The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed)

by Peter T Coleman

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  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  RESOLVING INTRACTABLE INTERGROUP CONFLICTS The Role of Implicit Theories about Groups

  Eran Halperin

  James J. Gross

  Carol S. Dweck

  In most cases, intractable conflicts are based on real disagreements over concrete issues, such as territory or natural resources. These real issues must, of course, be addressed in conflict resolution. Yet it is well known that even when these real disagreements can be resolved, the conflicts often drag on because of powerful psychological barriers (Ross and Ward, 1995).

  Psychological barriers to conflict resolution, such as intergroup hatred or a one-sided view of the history of the conflict, often impede progress toward peaceful settlement of conflicts. They stand as obstacles to beginning negotiations, achieving agreement, and engaging in a process of reconciliation later (Bar-Tal and Halperin, 2011). In fact, parties often fail to address the real disagreements at all because of psychological barriers.

  In this chapter, we focus on one psychological barrier—an entity (or fixed) theory about groups. We contend that one of the most powerful psychological barriers to conflict resolution, especially in the context of intractable conflicts, is the belief that the out-group will never change its destructive behavior, harmful intentions, or hawkish political views. When a belief in the fixed (negative) nature of the out-group is prevalent, in-group members do not have any reason to seriously consider options for resolution raised by the out-group (or others) and hence will reject compromises or gestures that are critical to the peace process.

  In this view, one of the major challenges of the conflict resolution process is to help people understand that their adversary can change in meaningful ways. We address this challenge by drawing on the well-established framework of implicit theories (Dweck and Leggett, 1988; Chiu, Dweck, Tong, and Fu, 1997) that in recent years has been applied at the group level (Rydell et al., 2007). According to this approach, while some people (entity theorists) believe that the nature and characteristics of individuals and groups are fixed, others, who hold an incremental theory, believe that individuals and groups can change and develop (Dweck and Leggett, 1988). The cornerstone of the current framework is our premise that altering people’s general beliefs about the malleability of groups provides a means of decreasing negative attitudes toward their specific out-group.

  By using these ideas in the context of intractable conflicts, we show how some of the most destructive intergroup attitudes and policies can be changed, often without even mentioning the out-group itself or the specific conflict. In what follows, we first present some of the most powerful prior social psychological approaches to conflict resolution. We then introduce our approach and distinguish it from prior approaches. Next, we review recent research supporting our model, conducted in the context of two different ongoing intractable conflicts. Finally, we examine the practical implications of our approach and consider future research directions.

  DIRECT SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO CONFLICT RESOLUTION

  Many social psychologists have introduced interventions to reduce intergroup prejudice and promote reconciliation. Most of these interventions have been direct attempts to change people’s beliefs, attitudes, and emotions regarding the out-group. Some of the most popular approaches include those based on the contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954—both extended contact—Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe, and Ropp, 1997—and imagined contact—Crisp and Turner, 2009), perspective taking (Galinsky and Moskowitz, 2000), common in-group identity (Gaertner, Dovidio, Anastasio, Bachman, and Rust, 1993), the strategy of increasing the perceived variability of the out-group (Brauer and Er-rafiy, 2011), and the strategy of addressing the groups’ differing psychological needs in the conflict (Shnabel, Nadler, Ullrich, Dovidio, and Carmi, 2009).

  Although they differ in important ways, all of these approaches involve explicit focus on the out-group, and some of t
hem even involve direct encounters with out-group members. An exhaustive review is not possible here, but we will outline two of the most successful of these direct approaches as background for our proposed model and intervention. We focus on these two examples because they are considered to be the most successful of the social psychological interventions and allow us to highlight the unique nature of our proposed intervention.

  One of social psychology’s most important contributions to reducing intergroup conflict has been contact theory (Allport, 1954; Dovidio, Gaertner, and Kawakami, 2003). This theory proposes that positive interactions between members of hostile groups can improve intergroup attitudes when the interactions involve factors such as equal status, mutual cooperation, and support from the relevant authority (for a meta-analysis, see Pettigrew and Tropp, 2006). Interventions informed by this theory have addressed relations between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland (Hughes, 2001), Jews and Arabs in Israel (Maoz, 2004), and Caucasians and African Americans in the United States (for a review, see Brown and Hewstone, 2005). A major limitation of this approach, however, is that its success depends on specific conditions being met (e.g., equal-status contact), and these conditions can be difficult to ensure in the context of intergroup conflict (Bekerman and Maoz, 2005; Hammack, 2007). Some of these limitations are addressed by an extension of contact theory involving imagined contact (Turner, Crisp, and Lambert, 2007; Crisp, Stathi, Turner, and Husnu, 2008; Turner and Crisp, 2010), but the efficacy of this variant has not been tested in the context of intractable conflict.

  A second psychological approach does not depend on bringing groups together (in reality or in imagination) but instead relies on perspective taking or empathy promotion. This approach has yielded some impressive results in increasing empathy, decreasing animosity, and improving intergroup relations (Dovidio et al., 2003; Galinsky and Moskowitz, 2000; Pettigrew and Tropp, 2008). However, this method can sometimes be counterproductive: resistance rather than empathy can arise from direct encounters with opposing viewpoints or from being instructed to sympathize with one’s enemies (Epley, Caruso, and Bazerman, 2006; Galinsky, Ku, and Wang, 2005; Vorauer and Sasaki, 2009). This is especially true for those holding extremely negative attitudes and emotions toward the out-group or for those adhering to uncompromising ideologies (Bar-Tal and Rosen, 2009). Moreover, as Paluck (2010) noted, “Perspective takers on one side of a conflict can lose credibility with their in-group if they attempt to understand the other side” (p. 3; see also Galinsky et al., 2005).

  INDIRECT SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO CONFLICT RESOLUTION

  The two direct approaches we have discussed have proven successful in certain contexts. However, they have two major limitations. First, as noted, they often require bringing rival parties together, thereby creating logistical and economic constraints, possible resistance, or in-group reprisals. Thus, these programs may be unable to reach those most in need of an intervention. Second, direct instructions to empathize with the out-group can have counterproductive consequences in the form of defensive reactions; this is especially true for those with the most negative attitudes and emotions toward the out-group. The last thing people suffering from an out-group’s violence might want to hear are positive things about that very same group and justifications or excuses for its harmful behavior.

  Hence, at least when intractable conflicts are at their peak, it may be important to use social psychological interventions that are more implicit and avoid focusing on the out-group and the specific conflict (Bar-Tal and Rosen, 2009). These kinds of interventions can convey messages about general values like tolerance (Agius and Ambrosewicz, 2003) or human rights (Flowers, Bernbaum, Rudelius-Palmer, and Tolman, 2000), or they can teach unique skills of conflict resolution (Bodine and Crawford, 1998; Deutsch, 1993) or emotion regulation (Halperin, Porat, Tamir, and Gross, 2013). Yet one of the major critiques of some of these approaches is that they are too disconnected from the relevant conflicts and therefore people may fail to apply the general ideas to the specific context of their ongoing conflict.

  We offer a new approach to implicit interventions, aiming at changing negative intergroup attitudes by changing beliefs about the nature of groups more generally. The proposed approach is unique because it touches on one of the most powerful driving forces of intractable conflicts, negative intergroup attitudes, without focusing on content that might give rise to antagonism and defensive reactions. In other words, we believe that in developing the new intervention, we have identified the optimal distance: not too close, but also not too far from the actual content of the conflict.

  This intervention is predicated on the assumption that any progress toward the resolution of the conflict, which requires mutual gestures, risk taking, and compromises, must be accompanied by the hope that the out-group is capable of changing its destructive behavior. Empirical support for this assumption comes from research showing that the most harmful intergroup attitudes are those implying that the rival group is evil by nature and therefore will never change its immoral, violent behavior (Halperin, 2008). It stands to reason that people who believe that the out-group is irrevocably evil might be reluctant to compromise or try to resolve conflict in peaceful ways. And indeed, empirical data show that those who hold such (strong) beliefs also oppose intergroup negotiation, compromises of different kinds, and even long-term normalization of intergroup relations (Halperin, 2011).

  How can these destructive beliefs be changed while bypassing the potential negative side effects inherent in directly praising or empathizing with the out-group? We suggest that by emphasizing the dynamic, malleable nature of groups in general, we can indirectly affect people’s beliefs about the rival group in particular. That is, by dispelling the idea that groups have a fixed or immutable nature, we can potentially decrease the animosity between specific groups and increase their support for making compromises in the service of peace. The impact of implicit theories in areas other than conflict resolution and the efficacy of teaching a malleable view of human attributes have been demonstrated in a number of studies.

  Research by Dweck and colleagues (see Dweck and Leggett, 1988; Dweck and Molden, 2005) has focused on implicit theories about the nature of human attributes. Whereas people who hold an entity theory believe that human attributes are fixed, concrete, internal entities, those who lean toward an incremental theory believe that human attributes are more dynamic qualities that can be changed and developed. Although the application of this approach to conflict resolution is new, the effects of lay beliefs about the malleability of people have been extensively investigated in the field of person perception. For instance, those holding malleable (incremental) beliefs about persons or groups have been found to be less prone to make stereotypical judgments (Levy, Stroessner, and Dweck, 1998; Plaks, Stroessner, Dweck, and Sherman, 2001; Rydell, Hugenberg, Ray, and Mackie, 2007). They are also less likely than those with fixed, entity beliefs to attribute perceived wrongdoing to people’s inherent nature (Chiu, Hong, and Dweck, 1997; Levy, Stroessner, and Dweck, 1998), less prone to recommend punishment and retaliation for wrongdoing (Chiu, Dweck, Tong, and Fu, 1997), and more likely to recommend negotiation and education (Chiu, Dweck et al., 1997), suggesting that these beliefs guide preferred methods of resolving troubling situations.

  In more recent developments, studies have shown that people hold implicit theories not only about individuals but also about social groups (Halperin, Russell, Trzesniewski, Gross, and Dweck, 2011; Rydell et al., 2007). According to this approach, those who hold entity beliefs about groups do not think that groups in general can change, while those who hold incremental beliefs see groups as dynamic and capable of change. Studies have shown that these beliefs influence intragroup attitudes and dynamics (Tong and Chang, 2008), but more relevant to this chapter, they also have implications for intergroup relations. For example, Rydell and colleagues (2007) demonstrated that those maintaining an incremental implicit theory of groups are less prone to holding and
forming stereotypes. This is highly relevant when studying intergroup conflicts and conflict resolution, given that the central players in these conflicts are social groups rather than isolated individuals.

  Of critical importance to this topic is a growing body of literature suggesting that these beliefs about individuals (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, and Dweck, 2007; Heslin Latham, and VandeWalle, 2005; Plaks et al., 2001) and groups (Halperin et al., 2011; Rydell et al., 2007) can be changed. The fact that beliefs about groups’ malleability can be influenced means that the application of the proposed idea to the conflict resolution domain could potentially cross the boundary of descriptiveness and become an actual conflict resolution intervention. If people can be led to believe that groups can change for the better, it would be more difficult for them to hold the contradictory belief that their rival group is evil by nature and will never change.

  This reasoning led us to predict that negative intergroup attitudes would be attenuated by teaching people to see how groups’ nature, attitudes, and behavior can be dynamic and not fixed, that is, by increasing their acceptance of incremental beliefs about groups. According to the model presented in figure 16.1, inducing an incremental belief about groups would change negative attitudes toward the out-group, which in turn should have an impact on conciliatory political action tendencies, such as willingness to compromise for peace.

  Figure 16.1 The Influence of Implicit Theories about Groups on Support for Conciliatory Political Actions Tendencies

  First, we show the impact of implicit theories on the cognitive (judgment) component of attitudes, but we are also beginning to explore the impact of implicit theories on the emotional component of attitudes, and we will present this work as well.