Exposure to violence and prosocial attitudes in war-torn Ukraine – Anastasiia Arbuzova

Speaker

Anastasiia Arbuzova  (Kiel Institut)

Abstract

We study how direct exposure to violent attacks shapes prosocial attitudes among civilians during an active war. Combining a nationally representative phone survey of 2,000 Ukrainian adults with geo-coded ACLED conflict data, we exploit plausibly exogenous variation in attack timing relative to interview dates to identify short-run causal effects across three outcome families: Trust and institutional confidence, democratic values, and prosocial behavior. Preliminary results suggest that exposure to shelling significantly increases community engagement such as volunteering, while eroding generalized trust. Effects on democratic attitudes are mixed — emancipative values strengthen under exposure, yet perceived importance of free elections falls. Two randomized vignettes find no out-group penalty, including absence of penalty toward Russian-sounding neighbors and no exposure-driven widening of that gap, contrary to parochial altruism predictions. Together, the results suggest that ongoing high-intensity war reallocates rather than uniformly destroys prosocial behavior, mobilizing domestic solidarity while weakening generalized trust and select democratic commitments. 

Authors

Anastasiia Arbuzova  (Kiel Institut) – Anders Olofsgård (Stockholm University)

Room

Media Room (A-211)