Reducing Intergroup Conflict Using a Belief Manipulation

结束长期冲突是一项紧迫的全球挑战。尽管棘手的冲突随着时间的推移会产生一种不可避免的气氛，但这些冲突是由人发起和维持的；因此，改变人们的心灵和思想是解决这类冲突的关键一步。本研究评估了一种新的基于理论的干预措施，旨在促进在持续的棘手冲突背景下更有成效的情绪和态度。这个提议的项目扩展了这个研究小组的初步工作，该研究表明，告诉小组成员群体没有固定的性质（对群体的增量信念），增加了对对立群体的好感，反过来，培养了更大的意愿，参与可能导致和平的重大妥协。在当前的项目中，研究人员将首次在一个社会背景下研究这种基于信念的干预的长期影响，在这个社会背景下，群体内的参与者经常接触到关于外群体的负面信息。研究人员将把这种基于信念的干预与观点采取干预（一种常见的冲突解决策略）和应对控制干预进行比较。在参与者被随机分配到三种干预措施中的一种之前（然后在之后立即和六个月后再次进行），将评估对外群体的态度和情绪，以及对和解行为的好感度。研究设计将允许检查这三种干预条件中的每一种影响的持久性，以及它们在面对现实世界冲突相关事件时对意识形态子群体的影响。重要的是，焦点干预引入了一种促进冲突解决的新方式，因为它不试图在冲突群体的成员之间建立互动、熟悉、同理心或换位思考。相反，重点是促进思维方式的改变。这项研究将对社会产生更广泛的影响，因为它测试了一种解决冲突的新方法，这种方法不涉及与其他干预措施相关的后勤问题，比如将冲突各方聚集在一起，或者冒着产生抵抗的风险，在棘手的冲突中试图明确地教导敌对团体相互同情。如果成功，这种基于信仰的新方法可以很容易地广泛传播，并适用于具有各种意识形态立场和文化特征的人。这一办法适用于许多国内和国际冲突，也适用于旨在防止未来冲突的努力。

Ending long-standing conflicts is an urgent global challenge. Although intractable conflicts develop an air of inevitability over time, these conflicts are initiated and maintained by people; therefore, changing people's hearts and minds is a critical step for resolving such conflicts. The present research evaluates a new theory-based intervention designed to promote more productive emotions and attitudes in the context of an ongoing intractable conflict. The proposed project extends preliminary work by this research team, which showed that teaching in-group members that groups do not have a fixed nature (an incremental belief about groups) increased favorable attitudes toward the opposing group and, in turn, fostered greater willingness to engage in major compromises that could lead to peace. In the current project, the researchers will for the first time examine the longer term effects of this belief-based intervention in a societal context in which in-group participants are routinely exposed to negative information about the out-group. The researchers will compare this belief-based intervention to both a Perspective Taking Intervention (a common conflict resolution strategy) and a Coping Control Intervention. Before participants are randomly assigned to one of the three interventions (and then again immediately after and six months later), attitudes and emotions toward the out-group will be assessed, along with favorability toward conciliatory actions. The study design will allow an examination of the durability of the effects of each of these three intervention conditions, as well as their influence across ideological sub-groups as they confront real world conflict-related events. Importantly, the focal intervention introduces a novel way of promoting conflict resolution, in that there is no attempt to create interactions, familiarity, empathy or perspective-taking between members of conflicting groups. Instead, the focus is on promoting a change in mindset. This research will have a broader impact on society by testing a novel approach to conflict resolution that does not involve the logistical problems associated with other interventions, such as bringing parties in conflict together or running the risk of engendering resistance by explicitly trying to teach hostile groups in intractable conflicts to empathize with each other. If successful, this new belief-based approach can be disseminated easily and broadly, and can work for people with a variety of ideological stances and cultural characteristics. This approach has relevance to a large number of intra-national and international conflicts, and to efforts aimed at preventing future conflicts.