Doctoral Dissertation Research: Cooperative Economic Projects and Peacebuilding

博士论文研究：合作经济项目与建设和平

• 批准号: 1656871
• 负责人: Jacob Bowers
• 金额: $ 2.38万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-05-01 至 2018-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1656871&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Cooperative; Economic

General AbstractThis research investigates mechanisms that reduce violence and prejudice between groups currently involved in a violent conflict. Scholars, governments, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) develop and implement strategies designed to create positive interactions between members of conflicting groups as means to prevent violence. These strategies, however, are not tested among groups currently engaged in conflict, which prevents insight into possible effects of particular strategies -- whether they serve to prevent violence or escalate conflict. This project initiates economic collaboration between two conflicting groups to study how intergroup contact might reduce intergroup prejudice. To do so, this study utilizes a behavioral game as means to gain a measure of intergroup prejudice. The researcher devises a new way to measure prejudice through the observation altruistic or selfish behavior during structured intergroup interactions, instead of the more prevalent survey-based procedure. The project is implemented with the assistance of a peace-building NGO in an area marked by significant intergroup violence between farmers and animal herders, which results in thousands of deaths per year, high levels of food insecurity, significant property destruction, and the displacement of families and communities. Results from the study will provide valuable insight to inform scholars and policymakers about effective strategies to prevent violence between groups. Technical AbstractThis research focuses on strategies to reduce violence between conflicting groups. In particular, it works with a peace-building NGO program that developed such a strategy derived from a "contact hypothesis." This approach posits that structured interactions between members of competing groups is the most effective means of reducing intergroup prejudice. Numerous studies confirm that intergroup interactions can reduce prejudice. Experiences with outgroups has been shown to remove negative stereotypes and allow the prejudicial individual to re-conceptualize the outgroup. Recent studies, however, also conclude that social contact between groups involved in conflict does not always reduce prejudice, and may even increase it. Positive interactions do not always generalize to the entire outgroup, and can increase prejudice when such positive interaction conflicts with an individual's strongly held prejudicial beliefs. This project contributes to the research intergroup contact and prejudice reduction by testing if and how sustained economic collaboration might reduce prejudice between conflicting groups. An additional and equally important contribution of this project is a novel and new procedure to measure of prejudice in the field. Prejudice is typically measured via survey responses, which raises questions with respect to the reliability of the measure. Instead of a survey-based measure, this study evaluates prejudice directly by observing behavior in a public goods game played between farmers and animal herders, groups engaged in violent conflict. This project offers an empirical test of contact theory to reduce prejudice between conflicting groups and a novel measure of prejudice. Its findings will benefit scholars, policymakers, and NGOs in evaluating the effectiveness of their conflict prevention and prejudice reduction strategies.

一般AbstractThis研究调查机制，减少暴力和偏见之间的群体目前参与了暴力冲突。 学者、政府和非政府组织制定和实施旨在冲突群体成员之间建立积极互动的战略，作为预防暴力的手段。然而，这些战略没有在目前参与冲突的团体中得到检验，这妨碍了对特定战略可能产生的影响的深入了解-无论这些战略是有助于防止暴力还是使冲突升级。 这个项目发起了两个冲突群体之间的经济合作，研究群体间的接触如何减少群体间的偏见。为了做到这一点，本研究利用行为游戏作为手段，以获得一个衡量群体间的偏见。研究者设计了一种新的方法来测量偏见，通过观察结构化群体间互动中的利他或自私行为，而不是更普遍的基于调查的程序。该项目是在一个建设和平的非政府组织的协助下在一个农民和牧民之间发生严重群体间暴力的地区实施的，这种暴力每年造成数千人死亡，粮食高度不安全，财产严重破坏，家庭和社区流离失所。研究结果将为学者和决策者提供宝贵的见解，使他们了解预防群体间暴力的有效战略。技术摘要这项研究的重点是减少冲突群体之间暴力的策略。 特别是，它与一个建立和平的非政府组织项目合作，该项目从“接触假设”中制定了这样一个战略。“这种方法假定，竞争群体成员之间有组织的互动是减少群体间偏见的最有效手段。许多研究证实，群体间的互动可以减少偏见。 与外群体打交道的经验已被证明可以消除负面的陈规定型观念，并使有偏见的个人重新认识外群体。然而，最近的研究也得出结论，卷入冲突的群体之间的社会接触并不总是减少偏见，甚至可能增加偏见。积极的互动并不总是推广到整个外群体，当这种积极的互动与个人强烈持有的偏见信念发生冲突时，可能会增加偏见。该项目通过测试持续的经济合作是否以及如何减少冲突群体之间的偏见，有助于研究群体间的接触和偏见减少。该项目的另一个同样重要的贡献是一个新颖的和新的程序来衡量偏见的领域。一般通过调查答复来衡量预防措施，这就引起了有关措施可靠性的问题。这项研究没有采用基于调查的方法，而是通过观察农民和牧民（参与暴力冲突的群体）之间的公共产品博弈行为来直接评估偏见。该项目提供了一个接触理论的实证检验，以减少冲突群体之间的偏见和偏见的新措施。研究结果将有助于学者、决策者和非政府组织评估其预防冲突和减少偏见战略的有效性。