Getting respected despite our differences : (re )establishing positive relations through a respectful treatment Can respect help to re establish social relations within and between groups also in situations of intergroup conflict In the present lines of research I propose respect to be of fundamental importance for social cohesion within and between groups. I conceive of respect as recognition as an equal (Honneth 1995 Simon 2007) and develop an integrative conceptualization and measurement in order to examine its role for intergroup reconciliation (Chapter 2 and 4). I present two studies examining the distinct influence of respect and disrespect as compared to a neutral condition at first within groups and then between groups (Chapter 3). Within groups a respectful treatment seems equivalent to a neutral treatment and both increased group identification group serving motivation and category salience equivalently when compared to a disrespectful treatment. As opposed a respectful treatment between groups decreased category salience compared to disrespectful treatment and may benefit to overcome intergroup boundaries. In the context of intergroup conflict I present five studies (Chapter 5 7) examining the role of respect on the willingness to reconcile between victims and perpetrators (Shnabel & Nadler 2008). Here I focused on how the willingness to reconcile is affected by a respectful message in addition to needs based messages or alone. Results revealed that respect had a consistent effect on the willingness to reconcile of victims in addition to the needs based message. More importantly perceived respect was the central mediating process between manipulated respect and the willingness to reconcile for victims and perpetrators. I discuss theoretical and practical implications of respect for relations within and between groups as well as methodological limitations and challenges in the experimental study of respect (Chapter 8).