Ingroup Bias in Healthcare Contexts: Israeli-Jewish Perceptions of Arab and Jewish Doctors.

The influence of group membership on perceptions of outgroup members has been extensively studied in various contexts. This research has indicated a strong tendency for ingroup bias - preferring the ingroup over the outgroup. We seek to further expand on the growing literature regarding the effects of group membership within healthcare contexts. Focusing on the Arab-Jewish context in Israel, the present study explored the influence of group membership on Israeli-Jewish participants' evaluations when exposed to potential malpractice. Specifically, participants (n = 165) read a description of an Israeli-Jewish or Israeli-Arab physician who was either culpable or non-culpable of malpractice. Consistent with our predictions, findings generally indicated more negative evaluations of the Israeli-Arab physician, regardless of objective culpability. We conclude by discussing the study's limitations and implications.

Looking Backward to Move Forward: Effects of Acknowledgment of Victimhood on Readiness to Compromise for Peace in the Protracted Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Two large-scale surveys conducted in Israel (Study 1A) and the Palestinian Authority (Study 1B) show that the belief by group members that people in the "enemy" group acknowledge their victimhood (i.e., Holocaust and Nakba for Jews and Palestinians, respectively) is associated with Israeli-Jews' readiness to accept responsibility for Palestinian sufferings and offer apologies. For Palestinians, this belief is linked to a perceived higher likelihood of a reconciled future with Israelis. Three field experiments demonstrate that a manipulated high level of acknowledgment of Jewish victimhood by Palestinians (Studies 2 and 4) and of Palestinian victimhood by Israeli-Jews (Study 3) caused greater readiness to make concessions for the sake of peace on divisive issues (e.g., Jerusalem, the 1967 borders, the right of return) and increased conciliatory attitudes. Additional analyses indicate the mediating role of increased trust and reduced emotional needs in these relationships.

"I" Seek Autonomy, "We" Rely on Each Other: Self-Construal and Regulatory Focus as Determinants of Autonomy- and Dependency-Oriented Help-Seeking Behavior.

There are two typical approaches to requesting help: autonomy-oriented help-seeking (asking in order to learn how to fix a problem) versus dependency-oriented help-seeking (asking a helper to fix it). This article presents three studies demonstrating a systematic impact of a person's chronic or activated self-construal (interdependent vs. independent) that operates through activated regulatory focus (prevention vs. promotion) on these two help-seeking styles. The hypothesis was tested by measuring chronic self-construal, regulatory foci, and help-seeking styles (Study 3), and by priming self-construal (Study 1) and regulatory focus (Study 2). Results show that people with an independent self-construal and a promotion focus prefer autonomy-oriented help, whereas people with an interdependent self-construal and a prevention focus seek dependency-oriented help. Mediation analysis (Study 3) shows that regulatory focus is a mediator between self-construal and help-seeking styles. The conceptual and applied implications of these findings are discussed.

Helping them stay where they are: status effects on dependency/autonomy-oriented helping.

On the basis of expectation states theory and Weiner's attributional model of help giving (Weiner, 1980), we predicted that low-status help seekers would be viewed as chronically dependent and their need as due to lack of ability, leading to the giving of dependency-oriented help (i.e., full solution to the problem). High-status help seekers were expected to be viewed as competent and their request as representing their high motivation to overcome a transient difficulty, resulting in autonomy-oriented help (i.e., tools to solve the problem). Help seeking is viewed as a stigma-consistent behavior that implies weakness when help seekers are low-status individuals and as strength when they are high-status individuals. Three experiments supported these predictions. The 4th experiment indicated that low-status persons who seek autonomy-oriented help are not seen as chronically dependent. Implications of these findings for helping and inequality are discussed.

When suffering begets suffering: the psychology of competitive victimhood between adversarial groups in violent conflicts.

Inter-group competitive victimhood (CV) describes the efforts of members of groups involved in violent conflicts to establish that their group has suffered more than their adversarial group. Such efforts contribute to conflicts' escalation and impede their peaceful resolution. CV stems from groups' general tendency to compete with each other, along with the deep sense of victimization resulting from conflicts. The authors point to biases that contribute to groups' engagement in CV, describe five dimensions of victimhood over which groups may compete, and contend that such competition serves various functions that contribute to the maintenance of conflicts. Drawing on the Needs-Based Model, they suggest that CV may reflect groups' motivations to restore power or moral acceptance. They then review evidence of the negative consequences of CV for inter-group forgiveness and suggest potential strategies to reduce CV. Finally, the authors discuss potential moderators and directions for future research.

Defensive helping: threat to group identity, ingroup identification, status stability, and common group identity as determinants of intergroup help-giving.

On the basis of development of the concept of "defensive helping," the authors demonstrated that high ingroup identifiers thwart a threat to group identity through defensive help-giving (i.e., by extending help to an outgroup member whose achievements jeopardize their status). Participants were 255 Israeli high school students (130 boys and 125 girls) ages 16-18. The phenomenon of defensive helping was demonstrated in a minimal group (Study 1) and real-group (Study 2) experiment. Study 3, which examined real groups, supported the extension of the phenomenon of defensive helping to relations between high- and low-status groups, showing that members of a high-status group who perceive status relations with the low-status outgroup as unstable will protect the ingroup's identity by providing dependency-oriented help to the low-status outgroup. Priming for common ingroup identity reversed this pattern, with participants electing to offer autonomy-oriented rather than defensive help. Theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed with respect to social change, paternalism, and helping between nations.

Promoting reconciliation through the satisfaction of the emotional needs of victimized and perpetrating group members: the needs-based model of reconciliation.

Guided by the Needs-Based Model of Reconciliation, we hypothesized that being a member of a victimized group would be associated with a threat to the status and power of one's ingroup, whereas being a member of a perpetrating group would threaten the image of the ingroup as moral and socially acceptable. A social exchange interaction through which victims feel empowered by their perpetrators and perpetrators feel accepted by their victims was thus predicted to enhance the parties' willingness to reconcile. Supporting the predictions across two experiments, members of the perpetrator group (Jews in Study 1 and Germans in Study 2) showed greater willingness to reconcile when they received a message of acceptance, rather than empowerment, from a member of the victimized group. Members of the victimized group (Arabs in Study 1 and Jews in Study 2) demonstrated the opposite effect. Applied and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

A needs-based model of reconciliation: satisfying the differential emotional needs of victim and perpetrator as a key to promoting reconciliation.

The authors propose that conflict threatens different psychological resources of victims and perpetrators and that these threats contribute to the maintenance of conflict (A. Nadler, 2002; A. Nadler & I. Liviatan, 2004; A. Nadler & N. Shnabel, in press). On the basis of this general proposition, the authors developed a needs-based model of reconciliation that posits that being a victim is associated with a threat to one's status and power, whereas being a perpetrator threatens one's image as moral and socially acceptable. To counter these threats, victims must restore their sense of power, whereas perpetrators must restore their public moral image. A social exchange interaction in which these threats are removed should enhance the parties' willingness to reconcile. The results of 4 studies on interpersonal reconciliation support these hypotheses. Applied and theoretical implications of this model are discussed.

The role of personality in social identity: effects of field-dependence and context on reactions to threat to group distinctiveness.

This article examines the role of personality dispositions as determinants of people's reactions to threats to social identity. It is argued that since individuals characterized as high field-dependents have a greater tendency to anchor their identity in the social group than low field-dependents, they will be more affected by threats to social identity, especially when the context is framed as an intergroup context. Threat to social identity was manipulated by inducing intergroup similarity, and intergroup differentiation was measured. The first experiment assessed the hypothesis with minimal groups. The second experiment assessed it with real groups (two rival schools). Findings provided support for the hypotheses. The discussion centers on the role of personality dispositions in the social identity perspective.

Intergroup helping as status relations: Effects of status stability, identification, and type of help on receptivity to high-status group's help.

Integrating research on social identity processes and helping relations, the authors proposed that low-status group members who are high identifiers will be unwilling to receive help from the high-status group when status relations are perceived as unstable and help is dependency-oriented. The first experiment, a minimal group experiment, found negative reactions to help from a high-status outgroup when status relations were unstable. The 2nd and 3rd experiments, which used real groups of Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews, replicated this finding and showed that high identifiers were less receptive to help from the high-status outgroup than low identifiers. The 4th experiment, a help-seeking experiment with real groups of competing high schools, found that the least amount of help was sought from a high-status group by high identifiers when status relations were perceived as unstable and help was dependency-oriented. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.

Intergroup reconciliation: effects of adversary's expressions of empathy, responsibility, and recipients' trust.

The present study explores the effects of expressions of empathy for the ingroup's conflict-related suffering and assumed responsibility for causing it by a representative of the rival outgroup on recipient's willingness for reconciliation. It is suggested that such positive expressions by an adversary will have positive effects on reconciliation only in the presence of a basic level of trust in the outgroup. In two studies, Israeli-Jewish participants were exposed to a Palestinian leader who either expressed or did not express empathy and/or Palestinian responsibility for Israelis' suffering. After reading the speech, participants completed a questionnaire that measured their attitudes toward reconciliation with Palestinians. Results of both studies show that whereas expression of empathy led to more positive attitudes when trust was high, it tended to have adverse effects when trust was low. Similar effects were not found for assumed responsibility. Implications for research on intergroup conflict and reconciliation are discussed.