Social perception of the outgroup in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war
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Abstract
Relevance. The social perception of events occurring during the Russo-Ukrainian war, their interpretation, as well as the specifics of outgroup perception, are crucial in the identification processes among Ukrainians as a large national group. The European communicative space in discussing war-related issues should rely on the current group orientations of Ukrainians towards Russians, as well as on the typical discourses of Ukrainian-Russian relations.
Objective: to define the theoretical foundations for studying the social perception of the outgroup and, based on this, to conduct empirical research on the structure of semantic representations of Ukrainians about Russians during the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Methodology. The article draws on theoretical generalizations concerning intergroup interaction. It also includes the results of original empirical research on the social representations of Ukrainians about Russians (based on a sample of master’s students specializing in ’military psychology,’ ’diplomatic service,’ ’management of educational institutions,’ 165 individuals).
Results. The ethics of interaction between ingroup and outgroup members, which presupposes fairness in assessing their actions and aligning group attitudes with the social context, must be considered when assessing bias towards the outgroup or a truly fair representation of its essence. Intergroup bias is discussed when the outgroup receives not only lower assessments than the ingroup but also false, negatively distorted, and unfair ones. Intergroup bias represents a specific case of intergroup perception and interaction. According to the survey results using Principal Component Analysis, the semantic structure of such perceptions was presented. The identification of the historical causes of the Russo-Ukrainian war and identification processes among Ukrainians constitute the main features of the factor that contributes most to the variance of the research indicators. The designation of Russians as enemies based on their actions form the content of the social representations of the respondents. The negative social perception of Russians by Ukrainians is defined as justifiably relevant to their hostile actions, which correlates with the general ethical norms of evaluation for all participants in social interaction.
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