Masi Noor

On Positive Psychological Outcomes: What Helps Groups With a History of Conflict to Forgive and Reconcile With Each Other?

Three studies examined the roles of traditional and novel social psychological variables involved in intergroup forgiveness. Study 1 (N = 480) revealed that among the pro-Pinochet and the anti-Pinochet groups in Chile, forgiveness was predicted by ingroup identity (negatively), common ingroup identity (positively), empathy and trust (positively), and competitive victimhood (the subjective sense of having suffered more than the outgroup, negatively). Political ideology (Right vs. Left) moderated the relationship between empathy and forgiveness, trust and forgiveness, and between the latter and competitive victimhood. Study 2 (N = 309), set in the Northern Irish conflict between Protestants and Catholics, provided a replication and extension of Study 1. Finally, Study 3 (N = 155/108) examined the longitudinal relationship between forgiveness and reconciliation in Northern Ireland, revealing that forgiveness predicted reconciliation intentions. The reverse direction of this relationship was also marginally significant. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications.

Intergroup identity perceptions and their implications for intergroup forgiveness: The Common Ingroup Identity Model and its efficacy in the field.

Three studies revisited the application of the Common Ingroup Identity Model (CIIM) to the Northern Irish conflict and shed light on the factors that potentially limit the scope of the CIIM. Study 1 (N =61) showed that both conflict protagonists unanimously viewed “Northern Ireland” as the most inclusive superordinate category relative to other viable categories. Employing a longitudinal design, Study 2 (N = 67/43) examined the stability of the intergroup identity perceptions that the Northern Irish Protestant and Catholic groups hold in relation to the superordinate category “Northern Ireland”. Moreover, Study 2 also provided evidence that the Protestant group engages in ingroup projection (i.e. perceiving a large overlap between their ingroup identity category and the superordinate category). Study 3 (N = 307) successfully replicated previous research revealing that, while the Catholic group’s willingness to forgive the outgroup benefits from identifying with the superordinate category, the Protestants’...

When group members forgive: Antecedents and consequences

Whether forgiveness is essential for intergroup reconciliation may be disputable, but its potential ability to repair human relationships following offenses committed based on group membership remains of considerable importance. The primary focus of this Special Issue is on the social-contextual factors that encourage forgiveness of past wrongs and the extent to which forgiveness results in meaningful improvement in intergroup relations. The concept of intergroup forgiveness has only appeared on the research agenda of social psychologists over the last decade, so there is still much room for conceptual clarification, empirical validation, and applications to understanding intergroup reconciliation. Significant progress has been made by investigating predictors and correlates of intergroup forgiveness, and the research presented in this Special Issue further illuminates the processes involved in intergroup forgiveness, as well as important consequences. This collection of empirical articles, based on diverse theoretical perspectives and empirical approaches to studying the phenomenon of intergroup forgiveness inside and outside of the laboratory, advance our understanding of when and how improvement emerges across a wide range of real and enduring conflicts.

Peace vision and its socio-emotional antecedents: The role of forgiveness, trust and inclusive victim perceptions

The present study conceptualized peace vision as the view of peace as desirable, feasible, and requiring substantial concessions by both parties and examined the social-emotional factors contributing to its endorsement among Israeli Jews (N = 400). In line with our theorizing, we found that trust in Palestinians and inclusive victim perceptions (the view that both conflicting groups have suffered due to the conflict) were significantly and positively associated with peace vision endorsement both directly and indirectly, through facilitating forgiveness. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results in terms of the sustainability of peaceful coexistence between conflicting groups.

The propensity toward reconciliation among young people in Northern Ireland and Croatia: The role of conflict management styles within the family

Two studies, conducted in Northern Ireland (N = 266) and Croatia (N = 261), examined the role of constructive adolescents-parents conflict management style (CAPCMS) in predicting inter-group reconciliation attitudes. We hypothesized that CAPCMS would be a unique and positive predictor of reconciliation attitudes over and above other common predictors of reconciliation attitudes, such as inter-group contact quantity and quality, and the experience of inter-group conflict. Findings from Study 1 supported this hypothesis. Study 2 replicated these findings in a different cultural context and extended them by examining the robustness of the relationship between CAPCMS and reconciliation attitudes in the presence of an individual difference measure (self-confidence in social interactions). Furthermore, both studies revealed that for adolescents with high CAPCMS the relationships between intergroup contact (quantity and quality) and reconciliation attitudes were more accentuated, and their reconciliation attitudes were less affected by their experience of conflict, relative to those with low CAPCMS.

“Terrorist” or “Mentally Ill”: Motivated Biases Rooted in Partisanship Shape Attributions About Violent Actors:

We investigated whether motivated reasoning rooted in partisanship affects the attributions individuals make about violent attackers’ underlying motives and group memberships. Study 1 demonstrated that on the day of the Brexit referendum pro-leavers (vs. pro-remainers) attributed an exculpatory (i.e., mental health) versus condemnatory (i.e., terrorism) motive to the killing of a pro-remain politician. Study 2 demonstrated that pro-immigration (vs. anti-immigration) perceivers in Germany ascribed a mental health (vs. terrorism) motive to a suicide attack by a Syrian refugee, predicting lower endorsement of punitiveness against his group (i.e., refugees) as a whole. Study 3 experimentally manipulated target motives, showing that Americans distanced a politically motivated (vs. mentally ill) violent individual from their in-group and assigned him harsher punishment—patterns most pronounced among high-group identifiers.

To connect is to be influenced: What determines a third-party's forgiveness attitudes to conflicting groups' violent partisan members?: To connect is to be influenced

The present research sought to answer the question of what determines an uninvolved third party’s forgiveness attitudes to conflicting groups’ violent partisan members. Specifically, Bangladeshi participants read a fictitious interview with a radicalized Palestinian who declared his intention to avenge himself against Israelis for his personal and collective plight by carrying out a suicide bombing attack. Findings revealed that an empathy manipulation (high empathy = other focused or low empathy = objective focused) influenced participants’ forgiveness attitudes towards the radicalized Palestinian such that in the high empathy condition participants were more forgiving of the target than participants in the low empathy condition. Moreover, while the strength of their religious identification (Islam) played no significant role, participants’ tendency to attribute the target’s decision to situational factors fully mediated the effects of empathy on forgiveness.

Can we forgive a militant outgroup member? The role of perspective-taking

Whereas previous research has commonly studied the effects of perspective-taking for harmless targets, we examined whether the effect of perspective-taking might extend to a violent outgroup target. That is, our target not only held members of the adversary group responsible for his plight but also issued a severe threat to them (suicide bombing). We report findings from two studies that were conducted within the intergroup relations between Israelis and Palestinians, defined by a prolonged and violent conflict. Study 1 found that perspective-taking with a radicalised and threatening Palestinian target could successfully be induced among Israeli participants and, as a result, led to their improved motivation to forgive the target. Study 2 directly manipulated threat in addition to perspective-taking. Irrespective of the presence of threat, perspective-taking led to improved motivation to forgive the target as well as to increase interpersonal liking for the target. Increased liking fully mediated the effect of perspective-taking on forgiveness. Theoretical and practical implications of this research are discussed.

Prejudice in the pub: How alcohol and ideology loosen the tongue

ABSTRACT This study (N = 124) tested the main and interactive effects of alcohol consumption, egalitarianism, and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) in relation to prejudice suppression in the natural environment of a British Public House (pub). Employing a quasi-experimental between-subjects design, participants who had consumed alcohol were worse at suppressing their prejudice than participants with no alcohol consumption. Further, the more participants endorsed egalitarian values, the more they were able to suppress their prejudice. This tendency was resistant to the effects of alcohol. By contrast, the stronger participants held RWA beliefs, the less they were able to suppress their prejudice. In addition, this tendency was accentuated by alcohol consumption. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications.