Sabina Čehajić‐Clancy

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is accompanied by horrific losses among civilians. This study investigates various individual (hope, optimism, resilience, post‐traumatic growth, and coping strategies) and contextual predictors (experience of life under occupation, actively hostile home environment, and frequent moves) of subjective well‐being among the youth living in Ukraine. A total sample of 593 students from several universities participated in the study using surveys that contained questions about sociodemographic characteristics, life satisfaction, hope, optimism, personal post‐traumatic growth, resilience, and coping strategies. Data were analyzed using JAMOVI software. The level of dissatisfaction with their own lives was 34.7%; most of the respondents had a higher incidence of minimal/mild hopelessness (88.7%) and high/moderate level of optimism (60.9%). The majority of participants had moderate and high levels of post‐traumatic growth (51.9% and 6.7%, respectively) and resilience (46.0% and 14.5%, respectively). Optimism, hope, resilience, post‐traumatic growth, using emotional support, and life in occupation predicted life satisfaction among the study sample.

Moral exemplar interventions have been shown to increase many positive intergroup outcomes, including perceptions of outgroup morality. However, existing research on moral exemplar interventions has only been conducted in post‐conflict contexts. This study investigates the effects of a moral exemplar intervention on outgroup evaluations in a non‐conflict context. By examining the effects on three key dimensions of outgroup evaluations (morality, sociability, and competence) in Sweden, we aim to extend the generalizability of moral exemplar interventions. An online experiment was conducted with self‐identified Swedes ( N = 193) to explore the effects of outgroup (Middle Eastern) moral versus neutral exemplars. Results indicate that moral exemplar stories increased perceptions of outgroup morality while not significantly affecting perceived outgroup competence or sociability. These findings support the hypothesis that moral exemplars influence a specific positive dimension of outgroup evaluations, namely perceptions of morality, rather than any positive dimension such as sociability or competence. The present study also gives tentative support for the applicability of moral exemplar interventions in contexts and settings with no recent history of collective violence.