The Intergenerational Transmission of War Trauma: Empathy, and War-Mongering in the First Generation

War, as a significant phenomenon of international politics, is an unpleasant collective experience that can contaminate the fabric of society and leave an undesirable legacy for future generations. This study aimed to evaluate whether intergenerational transmission of war trauma influenced empathy capacity and war-mongering among the next generation. The subjects of this study included 182 people born in the 80s and 90s (the first generation of the Iran-Iraq war survivors) whose parents had different experiences in war. A mixed questionnaire was distributed to assess the severity of war trauma experienced by parents from children's perspectives. To assess empathy capacity and belligerent attitude, the participants also completed warmongering and interpersonal reactivity questionnaires. Quantitative data were analyzed using correlation analysis and linear regression analysis, while qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis. Researchers found a significant link between the severity of parents' traumatic experiences of war and their children's cognitive capacity for empathy. In other words, the more painful their experiences of war were, the lower the cognitive capacity of empathy their children had. Furthermore, children's belligerent attitude was not significantly influenced by the severity of their parents' war trauma.