"We're tolerant and they're prejudiced": Same-sex marriage supporters' and opponents' perceptions of supportive and oppositional claims.

The current research examined the proposition that debates over same-sex marriage are characterized, at least in part, by conflicting understandings about what is and is not prejudiced, normative and true. Toward this end, Australians' (N = 415) prejudice judgements of supportive and oppositional statements toward same-sex marriage were measured and analysed with analyses of variance. Unsurprisingly, same-sex marriage supporters perceived a supportive statement as unprejudiced, tolerant, truthful, in pursuit of individual liberty, and normative; oppositional statements were seen in precisely the opposite manner. Same-sex marriage opponents, however, disagreed, instead judging an oppositional statement as unprejudiced, tolerant, truthful, in pursuit of individual liberty, and normative; it was a supportive statement that was seen as relatively prejudiced. These effects remained even after controlling for independent expressions of in-group favouritism. The current data align with a collective naïve realism perspective, in which group members see their own views as veridical and those of disagreeing others as biased. We argue that prejudice-reduction efforts must be instantiated to facilitate a common in-group identity between supporters and opponents to enable consensus over facts and, ultimately, what is and is not prejudice. Without this consensus, each side of the political debate may simply hurl the pejorative label of "prejudice" against the other, with likely little opportunity for social influence and social change.

Gender-based in-group social influence can lead women to view a hostile sexist attitude as less prejudiced and more true.

Social influence processes by which women come to judge a hostile sexist attitude as relatively true and unprejudiced were examined. Based upon status characteristics theory, women's judgments were expected to be more strongly influenced by a man's than a woman's interpretation of the sexist attitude as true or prejudiced. Based upon self-categorization theory, women's judgments were expected to be more strongly influenced by a woman's than a man's interpretation. Support was primarily observed for the self-categorization theory prediction. This effect, however, was initially suppressed by participants' acceptance of the legitimacy of gender status differences. A post-hoc mediational analysis revealed two pathways by which in-group social influence affected women's acceptance the relative veracity of negative claims about their own group: a direct path from shared in-group membership with the influencing agent, and an indirect path through their acceptance of the legitimacy of gender status differences. The research highlights how women's endorsement of sexist views can have the capacity to minimize other women's challenges of these views as prejudice.

The Informative Process Model as a New Intervention for Attitude Change in Intractable Conflicts: Theory and Empirical Evidence.

Peacemaking is especially challenging in situations of intractable conflict. Collective narratives in this context contribute to coping with challenges societies face, but also fuel conflict continuation. We introduce the Informative Process Model (IPM), proposing that informing individuals about the socio-psychological processes through which conflict-supporting narratives develop, and suggesting that they can change via comparison to similar conflicts resolved peacefully, can facilitate unfreezing and change in attitudes. Study 1 established associations between awareness of conflict costs and conflict-supporting narratives, belief in the possibility of resolving the conflict peacefully and support for pursuing peace among Israeli-Jews and Palestinians. Studies 2 and 3 found that exposure to IPM-based original videos (vs. control) led Israeli-Jews to deliberation of the information presented, predicting acceptance of the IPM-based message, which, in turn, predicted support for negotiations. Study 3 also found similar effects across IPM-based messages focusing on different conflict-supporting themes. We discuss the implications to attitude change in intractable conflicts.

When are intergroup attitudes judged as free speech and when as prejudice? A social identity analysis of attitudes towards immigrants.

Although anti-immigrant attitudes continue to be expressed around the world, identifying these attitudes as prejudice, truth or free speech remains contested. This contestation occurs, in part, because of the absence of consensually agreed-upon understandings of what prejudice is. In this context, the current study sought to answer the question, "what do people understand to be prejudice?" Participants read an intergroup attitude expressed by a member of their own group (an "in-group" member) or another group (an "out-group" member). This was followed by an interpretation of the attitude as either "prejudiced" or "free speech." This interpretation was also made by in-group or an out-group member. Subsequent prejudice judgements were influenced only by the group membership of the person expressing the initial attitude: the in-group member's attitude was judged to be less prejudiced than the identical attitude expressed by an out-group member. Participants' judgements of free speech, however, were more complex: in-group attitudes were seen more as free speech than out-group attitudes, except when an in-group member interpreted those attitudes as prejudice. These data are consistent with the Social Identity Approach to intergroup relations, and have implications for the processes by which intergroup attitudes become legitimised as free speech instead of prejudice.

Current and Future Costs of Intractable Conflicts-Can They Create Attitude Change?

Members of societies involved in an intractable conflict usually consider costs that stem from the continuation of the conflict as unavoidable and even justify for their collective existence. This perception is well-anchored in widely shared conflict-supporting narratives that motivate them to avoid information that challenges their views about the conflict. However, since providing information about such major costs as a method for moderating conflict-related views has not been receiving much attention, in this research, we explore this venue. We examine what kind of costs, and under what conditions, exposure to major costs of a conflict affects openness to information and conciliatory attitudes among Israeli Jews in the context of the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Study 1 (N = 255) revealed that interventions based on messages providing information on mental health cost, economic cost, and cost of the conflict to Israeli democracy had (almost) no significant effect on perceptions of the participants of these prices, openness to new information about the conflict, or support for conciliatory policies. However, the existing perceptions that participants had about the cost of the conflict to Israeli democracy were positively associated with openness to alternative information about the conflict and support for conciliatory policies. Therefore, in Study 2 (N = 255), we tested whether providing information about future potential costs to the two fundamental characteristics of Israel, a democracy or a Jewish state, created by the continuation of the conflict, will induce attitude change regarding the conflict. The results indicate that information on the future cost to the democratic identity of Israel significantly affected the attitude of the participants regarding the conflict, while the effect was moderated by the level of religiosity. For secular participants, this manipulation created more openness to alternative information about the conflict and increased support for conciliatory policies, but for religious participants, it backfired. We discuss implications for the role of information about losses and the relationship between religiosity and attitudes regarding democracy and conflict.

When ideology meets conflict-related content: Influences on emotion generation and regulation.

Do rightists and leftists experience information about suffering and harm with differing emotional intensities, depending on the identity of target depicted? Do they consequently choose differently how to regulate or cope with these emotions? Research has identified ideological differences in emotional processes, but it has yet to identify what types of content lead to ideological differences in emotional intensity or whether these content-dependent differences relate to differing preferences for engaging versus disengaging emotion-regulation strategies. We posited that right-left differences in experienced emotional intensity would be context-dependent, emerging mostly in response to depictions of harm to the outgroup, in accordance with the centrality of intergroup attitudes to ideological self-placement in conflict. Study 1 (N = 83) supported this hypothesis, with leftists (vs. rightists) experiencing outgroup harm (but not ingroup harm or conflict-irrelevant harm) with greater emotional intensity. Study 2 (N = 101), which replicated this finding, additionally examined whether behavioral differences in regulatory choice consequently emerge mostly regarding outgroup harm. We tested 2 competing hypotheses as to the nature of these differences: (a) the intensity hypothesis, positing that leftists (more than rightists) would regulate their intensified reactions to outgroup harm through disengagement-distraction (vs. engagement-reappraisal) due to a documented greater preference for disengaging coping strategies as intensity increases, and (b) the motivation hypothesis, positing that leftists (more than rightists) would prefer engagement-reappraisal (vs. disengagement-distraction), consistent with leftists' documented greater preference for intergroup empathy. Results exclusively supported the intensity hypothesis, and the significance of both studies is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Paradoxical Thinking as a Conflict-Resolution Intervention: Comparison to Alternative Interventions and Examination of Psychological Mechanisms.

Conflict-resolution interventions based on the paradoxical thinking principles, that is, expressing amplified, exaggerated, or even absurd ideas that are congruent with the held conflict-supporting societal beliefs, have been shown to be an effective avenue of intervention, especially among individuals who are adamant in their views. However, the question as to why these interventions have been effective has remained unanswered. In the present research, we have examined possible underlying psychological mechanisms, focusing on identity threat, surprise, and general disagreement. In a small-scale lab study and a large-scale longitudinal study, we compared paradoxical thinking interventions with traditional interventions based on providing inconsistent information. The paradoxical thinking interventions led rightists to show more unfreezing of held conflict-supporting beliefs and openness to alternative information, whereas the inconsistency-based interventions tended to be more effective with the centrist participants. Both studies provide evidence that the effects were driven by identity threat, surprise, and lower levels of disagreement.

Moderating attitudes in times of violence through paradoxical thinking intervention.

In the current paper, we report a large-scale randomized field experiment, conducted among Jewish Israelis during widespread violence. The study examines the effectiveness of a "real world," multichanneled paradoxical thinking intervention, with messages disseminated through various means of communication (i.e., online, billboards, flyers). Over the course of 6 wk, we targeted a small city in the center of Israel whose population is largely rightwing and religious. Based on the paradoxical thinking principles, the intervention involved transmission of messages that are extreme but congruent with the shared Israeli ethos of conflict. To examine the intervention's effectiveness, we conducted a large-scale field experiment (prepost design) in which we sampled participants from the city population (n = 215) and compared them to a control condition (from different places of residence) with similar demographic and political characteristics (n = 320). Importantly, participants were not aware that the intervention was related to the questionnaires they answered. Results showed that even in the midst of a cycle of ongoing violence within the context of one of the most intractable conflicts in the world, the intervention led hawkish participants to decrease their adherence to conflict-supporting attitudes across time. Furthermore, compared with the control condition, hawkish participants that were exposed to the paradoxical thinking intervention expressed less support for aggressive policies that the government should consider as a result of the escalation in violence and more support for conciliatory policies to end the violence and promote a long-lasting agreement.

Young Children in Intractable Conflicts: The Israeli Case.

The article examines the political socialization of young Jewish-Israeli children who live under the Israeli-Palestinian intractable conflict. It proposes arguments and presents empirical evidence to suggest that the way in which political socialization of young children happens in this context contributes to the development of conflict-supporting narratives of ethos of conflict and collective memory by the youngest generation. As a result, the conflict solidifies adherence to these narratives in adulthood, thereby serving as a major obstacle to the processes of peace-making and peace-building. Specifically, as evidence for showing how the political socialization works in Israel, a series of studies conducted in Israeli kindergartens and elementary schools are presented. These studies recount the contents acquired by young children, as well as contents delivered by teachers, related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This indicates the serious consequences of acquiring conflict-supporting narratives at an early age in societies involved in intractable conflict.

Are leftists more emotion-driven than rightists? The interactive influence of ideology and emotions on support for policies.

Although emotions and ideology are important factors guiding policy support in conflict, their interactive influence remains unclear. Based on prior findings that ideological leftists' beliefs are more susceptible to change than rightists' beliefs, we tested a somewhat counterintuitive extension that leftists would be more susceptible to influence by their emotional reactions than rightists. In three laboratory studies, inducing positive and negative emotions affected Jewish-Israeli leftists', but not rightists', support for conciliatory policies toward an adversarial (Studies 1 and 3) and a non-adversarial (Study 2) outgroup. Three additional field studies showed that positive and negative emotions were related to leftists', but not rightists', policy support in positive as well as highly negative conflict-related contexts, among both Jewish (Studies 4 and 5) and Palestinian (Study 6) citizens of Israel. Across different conflicts, emotions, conflict-related contexts, and even populations, leftists' policy support changed in accordance with emotional reactions more than rightists' policy support.

Overcoming the barrier of narrative adherence in conflicts through awareness of the psychological bias of naïve realism.

One significant socio-psychological barrier for peaceful resolution of conflicts is each party's adherence to its own collective narrative. We hypothesized that raising awareness to the psychological bias of naïve realism and its identification in oneself would provide a path to overcoming this barrier, thus increasing openness to the adversary's narrative. We conducted three experimental studies in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Studies 1 and 2, conducted among Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Israelis, respectively, revealed that participants with hawkish political ideology reported greater openness to the adversary's narrative when they were made aware of naïve realism bias. Study 3 revealed that hawkish participants at the baseline adhered to the ingroup narrative and resisted the adversary's narrative more than dovish participants. They were also more able to identify the bias in themselves upon learning about it. This identification may explain why the manipulation led to bias correction only among hawkish participants.

Paradoxical thinking as a new avenue of intervention to promote peace.

In societies involved in an intractable conflict, there are strong socio-psychological barriers that contribute to the continuation and intractability of the conflict. Based on a unique field study conducted in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we offer a new avenue to overcome these barriers by exposing participants to a long-term paradoxical intervention campaign expressing extreme ideas that are congruent with the shared ethos of conflict. Results show that the intervention, although counterintuitive, led participants to express more conciliatory attitudes regarding the conflict, particularly among participants with center and right political orientation. Most importantly, the intervention even influenced participants' actual voting patterns in the 2013 Israeli general elections: Participants who were exposed to the paradoxical intervention, which took place in proximity to the general elections, reported that they tended to vote more for dovish parties, which advocate a peaceful resolution to the conflict. These effects were long lasting, as the participants in the intervention condition expressed more conciliatory attitudes when they were reassessed 1 y after the intervention. Based on these results, we propose a new layer to the general theory of persuasion based on the concept of paradoxical thinking.

A sociopsychological conception of collective identity: the case of national identity as an example.

The present article delineates the complex structure of collective identity by incorporating two levels of analysis. The first, the micro level, pertains to individual society members' recognition of and categorization as belonging to a group, with the accompanying cognitive, emotional, and behavioral consequences. The second, the macro level, pertains to the notion of collective identity that denotes the shared awareness by constituents of a society of being members of a collective. This level is founded on two pillars: One pillar consists of generic features that characterize the collective identity. These features apply to macro-level collectives and allow a comparison among them. The other pillar is particular and consists of content characteristics that provide the unique features of the collective identity. The conceptual framework is applied to the analysis of the national collective identity as a case example. The contributions and implications of the described conception are discussed.