War and peace

IN today’s media-conscious world psychologists are not known for their reticence to pronounce on matters of public interest. There is one field, however, where psychologists have been unduly modest in their efforts to influence public opinion – the area of psychology applied to promoting world peace and ending conflict. This diffidence has occurred despite the fact that today many conflicts involve psychological issues, such as security, fear, destructive ideologies, enemy images, and a host of other concerns that bear on human well-being and survival (see Anderson & Christie, in press).