We investigated whether violent conflict provides individuals with a sense of meaning that they are hesitant to let go of, thus contributing to the perpetuation of intergroup conflict. Across a wide variety of contexts, we found that making intergroup conflict salient increased the meaning people found in conflict and, in turn, increased support for conflict-perpetuating beliefs, ideologies, policies, and behaviors. These effects were detected among participants exposed to reminders of intergroup conflict (the American Revolutionary War and the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS; Studies 1A and 1B), participants living through actual intergroup conflict (the 2014 Israel-Gaza war; Study 2), and participants who perceived actual intergroup conflicts to be larger versus smaller in scope (the November 2015 Paris attacks; Studies 3 and 4). We also found that directly manipulating the perceived meaning in conflict (in the context of the 2014 NYC "hatchet attack"; Study 5) led to greater perceived meaning in life in general and thereby greater support for conflict escalation. Together, these findings suggest that intergroup conflict can serve as a source of meaning that people are motivated to hold on to. We discuss our findings in the context of the meaning making and threat compensation literatures, and consider their implications for perspectives on conflict escalation and resolution. (PsycINFO Database Record
Imagine that one day the number of naturalized people endorsing distant religions and cultures becomes so important that our laws are modified according to their ideas, by means of the instruments of direct democracy.It would be too late then to call to safeguard our values and identity. The only way to prevent such an insidious threat to our homeland is by restricting naturalizations rather than extending them even further.
Despite the current societal emergency, little is known about the acculturation processes undergone by Syrian and Iraqi asylum seekers. The present paper investigates their early-stage acculturation preferences in relation to their perception of majority members' acculturation expectations and to their settlement intentions. 103 Syrian and Iraqi male asylum seekers were recruited during the peak of the 2015 "refugee crisis" in a provisional reception centre and completed a brief questionnaire. Results showed that asylum seekers reported a high willingness to participate in the host society and to adopt the host culture, while maintaining their culture of origin. Moreover, as predicted, asylum seekers' settlement intentions and their perceptions of majority members' acculturation expectations were key predictors of their own acculturation preferences. Implications for integration policies are discussed.
Using an ego-centered network approach, we examine across two studies whether and how injunctive network norms-behaviors that are approved by alters-are related to majority members' decisions to participate in helping actions supporting migrants. We hypothesize that the more people perceive their personal social networks as positive toward humanitarian actions for migrants, the more they consider their opinions on migration issues as self-defining, and the more they are willing to mobilize in helping behaviors. With a name generator approach, we collected personal social network data among majority members of Belgian, mobilized volunteers (Study 1, N = 204) and Swiss, non-mobilized participants (Study 2, N = 247). Results demonstrate the impact of injunctive network norms in promoting and maintaining helping actions for migrants, and the role of self-defining attitudes. Overall, the results highlight the importance of injunctive norms within personal social networks for participation in intergroup helping behaviors.
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