SignificanceBiologists and social scientists have long tried to understand why some societies have more fluid and open interpersonal relationships—differences in relational mobility—and how those differences influence individual behaviors. We measure relational mobility in 39 societies and find that relationships are more stable and hard to form in east Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East, while they are more fluid in the West and Latin America. Results show that relationally mobile cultures tend to have higher interpersonal trust and intimacy. Exploring potential causes, we find greater environmental threats (like disease and warfare) and sedentary farming are associated with lower relational mobility. Our society-level index of relational mobility for 39 societies is a resource for future studies.

Recent years have seen researchers making initial steps towards drawing on insights from emotion research in the study of intractable intergroup conflicts, but the knowledge on emotion and emotion regulation cannot simply be implanted “as is” into the study of these unique contexts. The present article begins with a discussion of the unique context of intractable conflicts and continues with an examination of the existing knowledge on emotion and emotion regulation in these conflicts. From there it proceeds to detail the contextual factors unique to intractable conflict that must be taken into account when studying these constructs, focusing on three such factors: long‐term emotional sentiments, entrenched conflict‐supporting ideology, and clinical factors related to the repeated exposure to violence associated with life in conflict. For each factor, the article examines existing theories and empirical knowledge on its influence over the type and magnitude of emotion experienced, the behavioral and political outcome of emotional experiences, and on emotion regulation processes. When existing theory and knowledge are limited, we present theory and propose directions for future research. Finally, the article discusses the challenges facing those wishing to integrate conflict studies and emotion research and benefit fully, theoretically, empirically, and on the applied level from such an interdisciplinary integration.

The goal of the current project is to integrate psychological research on emotion regulation with the study of democratic practices in general and political intolerance in particular. We hypothesized that the use of a well-established emotion regulation strategy, cognitive reappraisal, would be associated with lower levels of group-based negative emotions toward one’s least-liked group and lower levels of political intolerance toward that group. Preliminary data based on nationwide survey conducted among Jews in Israel show that the tendency to reappraise negative emotions during war is associated with more tolerant attitudes. In studies 1 and 2, we experimentally manipulated reappraisal, and this led to reduced levels of political intolerance toward Palestinian Citizens of Israel (study 1) and toward one’s least-liked group (study 2). These effects were transmitted via a decrease in negative emotions in both studies, as well as by an increase in support for general democratic values in Study 2.

One significant socio-psychological barrier for peaceful resolution of conflicts is each party's adherence to its own collective narrative. We hypothesized that raising awareness to the psychological bias of naïve realism and its identification in oneself would provide a path to overcoming this barrier, thus increasing openness to the adversary's narrative. We conducted three experimental studies in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Studies 1 and 2, conducted among Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Israelis, respectively, revealed that participants with hawkish political ideology reported greater openness to the adversary's narrative when they were made aware of naïve realism bias. Study 3 revealed that hawkish participants at the baseline adhered to the ingroup narrative and resisted the adversary's narrative more than dovish participants. They were also more able to identify the bias in themselves upon learning about it. This identification may explain why the manipulation led to bias correction only among hawkish participants.