López-López, Wilson, and Laura Taylor, eds. 2021. Transitioning to Peace: Promoting Global Social Justice and Non-violence. Cham: Springer. Peace Psychology Book Series. 328 p.

Frequently, the transition to peace seems impossible for groups affected by collective violence. The search for a peaceful society, where the memory, the victims' suffering, and the perpetrators' responsibilities coexist, requires titanic efforts in multiple dimensions that may seem unattainable. These efforts are the focus of the book “Transitioning to Peace: Promoting Global Social Justice and Non-Violence” edited by two distinguished scholars in the social and political psychology field with contributions from over twenty researchers from all continents

The Role of the Negative 3-H Trio in Second Language Education

Language has been proven to strongly affect different aspects on one's life/career including his/her identity and interpersonal communication skills beyond the immediate context. Given this, now proper discourse and interlocutor's emotions are highlighted in academia. However, few studies (if any) have explored the role of negative stressors and constructs in L2 classroom discourse and interpersonal communication competency. To fill this yawning lacuna, the present study provided a glance at the impact of three negative language aspects of hate, hurt, and harm (also called negative 3-H trio) on L2 education. Moreover, it presents the definitions, origins (positive psychology, positive peace psychology), dimensions, and applications of each aspect. Finally, some implications and future directions are suggested to avid scholars in L2 and mainstream education.

Peace Psychology

Peace psychology seeks to apply psychosocial principles to prevent and mitigate direct, structural, and cultural violence and promote harmony and equity in human relations. Two waves of peace psychology research and practice can be delineated. The first wave generated concepts, themes, and perspectives aimed at the prevention of nuclear war and mitigation of intractable conflicts characterized by repeated cycles of violence. The second wave enlarged the scope of peace psychology to include the amelioration of structural violence, the kind of violence that afflicts most of the world’s population and kills people slowly through the deprivation of life-extending human need satisfaction. The most recent iteration of the second wave addresses the cultural violence visited upon formerly colonized countries and calls for the development of theory and praxis informed by emancipatory methodologies.

Reconciliation and Peace Opportunity: A Peace Psychology Analysis on Venezuela Crisis

The Venezuela crisis is an intersection between political turmoil, economic crisis, mismanagement of natural resources, poverty, and health issues. The root causes of the crisis can be examined by using a peace psychology analysis, chiefly the concept of moral disengagement. This perspective is useful for looking at the Venezuelan crisis in a different approach and, at the same time, addressing peace efforts. One of the things that need to be pursued by domestic actors and humanitarian intervention is reconciliation. This reconciliation must meet the pre-conditions for the dialogue and peace agenda.

Bringing Together Psychology and Peace: A Critique towards the Emancipatory Potential of Peace Psychology

Historically, psychology has been deeply associated with the defense and active normalization of conflicts, war, and established social orders. For instance, it is well-known that one of the most important grounds for the legitimacy of psychology as a scientific discipline depended on psychologists’ work done during the First and Second World Wars. At those times, and perhaps in a culturally biased way, psychological tests for military selection and practical models to treat war-related problems were widely employed. Psychology gained a practical terrain for professionalization for both clinical and social psychologists within such context. However, psychology has also been used on behalf of emancipation, and not always in the field of conflicts, war, and oppression. One of the most interesting critical movements which has tried to move psychology into an emancipatory realm has been Peace Psychology. In general, this discipline has been open to framing, discussing, and participating actively in interventions developed in the name of peace and human rights. In accordance, in this paper, we seek to capture a) the historical development of peace psychology; b) the establishment of peace psychology as a field of psychology and of peace studies; and c) some reflections upon the omnipresent challenges and possible co-options that may shape the emblematic critical engagement of this discipline.