Empathizing with the Enemy: Emotion Regulation and Support for Humanitarian Aid in Intergroup Conflicts

同情敌人：群体间冲突中的情绪调节和人道主义援助支持

• 批准号: 406023172
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Kai Sassenberg
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Ben-Gurion Universität of the Negev Israel
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2017-12-31 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/406023172?language=en
• 关键词: Empathizing; Enemy; Emotion; Regulation; Support

Intractable intergroup conflicts are one of the most serious challenges humanity is facing. Despite the intense negative emotions that such conflicts elicit, only recently have researchers begun to explore the regulation of emotional experiences as an aspect that may promote our understanding of these conflicts. Empirical research has so far focused on one single emotion regulation strategy, namely emotional distancing. Evidence regarding the impact of emotional distancing is mixed: it reduces negative emotions and increases hope with regard to the development of the conflict, but it does not influence empathy towards suffering outgroup members. However, empathy has a particularly strong potential to facilitate positive behavior towards members of other groups including reconciliation. Therefore, the proposed project sought to test the potential of another emotion regulation strategy, namely integrated emotion regulation (IER). IER involves (a) a differentiated awareness of one's emotional states and (b) a striving to understand them in the light of one’s goals. It has been shown to be highly effective in interpersonal conflicts. The current project set out to test the impact of IER in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the relation between Germans and refugees. To be more precise it will be tested (a) whether IER leads to outgroup directed empathy and support for humanitarian aid toward suffering outgroup members, (b) whether the complexity of the outgroup representation plays a role in this process, and (c) whether the benefits of IER compared to emotional distancing are particularly strong among individuals with a weak internal motivation to behave unprejudiced. These hypotheses will be tested experimentally and longitudinally while comparing IER’s effects to the effects of emotional distancing. Overall, the proposed project will contribute to the understanding of emotion-regulation in the context of intergroup conflict and provide knowledge upon which interventions in these contexts can be based.

难以解决的群体间冲突是人类面临的最严重挑战之一。尽管这种冲突会引发强烈的负面情绪，但直到最近，研究人员才开始探索情绪体验的调节，这可能会促进我们对这些冲突的理解。到目前为止，实证研究集中在一个单一的情绪调节策略，即情绪距离。关于情感距离的影响的证据是混合的：它减少了负面情绪，增加了对冲突发展的希望，但它不会影响对受苦的外群体成员的同情。然而，同理心有一个特别强大的潜力，以促进积极的行为对其他群体的成员，包括和解。因此，该项目试图测试另一种情绪调节策略的潜力，即综合情绪调节（IER）。IER包括（a）对一个人的情绪状态的不同认识和（B）根据一个人的目标努力理解它们。事实证明，它在人际冲突中非常有效。目前的项目是在以色列-巴勒斯坦冲突和德国人与难民之间的关系的背景下测试信息与和解的影响。更准确地说，它将测试（a）是否IER导致外群体定向同情和支持人道主义援助对受苦的外群体成员，（B）是否外群体代表的复杂性在这一过程中发挥作用，（c）是否IER的好处相比，情感距离是特别强大的个人与弱的内部动机表现出不带偏见。这些假设将被测试实验和纵向比较IER的影响，情绪距离的影响。总体而言，拟议的项目将有助于在群体间冲突的背景下的情绪调节的理解，并提供知识，在这些情况下的干预措施可以基于。