Estereotipos asociados a la legitimación de la violencia po lítica por un sector de la población universitaria en Colombia

This is a descriptive multidimensional study and aims to establish association between stereotypes that a young university population sector in Bogota has about Colombia's army and illegal armed groups AUC (United Self-Defense of Colombia) and FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) with legitimization of political violence in Colombia. For this, a 17 open questions survey was designed and applied to 300 university students from three public and three private universities. Results show that there are differences in the type of stereotypes that university students hold against the legal and illegal armed actors in Colombia. Referring to the first, they are mainly believed and categorized as patriots. By contrast, the illegal armed groups as outcasts.