Beyond Personal Empathy: Perceiving Inclusive Empathy as Socially Shared Predicts Support for Transitional Justice Mechanisms

In countries emerging from civil war, inclusive empathy is important for conflict resolution yet may be difficult to promote. Widening the predominant focus on personal inclusive empathy for conflict resolution, we examine whether support for transitional justice mechanisms (TJ) can be predicted by how much an individual perceives inclusive empathy as being shared in their local communities. Our results, based on a probability sample survey in post-war Sri Lanka (N = 580), reveal that the effects of this perceived communal inclusive empathy can be distinguished from those of personally experienced inclusive empathy, and that the more respondents perceive inclusive empathy as prevalent in their communities, the more they support TJ mechanisms. However, the results also indicate the contextual limits of perceived communal inclusive empathy as a resource for conflict resolution: participants tend to underestimate the prevalence of inclusive empathy, especially in militarized minority communities, and the more they underestimate it, the less they support TJ mechanisms. This study corroborates the importance of social influence in conflict resolution, suggesting that perception of inclusive empathy as shared in one’s community is a key determinant of popular support for conflict-transforming policies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-021-00086-2.