatic disorders, including culturally informed care, psychosocial support, language considerations, relationships, and the inclusion of sexual, spiritual, and existential factors, moving away from purely Western diagnoses and treatments to culturally informed care (O'Brien, Charura, 2022). Current research links high levels of traumatic events with increased levels of mental health problems. For example, the postimmigration factor, which includes items related to isolation, restrictive policies, and stressors related to insecure immigration status, was significantly related to PTSD scores (Morgan, Melluish, Welham, 2017). The study by Timmer, Johnson, Antonaccio, Botchkovar (2022). illustrates the need for appropriate mental health services, stress management, and other critical interventions to help populations experiencing war and other traumatic occurrences. It also suggests that future studies should pay particular attention to how vital life events affect individual beliefs and attitudes. In the conditions of a sharp increase in mental and behavioral disorders caused by the Russian invasion, the system of providing psychiatric care and departmental psychological services turned out to be such, at least in the first stages, that the established models of assessment and intervention need to be revised. The issue of mental health and the prevalence of psychosomatic disorders as a population and ethno-cultural phenomenon among Ukrainians in the conditions of a 2022-full-scale Russian invasion was discussed by three Ukrainian psychologists: Dr. Vasyl Mosiichuk, Professor Bohdan Tkach and Professor Vitalii Lunov.

Deciding to commit crime in adolescence: do moral beliefs matter?

Article

Jul 2023

Homo remotus - Kritik zur Führung auf Distanz

Book

Full-text available

Jan 2023

Markus Karp

Wie sich die Welt um uns herum verändert, nehmen wir wohl so wahr, als würde darunter eine Beschleunigungskraft wirken. Die Entwicklung gesellschaftlicher Interaktionen wird von uns Menschen selbst angetrieben. Je mehr sich die eine oder andere Gruppe in eine bestimmte Richtung verhält, umso mehr wirkt das Gruppenverhalten als Entwicklungstendenz. Die technisch vernetzte Welt drängt seit über 20 Jahren in unseren Lebens- und Arbeitsalltag vor. Die fast drei Jahre andauernde Corona- Pandemie hat unter Druck von Kontaktbeschränkungen die Nutzung der technischen Möglichkeiten beschleunigt und damit Arbeitsflexibilität und -mobilität in einer Weise realisiert, wie dies zuvor noch nie der Fall war. Arbeitswelt ist Lebenswelt; und deshalb wirkt sich ein zunehmendes Potenzial an Distanzinteraktionen auf wirtschaftliche, soziale, psychische, rechtliche und/oder kulturelle Bedingungen aus.

The Impact of Russian Military Aggression on the Psychological Health of Ukrainian Youth

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2022

The article presents the results of research on the main individual behavior problems of Ukrainian youth in the conditions of Russian political and military aggression since 2014. Research is aimed at issues of adaptation potential, social and psychological security, psychological health, and well-being of young people from all geographic regions of Ukraine. The concept of “socially determined coping constructs” is proposed and the influence of interpersonal behavior style on the resourcefulness and adaptive potential of youth in the conditions of military operations is determined. Prognostic indicators of young people’s experience of security in the conditions of an unpredictable long-term scenario of military aggression are concise. It has been proved that adaptation potential is a factor of preservation of psychological health that is methodologically considered within the paradigm of humanistic psychology within the range of the concept of resilience, psychological well-being, and personal maturity. Interpersonal behavior can be considered by us as a developed form of interaction of personal genesis and social induced predisposition of a certain objectified relation. Adaptation potential is determined as a social-psychological integral hierarchical-parity formation that ensures homeostasis of mature functioning of personality within the conditions of social stress induced by the activity of adaptation capabilities, their latency, timeliness, correspondence with subjective resources, and vectors of social actualization. There has been an empirical establishment of predictors determining the impact of special features of the style of interpersonal behavior on index of perceived stress, index of coping resources, positive attitude to others, autonomy, environment management, personal development, life goals, self-perception, psychological well-being, inclusion, control, risk acceptance, and resilience. The results of our research became the basis for determination of the phenomenon of interpersonal behavior as predictor of the triad: interpersonal communication, adaptation potential, and psychological health of youth.

A Psychological Perspective on Folk Moral Objectivism

Book

Dec 2022

Jen Wright

Who is Suffering Gender-Based Violence in Ukraine? A Snapshot of Domestic Violence During War and a Global Pandemic Ukrainian Society

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2022

Research has shown that the risk for violent victimisation, including various forms of abuse and sexual violence, is high among individuals forced to leave their homes due to wars, humanitarian emergencies, and violent conflicts. Unfortunately, little is known about such a critical issue as domestic violence within the home, as most research on humanitarian crises covers violence outside the home. Given that the home remains one of the most dangerous places for vulnerable individuals during wartime, it is crucial to address who is most vulnerable to becoming a victim of domestic violence in current war-torn societies such as Ukraine. Further, it is imperative to understand the characteristics of domestic violence at the “intersection” of war and a global pandemic. We use primary, self-reported survey data from an international research project entitled “A Cross-National Study of the Global Pandemic, Deviance and Health” to provide a snapshot of domestic violence in the current Ukrainian society and analyse the characteristics of self-reported domestic violence, both psychological and physical, which has been taking place during the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a global pandemic. Specifically, this study addresses the following research questions: What are the levels of domestic violence (both physical and psychological abuse) when it happens at the time of “intersection” between war and a pandemic? Who is the most likely to become a victim of domestic violence in this unique situation? Results from logistic regression models reveal that, compared to single individuals in Ukraine, people who cohabitate with their partners are at a higher risk of psychological abuse, while being married emerges as a ‘protective’ factor against physical abuse. Additionally, having a higher SES significantly reduces the risk of psychological abuse from an intimate partner. Notably, in contrast with prior research, our results show that males' odds of experiencing physical abuse are higher. Explanations for these unique findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Causes and Consequences of the War in Eastern Ukraine: An Economic Geography Perspective

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2020

Vlad Mykhnenko

This essay provides an economic geography perspective on the causes and consequences of the war in eastern Ukraine. It focuses on the controversial proposition that the armed conflict in 2014 was triggered by domestic, economically determined factors. The essay argues that economic and material circumstances in the region had generated neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for a locally rooted, internally driven armed conflict. The role of the Kremlin’s military intervention was paramount for the commencement of hostilities. As the human and economic costs of the war continue to mount, Ukraine’s war-ravaged eastern regions face further depopulation, economic decline and erosion of development.

Traumatic Brain Injury and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Comorbid Consequences of War

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2019

Scientific literature is reviewed supporting a “consequence of war syndrome (CWS)” in Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn soldiers. CWS constituents include chronic pain and insomnia, other physical complaints, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and neuropsychological deficits. The foundation of CWS lies with the chronic stressors inherent to deployment and the cascade of biological events mediated and maintained by hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysregulation. Such dysregulation is modified by the individual’s specific experiences at war, difficulty reintegrating to post-deployment life, and the onset or exacerbation of the chronic and comorbid physical, emotional, and cognitive disorders. The circuit network between the prefrontal cortex (PFC), amygdala, and hippocampus is particularly sensitive to the consequences of war. The review’s specific conclusions are as follows: HPA axis dysregulation contributes to the chronic insomnia and hyperarousal seen in soldiers. There is considerable symptom overlap between PTSD and blast-related head injury, and it is difficult to determine the relative contributions of the two disorders to abnormal imaging studies. In some cases, traumatic brain injury (TBI) may directly precipitate PTSD symptoms. While not intuitive, the relationship between TBI and postconcussion syndrome appears indirect and mediated through PTSD. Blast-related or conventional head injury may have little long-term impact on neuropsychological functioning; contrarily, PTSD particularly accounts for current cognitive deficits. The psychological experience of CWS includes a “war-within” where soldiers continue to battle an internalized enemy. Successful treatment of CWS entails transdisciplinary care that addresses each of the constituent disorders.

Perpetual War with the Brother Nation: An Analysis of Ukrainian Veterans, Cultural Identity and Historical Trauma

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2018

Understanding historical and cultural dimensions of pain is an area relatively understudied by scholars. This is particularly the case for those affected by war, such as combat veterans. Using in-depth interviews, this study analyses interpretations of the pain by Ukrainian combat veterans serving in the current war in the east of Ukraine. Our findings reveal two core themes that shape meanings of pain: Ukrainian cultural identity and historical trauma. Being Ukrainian is a salient construct, shaped by respondents’ identities as soldiers, nationality, and the understanding of pain as an integral part of Ukrainian soldiers’ identity. Historical trauma is experienced more broadly as a nation and is drawn from shared experiences of pain that transcend through history, as Ukraine has wavered between legitimacy as a sovereign state and colony of a ‘brother-nation’ to Russia.

Social Structure and Social Learning in Crime and Deviance

Chapter

Jul 2017

Ronald L. Akers

Lesser of two evils: The effects of masculine honor beliefs, beliefs in pure good, evil, and the dark triad on moral decision making.

Article

Aug 2020

Inclusivity of past collective trauma and its implications for current intractable conflict: The mediating role of moral lessons

Article

Jun 2019

Terrorism and lethal moralism in the United States and United Kingdom, 1970-2017: Terrorism and lethal moralism

Article

Jan 2019

Joseph Michalski

The current paper examines terrorism as a special form of moralistic violence, with several key features that distinguish such behaviour from other types of violence. The theory of lethal moralism highlights the importance of social polarization, characterized by vast differences in social space and inequality between adversaries as crucial to explaining deadly terrorist attacks. Where the differences are more permanent or chronic – and the groups in question define and justify their existence specifically in contradistinction to ‘other’ groups – then the polarization intensifies and attacks tend to be more lethal. In contrast, groups that appeal to broader audiences or the general public as potential allies more often use non‐lethal terrorism to their strategic advantage. The study examines the United States and the United Kingdom to classify each of more than 8,000 attacks between 1970 and 2017 in terms of their ideological orientations. The evidence highlights the arc of terrorism in relation to different types of groups, as well as confirms the more lethal nature of terrorism linked especially to radical Islam, right‐wing religious extremists, hate groups, ethno‐nationalist sectarian violence, and anti‐government anarchists. Yet apart from the extensive use of terrorism associated with ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, the majority of terrorist attacks in the US and the UK have not produced deaths. Most terrorism instead has been perpetrated by groups aiming to rally support for a general cause and has been far less deadly on balance. The implications of these findings are discussed with a view toward developing more powerful explanatory models that focus on the socio‐cultural contexts and justification frameworks that inspire extremism and the use of lethal moralism to settle disputes.

Roads diverged: An examination of violent and nonviolent pathways in the aftermath of the Bosnian war

Article

Nov 2018
CRIMINOLOGY

Stephanie M. Dipietro

Despite renewed interest among criminologists in war and genocide, still understudied are the implications of mass violence for human development and behavior over the life course. By drawing on detailed life history data gathered from 55 male Bosnian refugees and nationals, in this work, I examine the shared beginnings of men who experienced the Bosnian war and genocide (1992-1995) in their youth, as well as examine their divergent pathways over time and across two distinct postwar contexts. My findings reveal that violent pathways are shaped by the confluence of social-psychological mechanisms (e.g., the normalization of violence) and exogenous risk factors (e.g., family disruption and loss of male role models). Compared with nonviolent men, who emphasize themes of catharsis and resilience, and the emulation of prosocial models of masculinity, violent men's narratives are distinguished by themes of persecution and exile, the emulation of violent role models, and contextual barriers to attaining valued masculine identities. Beyond the experience of war, these findings have implications for understanding how early experiences of chronic violence and community disruption shape turning points and cultural frames over the life course, and they indicate that studies of violent pathways should grant greater primacy to the social-historical Criminology. 2018;1-31. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/crim

Exposure to the 2014 Gaza War and Support for Militancy: The Role of Emotion Dysregulation

Article

Nov 2018