In recent years, the problem of youth violence has caused increasing concern in educational and mental health professionals worldwide. Accordingly, one line of research has focused on violence prevention programs. The results of these studies have revealed the efficacy of this type of intervention carried out in community, clinical, and educational contexts.1–11 The systematic implementation of such programs has been shown to promote the prevention and reduction of violent behavior.

Although there are many kinds of violence and all are a source of concern and should therefore be the focus of interventions, in this study, particular attention is paid to political violence. Specifically, the Basque Country has suffered a severe problem of political violence for the past 50 years. ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) was created in 1959. Since then, this terrorist organization has killed 829 people.12 Various terrorist organizations created to combat ETA [the Anti-Terrorist Liberation Group (Grupo Anti-terrorista de Liberación), the Basque-Spanish Battalion (Batallón Vasco-Español), Triple A…] were active until 1987, during which time they killed 66 people.13 Although the number of people killed by ETA has decreased in the last few years, 42,000 people are threatened, and many have fled the Basque Country. Members of ETA have also been tortured in jails by the Spanish state security forces, and 600 ETA members are currently in prison.13,14 In this cultural context, some people, and consequently some adolescents, defend ETA violence and believe that certain violent behaviors are justifiable. This belief stimulates adolescents to perform more politically motivated violent behavior and to be less sensitive to victims of violence. Hence, intervention programs to prevent violence and increase awareness of victims of violence are urgently required in the Basque Country.

A review of the literature reveals a lack of intervention programs and research into their effects in conflictive social contexts of political violence with terrorism. Among the research most closely related to this topic is Slone and Shoshani's15 primary prevention program for coping with exposure to political violence in Israel. The results validated modification of the mobilization of support factors.

The program assessed in the present study employs a cognitive-behavioral theoretical framework and attempts to promote cognitive restructuring of thoughts about violence and its consequences in order to reduce violent behavior. From the cognitive perspective, thoughts have a strong impact on a person's emotional response and behavior16,17 and, therefore, certain ideas, beliefs, or thoughts may be used to justify violent behaviors. There are two factors in the origin of hatred: moral devaluation of the victim (the hated) and the ideology of the hater. Both these factors model and extend hatred. After a person has morally or humanly devalued the victims, attacking or killing them can become a right. Haters see the hated as someone profoundly evil, immoral, dangerous, or all of these qualities18. Hatred is based on the perception of the other, but is also related to the haters -- to their personal history and its effects on their personality, feelings, beliefs, and, especially, their identity. Certain adverse life conditions (jealousy, failure…) and contextual factors (situations of racial or religious discrimination, social injustice, linguistic or cultural repression…) can trigger and intensify hatred. The cognitive components of hatred involve one person's devaluation and perception of the other as threatening. The emotional part includes feelings such as anger, fear, distress, and hostility.18

Based on these theoretical proposals, the present study aims to assess the effects of the “Taking steps toward peace” program in the prevention of violence in the Basque Country. This study assesses the effects of the program on the capacity of empathy, anger management, and the capacity to define concepts associated with peace and violence.

The results of the pretest MANOVA (Multivariate Pillais, F(9, 266) = 2.33, p < 0.05) revealed significant pretest group differences, although the effect size was small (η2 = 0.082, r = 0.28). The results of the pre-posttest MANCOVA revealed statistically significant group differences (Multivariate Pillais, F(9, 257) = 7.80, p <0.001), and the effect size was large (η2 = 0.286, r = 0.53). The results of the ANOVAs (pretest and pre-post group differences) and effect sizes are shown in tables 2 and 3.

When the capacity of empathy was examined (table 3), the pre-posttest ANOVA showed that the program stimulated an increase of global empathy in the experimental group. Among the factors that comprise the capacity of empathy, significant differences were only found in perspective-taking. The effect size was medium in the global capacity of empathy but was large in perspective-taking. When feelings of anger were examined (table 3), the pre-posttest ANOVA showed that the program stimulated a significant decrease in the AEI in the experimental group. However, the effect was mainly due to the change produced in two factors, Anger Control-Out and Anger-Control-In, which significantly increased in the experimental group. The effect size was medium for the AEI and for Anger Control-Out, and was somewhat larger for Anger Control-In. The pre-posttest ANOVA showed that the program stimulated a significant increase in the capacity to define peace-violence concepts (table 3) in the experimental group. The pre-posttest ANCOVA conducted in view of the pretest group differences in this variable confirmed the positive effect of the intervention on the capacity to define peace-violence concepts, F(1, 274) = 29.18, p < 0.01. The effect size was very large.

Lastly, we examined whether the change differed by sex in the experimental group. The pre-posttest MANOVA was nonsignificant, F(9, 182) = 0.53, p > 0.05, revealing that the intervention produced a similar change in both sexes. Complementarily, we examined whether the change differed depending on the province of residence. The univariate analyses confirmed that the change was similar in empathy, F(2, 188) = 1.42, p > 0.05, and anger (AEI), F(2, 188) = 0.74, p > 0.05, but in the capacity to define peace-violence, the change in Alava was somewhat smaller, F(2, 188) = 6.44, p < 0.05.

Firstly, the results show that the intervention program —which aimed to educate for peace, living together, promoting respect for human rights, and preventing violence— increased the capacity of empathy. This was especially noteworthy in the factor of perspective-taking. Secondly, the results suggest that the program increased both external and internal control of anger, decreasing the AEI. Thirdly, the results show that the program significantly increased the capacity to define concepts associated with peace (positive and negative) and violence (direct, indirect, repressive, structural and cultural).

The program promoted positive changes, providing adolescents with better reasoning about peace-violence, as well as stimulating less anger expression and greater empathy for other human beings. Thus, by increasing empathy for the victims of violence and anger control, we hope to be able to reduce adolescents’ violent behavior and to minimize their joining social movements that foment violent behavior. We can therefore consider that the results justify continuing to administer the program and to perform long-term assessments, so that adherence to terrorist groups will cease to escalate.

The results obtained in this study confirm those of other investigations4–7,9,15 that found that psychoeducational interventions involving debates, negotiations, and cooperation had positive effects because they improve socio-emotional developmental variables related to the prevention of and positive coping with violence. Currently, there is a need for effective violence reduction programs for adolescents at school. Social psychologists have been successful in teaching adolescents integrative negotiation strategies that help them to resolve potentially violent conflicts.9 This study, in the same vein as other works,9 leads us to conclude that in order to develop an effective violence reduction program, we must teach young people the skills of integrated negotiation and strategies to help them transform competitive social contexts into cooperative social contexts. However, as stressed by some investigators,8 whereas schools are increasingly being asked to address issues of violence, certain cultural, organizational and managerial factors can obstruct violence prevention.

The results obtained in this study are interesting because of the connections between empathy and social behavior. Some studies have found that cognitive perspective-taking is a stronger predictor of guilt,24 that empathy is positively correlated with guilty feelings,25 and that shame-guilt is related to more feelings of empathy and fewer feelings of anger/hostility.26 Hence, guilt is associated with the inhibition of violent behavior. Moreover, other studies have confirmed the relations between empathy and prosocial behavior.27

Among the limitations of this study is the fact that we studied the effects of the program in three parameters associated with violence (empathy, anger expression, and the peace-violence concept) and therefore the approach to violence in this assessment was psychological, explaining violence as based on individual psychological characteristics (lack of terrorists’ empathy for their victims...). However, the psychosocial approach to violence should not be forgotten because terrorist groups include people with very different personality characteristics and thus an individual-psychological approach does not allow us to explain the phenomenon completely. To analyze and explain socio-political phenomena such as terrorism, in addition to some social (socio-structural approach that attributes the emergence of political violence and terrorism to variables such as poverty, social inequalities, authoritarian government styles, etc.) and psychological conditioners (personality traits that predispose individuals to violence, impulsivity, etc.), a psychosocial approach (group or organizational dimension) should be taken into account.

This study has practical educational implications and provides an intervention tool that enhances the development of personality during adolescence and may have a preventive effect on violent behavior. This is the main contribution of the study, because other investigations have confirmed that collective violence is associated with a considerable loss of health in primary victims.28,29 In addition to its clinical relevance, among the strengths of the study is the fact that there were no dropouts in the posttest follow-up.

The findings of this study suggest two future lines of research: 1) exploration of the differential effects of the intervention in adolescents who display many violent behaviors before beginning the program, as well as in those with favorable attitudes to politically motivated violence; and 2) analysis of whether the characteristics of the adult implementing the intervention (capacity of empathy, tolerance, attitudes to violence and to the Basque conflict, communication capacity…) play a role in the program's impact on the adolescents. In addition, future research should consider including a follow-up period in which the duration of the effect of the intervention can be assessed.

M. Garaigordobil designed the investigation, directed the data collection, conducted the statistical analyses and data interpretation, and wrote the manuscript.

This work was financed by the Basque Government Directorate of Human Rights (A-133/DJT2007; A-036/DJT2008) and by the Department of Education, Universities and Research of the Basque Government (GIC07/57-IT-351-07).

None.