The importance of hope in promoting conciliatory attitudes has been asserted in the field of conflict resolution. However, little is known about conditions inducing hope, especially in intractable conflicts, where reference to the outgroup may backfire. In the current research, five studies yielded convergent support for the hypothesis that hope for peace stems from a general perception of the world as changing. In Study 1, coders observed associations between belief in a changing world, hope regarding peace, and support for concessions. Study 2 revealed the hypothesized relations using self-reported measures. Studies 3 and 4 established causality by instilling a perception of the world as changing (vs. unchanging) using narrative and drawing manipulations. Study 5 compared the changing world message with a control condition during conflict escalation. Across studies, although the specific context was not referred to, the belief in a changing world increased support for concessions through hope for peace.

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Emotional barriers have been found to play a critical role in forming attitudes and behaviors in conflict and peace-making. A major effect of such affective barriers is cognitive freezing, which reduces openness to new information and opportunities to conflict resolution. In the current research, we examined the hypothesis that hope and fear have opposite effects on information processing in such contexts. A time-lagged correlational study with 222 Israeli-Jews was conducted using a new computerized information processing simulator. Results revealed that when faced with an opportunity for peace, long-term hope was associated with acquiring information in favor of accepting the opportunity, whereas fear was associated with acquiring information that was biased towards rejecting the opportunity. Results also showed that both emotions were not associated with the amount of information gathered by participants. Findings have both theoretical and practical implications regarding the differential roles of hope and fear in identifying opportunities for, and promoting, conflict resolution.

The goal of the current research was to examine how discrete positive intergroup emotional phenomena affect conflict-related attitudes in different contexts of intractable conflict. We hypothesized that empathy, but not hope would be negatively associated with aggressive attitudes during escalation, while hope, but not empathy would be associated with conciliatory attitudes during de-escalation. In study 1, we examined our hypotheses within a correlational design in an emotioninducing context, while in study 2 a two-wave survey was conducted during reallife events within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; a peace summit as well as a war. Both studies supported our hypotheses, thus indicating the unique, yet complimentary, contribution of each of the two emotional phenomena to the advancement of peace.