ABSTRACT

S ince the term “reconciliation” was introduced to the academic discourse of confl ict studies by political developments, scholars from various fi elds have attempted to defi ne the term, examine its nature, distinguish the reconciliation process from other processes such as confl ict resolution or confl ict settlement, and determine the requirements for such a process to take place between parties in confl ict. One such fi eld was social psychology-in particular, the social psychology of confl ict and confl ict resolution-but not solely. In this chapter, I will focus on the theoretical and empirical contributions of social psychological approaches, but I will also refer to related fi elds that have contributed to confl ict studies in an effort to demonstrate the strengths and the limitations of such contributions to our understanding of reconciliation, both as a process and as a postconfl ict outcome.