Intergroup Reconciliation: Effects of Adversary's Expressions of Empathy, Responsibility, and Recipients' Trust

Abstract

The present study explores the effects of expressions of empathy for the ingroup's conflict-related suffering and assumed responsibility for causing it by a representative of the rival outgroup on recipient's willingness for reconciliation. It is suggested that such positive expressions by an adversary will have positive effects on reconciliation only in the presence of a basic level of trust in the outgroup. In two studies, Israeli-Jewish participants were exposed to a Palestinian leader who either expressed or did not express empathy and/or Palestinian responsibility for Israelis' suffering. After reading the speech, participants completed a questionnaire that measured their attitudes toward reconciliation with Palestinians. Results of both studies show that whereas expression of empathy led to more positive attitudes when trust was high, it tended to have adverse effects when trust was low. Similar effects were not found for assumed responsibility. Implications for research on intergroup conflict and reconciliation are discussed.

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

“…The present study focuses on two other key antecedents identified in the literature: intergroup trust (Hewstone et al, 2006) and inclusive perceptions of victimhood (acknowledging that both sides have experienced victimization, Vollhardt, 2009;2013), shown in previous research to affect Israeli Jews' forgiveness tendencies Liviatan, 2006, andNoor, 2013, respectively). We aimed to replicate and extend these findings by testing the role of trust and inclusive victim perceptions in promoting forgiveness as well as consequent peace vision endorsement.…”

Fostering trust and forgiveness through the acknowledgment of others’ past victimization

“…After providing their informed consent, they completed a two-part questionnaire that was presented to them as a survey on attitudes related to media communication (for a similar procedure used in the same context see Nadler & Liviatan, 2006;Shnabel, Nadler, Ullrich, Dovidio, & Carmi, 2009). …”

“…Further, in the absence of trust, conciliatory gestures by the rivals may be perceived as driven by instrumental intentions. For example, Nadler and Liviatan (2006) showed that for IsraeliJews with low levels of trust toward Palestinians the empathic message from a Palestinian leader had a "boomerang effect" by decreasing their willingness to reconcile with outgroup members. In considering the conflictual relation between the two main linguistic communities in Belgium, Alarcón-Henríquez and colleagues (2010) also showed that high-trusting -but not low-trusting -Dutch-speaking participants displayed positive attitudes toward their French-speaking counterparts when the latter acknowledged the importance of shared past sufferings.…”

“…In this sense, it seems plausible to assume a recursive relationship between acknowledgment of suffering by rivals and intergroup trust: On the one hand, such acknowledgment contributes to intergroup trust, on the other hand, sufficient levels of intergroup trust are necessary for the positive effects of this acknowledgment to unfold (see also Nadler & Liviatan, 2006), especially if this acknowledgment concerns an ongoing victimization.…”

“…As in previous work (see Hameiri & Nadler, 2017;Nadler & Liviatan, 2006), we assessed trust using a single-item…”