How Feeling Understood Predicts Trust And Willingness To Forgive In The Midst Of Violent Intergroup Conflict: Longitudinal Evidence From Ukraine

How can intergroup trust and forgiveness be fostered in the face of violent, large-scale intergroup conflict? We addressed this challenge by testing the role of intergroup felt understanding—the extent to which outgroup members are perceived to understand ingroup perspectives—in predicting Ukrainian nationals’ inclinations to trust and forgive Russians for the conflict that has affected Ukraine since 2014. We did so using representative longitudinal data (