Addressing Violent Intergroup Conflict from the Bottom Up?

Abstract

How might interventions that engage ordinary citizens in settings of violent conflict affect broader conflict dynamics? Given the volume of resources committed every year to citizen‐oriented programs that attempt to promote peace, this is an important question. We develop a framework to analyze processes through which individual‐level interventions could mitigate violent conflict escalation more broadly. Individual‐level interventions may increase positive feelings toward the outgroup, as well as psychological, social, and material resources among participants. These have the potential to influence behaviors such as policing of the ingroup, public advocacy, and political action that can contribute to peace. Yet, the effectiveness of interventions to influence the conflict is moderated by contextual factors like groups’ access to material resources, their positions in society, and political institutions. We use this analytical framework to assess evidence from recent intervention studies. We find that the current evidence base is quite small, does not cover the diversity of relevant contexts, and gives too little attention to resources and capacities that enable people to engage in conflict mitigation behaviors. Researchers and policy makers should go beyond thinking only about improving attitudes to thinking about behavior, resources, and capacities for such behaviors, and contextual conditions that constrain behavior.

Paradoxical Thinking Interventions: A Paradigm for Societal Change

“…Thus, it is not surprising that social psychologists have devoted tremendous efforts and carried out numerous studies in order to develop methods, paradigms, and theories that use attitude change to solve social problems in various domains. These domains range from improving academic achievements of minority group students (e.g., Yeager & Walton, ) to peacefully resolving intergroup conflict (e.g., Ditlmann, Samii, & Zeitzoff, ; Hameiri, Bar‐Tal, & Halperin, ); from recognizing human responsibility for climate change (e.g., Hornsey & Fielding, ) to the adoption of healthy and financially adaptive behavior (Arno & Thomas, ; Thaler & Sunstein, ). As we elaborate below, in some cases, such as when an issue at stake is contentious, or when it is held with moral conviction, attitude change is difficult to achieve, as people tend to resist change (e.g., Eagly & Chaiken, ; Jost, Federico, & Napier, ; Sherif & Hovland, ; Skitka, ).…”

Psychological Barriers to Resolving Intergroup Conflict: An Extensive Review and Consolidation of the Literature

“…We then review and organize the empirical research that has attempted to attenuate psychological barriers, identifying the different methods that have been used, and examining which methods have been targeted at which types of psychological barriers. While prior research has featured partial reviews of psychological barriers and interventions aimed at reducing such barriers (see Hameiri and Halperin ; Ditlmann, Samii, and Zeitzoff ), none, to our knowledge, has attempted an exhaustive cataloguing of psychological barriers or barrier‐reducing psychological interventions.…”

“…At a minimum, the creation of consistently effective, evidence‐supported interventions requires painstaking work, with past efforts having required years of pilot testing, data collection, and iterative design (Hameiri, Bar‐Tal, and Halperin ). Ditlmann, Samii, and Zeitzoff () have also pointed out that for interventions to have an impact on large‐scale conflict dynamics, they must have a discernable impact on the behavior of individuals, such as increasing in‐group policing, public advocacy, or political action. Simply changing attitudes, beliefs, or emotions, without an impact on relevant behaviors, may be insufficient—and evidence for interventions having behavioral impact is limited (Ditlmann, Samii, and Zeitzoff ).…”

“…Ditlmann, Samii, and Zeitzoff () have also pointed out that for interventions to have an impact on large‐scale conflict dynamics, they must have a discernable impact on the behavior of individuals, such as increasing in‐group policing, public advocacy, or political action. Simply changing attitudes, beliefs, or emotions, without an impact on relevant behaviors, may be insufficient—and evidence for interventions having behavioral impact is limited (Ditlmann, Samii, and Zeitzoff ).…”

“…While Ditlmann, Samii, and Zeitzoff () have focused on behaviors that interventions might seek to influence, interventions might also impact intergroup conflict through promoting inaction —as in the case of reduced mobilization and decreased support for would‐be spoilers of conflict resolution efforts. For example, cognitive misconstruals of the out‐group (in particular, perceptions of out‐group homogeneity and collective blame) can be exploited by spoilers during a fragile peace process.…”