Investigating the Role of Emotions in Intergroup Conflict

调查情绪在群体间冲突中的作用

• 批准号: 2104211
• 负责人: Sa-kiera Hudson
• 金额: $ 13.8万
• 依托单位: Hudson, Sa-kiera T
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-08-01 至 2022-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2104211&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Investigating; Role; Emotions; Intergroup; Conflict

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Jennifer A. Richeson at Yale University, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating the role of an understudied emotion – schadenfreude or feeling pleasure at another group’s misfortune – in intergroup conflict. In particular, we are studying the importance of schadenfreude in motivating people to not only endorse policies that harm outgroups, but to actually engage in behaviors that will directly harm those groups. Research on intergroup conflict has primarily focused on the importance of empathy in creating prosocial conditions between groups. However, empathy is a weak antecedent of intergroup violence and aggression, suggesting that a lack of empathy isn’t sufficient to motivate the kinds of deeply harmful intergroup behaviors seen around the world. Instead, we propose that feeling schadenfreude is a more prominent motivator of intergroup harm and violence. We are expanding conversations around intergroup conflict by highlighting the importance of including schadenfreude in conjunction with empathy in intergroup conflict interventions. Our work ideally will provide the foundation for more effective intergroup conflict interventions in the future, especially those conflicts marked by hatred and subjugation. We plan to study the contextual and individual difference factors that give rise to schadenfreude in three relevant intergroup domains in America. The first aim in the proposed research explores the role of schadenfreude in promoting intergroup harm. We will assess the amount of empathy and schadenfreude people have towards outgroups as well as their support for harmful policies, asking whether schadenfreude has greater predictive power for support for harmful policies than the absence of empathy alone. The second aim tests whether perceived group threat sets the stage for individuals to experience schadenfreude toward outgroup members, which then leads to greater support for harmful policies. We will manipulate participants levels of threat towards relevant outgroups and assess levels of emotions and policy support, with a focus on reducing levels of threat and therefore reducing schadenfreude and harmful policy support. The third aim assesses whether experiencing intergroup schadenfreude not only leads individuals to support outgroup harm but to engage in it. Researchers have theorized that schadenfreude could be a potent motivator for engaging in intergroup harm because it reduces the psychological barriers to violence. However, actual research on this relationship is scant. We plan to utilize economic games to model engagement in intergroup harm, asking whether feeling schadenfreude leads individuals to become more vindictive and harmful towards outgroups.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该奖项是作为NSF的社会，行为和经济科学博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界，工业或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF的奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。NSF致力于促进来自科学界各部门的科学家，包括来自代表性不足的群体的科学家参与其研究计划和活动;博士后期间被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的重要水平。每个博士后研究员必须解决推进各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在Jennifer A.耶鲁大学的里奇森，这个博士后奖学金支持一位早期职业科学家研究未充分研究的情绪（幸灾乐祸或对另一群体的不幸感到高兴）在群体间冲突中的作用。特别是，我们正在研究幸灾乐祸在激励人们不仅支持伤害外部群体的政策，而且实际参与直接伤害这些群体的行为方面的重要性。关于群体间冲突的研究主要集中在共情在群体间创造亲社会条件的重要性上。然而，共情是群体间暴力和攻击的一个微弱的前因，这表明缺乏共情不足以激发世界各地的严重有害的群体间行为。相反，我们认为幸灾乐祸是群体间伤害和暴力的更突出的动机。我们正在扩大围绕群体间冲突的对话，强调在群体间冲突干预中将幸灾乐祸与同情结合起来的重要性。我们的工作最好能为今后更有效地干预群体间冲突，特别是以仇恨和征服为标志的冲突奠定基础。我们计划在美国的三个相关的群际领域中研究引起幸灾乐祸的情境和个体差异因素。这项研究的第一个目的是探讨幸灾乐祸在促进群体间伤害中的作用。我们将评估人们对外群体的同情和幸灾乐祸的程度，以及他们对有害政策的支持，询问幸灾乐祸是否比缺乏同情对有害政策的支持具有更大的预测力。第二个目标是测试感知到的群体威胁是否为个体对外群成员的幸灾乐祸奠定了基础，从而导致对有害政策的更大支持。我们将操纵参与者对相关外群体的威胁程度，并评估情绪和政策支持的程度，重点是降低威胁程度，从而减少幸灾乐祸和有害的政策支持。第三个目标是评估是否经历群体间幸灾乐祸不仅导致个人支持外群体伤害，但参与其中。研究人员认为，幸灾乐祸可能是一个强大的动机参与群体间伤害，因为它减少了暴力的心理障碍。然而，对这种关系的实际研究很少。我们计划利用经济游戏来模拟群体间伤害的参与，询问幸灾乐祸的感觉是否会导致个人变得更具报复性和对外部群体的伤害。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。