Investigating the Role of Emotions in Intergroup Conflict

该奖项是作为NSF社会、行为和经济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、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学职业生涯培养有前途的、早期职业博士水平的科学家。SPRF奖项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。国家科学基金会致力于促进科学界所有阶层的科学家参与其研究方案和活动，包括那些来自代表性不足的群体的科学家；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的一个重要水平。每个博士后研究员都必须解决推动各自学科领域向前发展的重要科学问题。在耶鲁大学詹妮弗·A·里奇森博士的赞助下，这一博士后奖学金奖项支持一名早期职业科学家研究未被研究的情绪--幸灾乐祸或为另一群人的不幸感到高兴--在群体间冲突中所扮演的角色。特别是，我们正在研究幸灾乐祸的重要性，以激励人们不仅支持伤害外部群体的政策，而且实际参与将直接伤害这些群体的行为。关于群体间冲突的研究主要集中在移情在创造群体间的亲社会条件方面的重要性。然而，同理心是群体间暴力和攻击性的微弱前兆，这表明缺乏同理心不足以激发世界各地看到的那种极其有害的群体间行为。相反，我们认为幸灾乐祸是群体间伤害和暴力的更显著的动机。我们正在扩大围绕群体间冲突的对话，强调在干预群体间冲突时将幸灾乐祸与同理心结合起来的重要性。理想情况下，我们的工作将为今后更有效地干预群体间冲突，特别是那些以仇恨和征服为标志的冲突奠定基础。我们计划在美国三个相关的群体间领域研究导致幸灾乐祸的背景和个体差异因素。这项拟议研究的第一个目的是探索幸灾乐祸在促进群体间伤害方面的作用。我们将评估人们对外部群体的共鸣和幸灾乐祸的程度，以及他们对有害政策的支持，询问幸灾乐祸是否比缺乏共鸣对有害政策的支持具有更大的预测能力。第二个目的是测试感知到的群体威胁是否为个人经历对外部群体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部群体的威胁程度，并评估情绪和政策支持的程度，重点是降低威胁水平，从而减少幸灾乐祸和有害的政策支持。第三个目标是评估经历群体间幸灾乐祸是否不仅会导致个人支持群体外伤害，而且会参与其中。研究人员推测，幸灾乐祸可能是参与群体间伤害的强大动机，因为它降低了暴力的心理障碍。然而，对这种关系的实际研究还很少。我们计划利用经济博弈来模拟参与到群体间的伤害中，询问幸灾乐祸是否会导致个人变得更具报复性和对外部群体的伤害。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.