A bright side of sadness: The depolarizing role of sadness in intergroup conflicts

Abstract

Intractable conflicts constitute violent and threatening environments that lead to intense emotions and polarized attitudes. Sadness is one emotion frequently elicited by the price of such conflicts. This investigation characterized the effects of sadness on conflict‐related information processing and attitudes in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Findings from four experimental studies suggest that both incidental and integral sadness can induce a depolarization of political attitudes. In Study 1 (N = 163), sadness reduced the effect of political ideology on conflict‐related decisions. Sadness reduced the effect of political ideology on in‐group bias in resource allocation in Studies 2 (N = 213) and 4 (N = 274), willingness to negotiate in Studies 1 and 3 (N = 174), and openness to information supporting the out‐group's perspective (Study 4). Overall, in addition to its more negative implications, these results suggest that sadness (compared to both the non‐emotional and anger conditions) may have a bright side, since it may induce depolarization of political attitudes in intractable conflicts.

Self-validation theory: An integrative framework for understanding when thoughts become consequential.

“…Although we do not cover them all here, in addition to the inductions already mentioned (e.g., ease of retrieval, a slouching posture, etc. ), perceptions of thought validity have been affected by situational manipulations of feeling prepared or not (Carroll et al, 2020), being happy rather than sad (Briñol, Petty, & Barden, 2007; Chou, 2016; Gur et al, 2021; Huntsinger, 2013, 2014; Sidi et al, 2018), being ready to attack (Blankenship et al, 2013; Briñol, Petty, & Requero, 2017), nodding one’s head vertically rather than horizontally (Briñol & Petty, 2003; Wichman et al, 2010), being self-affirmed or not (Briñol et al, 2006), placing written thoughts in one’s pocket rather than the trash (Bohner et al, 2021; Briñol, Gascó, et al, 2013), and many others (Briñol & Petty, 2009). These studies have shown that inductions following thinking about a stimulus can affect the perceived validity of whatever mental content is available at the time, including thoughts that are completely irrelevant to the nature of the induction.…”

Investigating the potential of civil disagreement to decrease issue polarization in China

“…Depolarization can be generally understood as a decrease in extreme political attitudes. Recently, scholars from different social science disciplines have adopted various academic perspectives aimed at depolarizing the masses (e.g., Gur et al, 2021; Levendusky, 2018; Rebessi, 2019; Strandberg et al, 2019). From a social psychology angle, Levendusky (2018) has examined whether increasing partisan ambivalence and using self‐affirmation techniques could reduce affective polarization by weakening ingroup/outgroup‐centric thinking.…”

“…From a social psychology angle, Levendusky (2018) has examined whether increasing partisan ambivalence and using self-affirmation techniques could reduce affective polarization by weakening ingroup/ outgroup-centric thinking. Further, Gur et al (2021) have found that the negative emotion of "sadness" may have a bright side, as it was shown to reduce the effect of political ideology on in-group bias, and thus induce a depolarization of political attitudes in intractable conflicts. From a political science and public policy perspective, institutional solutions have also been put forward, including requiring voters to provide a ranking of political candidates, rather than choosing between Yes or No, and asking the public to adopt a "slow thinking" strategy that may facilitate scientific, evidence-based arguments (Rebessi, 2019).…”

Leaders’ Windows of Tolerance for Affect Arousal—and Their Effects on Political Decision-making During COVID-19

“…Likewise, in political environments, recent evidence finds that individual citizens experiencing anger are motivated toward political participation ( Valentino et al, 2011 ) and support for aggressive security policies, including war declarations ( Lerner et al, 2003 ; Huddy et al, 2005 ; Halperin, 2011 ). In contrast, anxiety has been shown to motivate information-seeking about political candidates ( Redlawsk et al, 2007 ; Valentino et al, 2008 ), while sadness has been shown to motivate depolarization of ideological schema ( Gur et al, 2021 ). Other research illuminates the varied effects of positive affect—with joy driving political leaders to devalue risk perceptions and embrace objectively riskier strategies, and contentment driving leaders to resist strategic change ( Dolan, 2016 ).…”