Outgroup Threat, complex identities, and attitudes toward war and peace in Ukraine

The purpose of this study is to advance our understanding of the relationship between perceptions of threat, complex combinations of social identity, and civilians’ willingness to support peace negotiations during active war. Using survey data ( N = 1,812) collected in three eastern cities of war-torn Ukraine, we examined the relationship between threat perceptions and support for continuing the war or making concessions to pursue peace negotiations, and how social identities moderated that relationship. We found that symbolic and realistic threats predicted support for continuing the war over pursuing peace. Additionally, we identified latent profiles of meaningful social identities implicated in the war, including Ukrainian, European, and Russian cultural and linguistic identities, which also predicted support for war or peace. While the latent identity profiles did not interact with threat perceptions in explaining support for war or peace, separate measures of European identity and Russian cultural and linguistic identity identities did interact with some realistic and symbolic threats, indicating a stronger association between threat perceptions and support for war among respondents with lower European and higher Russian cultural and linguistic identities. The findings contribute to scholarly debates on support for war or peace, suggesting that threat perceptions may increase support for war during active violent conflict and that social identities shaped by the war may help explain variations in those effects.