Boaz Hameiri | Tel Aviv University (original) (raw)
Papers by Boaz Hameiri
Psychology of Violence
Objective: Understanding the drivers of political violence is critical, given the destructive con... more Objective: Understanding the drivers of political violence is critical, given the destructive consequences it has on the fabric of society. Prior work has established the importance of situational and dispositional predictors of political violence, such as search for significance and meaning and experiencing trauma. However, these predictors do not fully account for one of its most worrisome ingredients—the tendency to feel aggrieved and to express that grievance violently. Here, we examine how trait victimhood undergirds individuals’ support for, and engagement with, political violence among Democrats and Republicans in the U.S.
Method: In Study 1 (N = 393), we examined the predictive power of trait victimhood on support for political violence. In Study 2 (N = 1,000), we tested the same model among a nationally representative sample of U.S. partisans with (self-reported) real-world participation in political violence. In Study 3 (N = 824), we experimentally examined whether inducing intergroup competitive victimhood increases support for political violence, as a function of trait victimhood.
Results: In Studies 1-2 trait victimhood strongly predicted support for political violence—an association mediated through intergroup competitive victimhood beliefs. The association between search for meaning and support for violence was also moderated by trait victimhood. In Study 3, the intergroup competitive victimhood manipulation significantly increased support for political violence only among high trait victimhood participants.
Conclusion: These results illustrate the importance of trait victimhood—a psychological mechanism that has been under-valued in this context—as a critical psychological force underlying political violence.
Deep distrust of the rival is widely shared among members of society involved in intractable conf... more Deep distrust of the rival is widely shared among members of society involved in intractable conflicts, and constitutes a major barrier for peace-building. In the current research we examine an intervention aimed at legitimizing the other side as a partner to peace that can be trusted through providing information about a peaceful change among a member of the rival group. Study 1 (N = 253) revealed that providing Jewish-Israelis with such information about a Palestinian increases unfreezing, trust of the rival group, and support for peace-building compared to the control condition. Moreover, we found that unfreezing followed by trust mediated the effect of the intervention on increased support for peace-building. Comparing the effects of four variations of the change story, we found in Study 2 (N = 801) that the story of a Palestinian who had to deal with adversity within his own group created more trust and hope among rightist participants, while the story of a Palestinian coming from the family that believes in peace created heightened trust and hope for center-left participants. We offer insights into ideological-based differences of persuasive messages relating to peace-building.
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 2022
Members of historically advantaged groups are often unwilling to support actions or policies aime... more Members of historically advantaged groups are often unwilling to support actions or policies aimed at reducing inequality between advantaged and disadvantaged groups, even if they generally support the principle of equality. Based on past research, we suggest a selfaffirmation intervention (an intervention in which people reflect on a positive trait or value in order to affirm their positive self-image) may be effective for increasing the willingness of advantaged group members to address inequality. Importantly, while self-affirmation has in the past only operationalized as a written exercise, in this project we adapt it into video messages for use in public campaigns. In Study 1, we experimentally tested an initial video adaptation of self-affirmation and found that it is effective in increasing the willingness of advantaged group members to address inequality in the context of Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. Based on this study, NGOs developed a real campaign video and used it in their public campaign, and we tested this applied intervention (in Study 2) and found it to be effective compared to a control condition that only presented information about inequality. Together, these studies represent the first implementation of self-affirmation in real world campaigns and indicate that it can be effective way to increase support for action to address inequality.
Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 2022
The current paper is a personal account, describing the behind the scenes of an ongoing translati... more The current paper is a personal account, describing the behind the scenes of an ongoing translational research project, initiated by Emile Bruneau in 2018, in collaboration with a team of scientists, filmmakers, and protagonists of the peace process in Colombia. The paper is divided to two sections. The first section highlights the raising demand for the use of brain and behavioral sciences in program design and evaluation, especially to update and advance the area of peace and security. The second section reviews how we applied the three significant steps proposed by Moore-Berg, Bernstein et al. (in press) to carry out a research project faithful to the translational science approach in Colombia by: (1) engaging with the communities involved to learn about the issues they face; (2) partnering with practitioners, to do research that will affect change in those communities; and (3) translating findings through different forms of engagement. Finally, we offer some concluding remarks about the advantages of adopting a Bruneau-ian approach to research.
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 2022
Western countries have witnessed increased hostility towards Muslims among individuals, and stru... more Western countries have witnessed increased hostility towards Muslims among individuals, and structurally in the ways that media covers stories related to Islam/Muslims and in policies that infringe on the rights of Muslim communities. In response, practitioners have created media interventions that aim to reduce Islamophobia. However, it is unclear what causal effects these interventions have on reducing Islamophobia. Here we test the effects of 11 media interventions developed by practitioners with an intervention tournament among U.S. samples. In Study 1, we identified three videos that most effectively reduced Islamophobia, both immediately after watching and one-month later. In Studies 2-4, we examined the psychological mechanisms of these successful videos and found an indirect effect of the interventions on reduced support for anti-Muslim policies through recognition of media bias against Muslims. This research highlights that drawing attention to structural biases, including biased media coverage of Muslims, is one potential target for ameliorating Islamophobia.
The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood
This chapter discusses individual differences in the tendency to perceive interpersonal victimhoo... more This chapter discusses individual differences in the tendency to perceive interpersonal victimhood, and parallels to collective victimhood. Specifically, some people are more likely than others to perceive victimization on the interpersonal level, experience it more intensely, and incorporate these experiences into their identity. The tendency to perceive (interpersonal) victimhood consists of four dimensions: a need for recognition of suffering, perceived moral superiority, lack of empathy for others’ suffering, and rumination over negative feelings and thoughts related to experienced offenses. People who score higher on these dimensions show greater biases in their interpretation, memory, and attributions of interpersonal transgressions: They recall them more, perceive them as more severe, expect more to be harmed by others, and perceive more harm in ambiguous situations. They are also less willing to forgive transgressions. The authors compare this with parallel findings on inter...
The Social Psychology of Humor, 2021
The chapter introduces a new approach to attitude change, termed paradoxical thinking. It suggest... more The chapter introduces a new approach to attitude change, termed paradoxical thinking. It suggests that messages that are consistent with an individual’s view, but formulated in an amplified, exaggerated, or even absurd manner, lead to an extended process of deliberative thinking and arouse lower levels of resistance compared to conventional persuasive approaches that use attitude-inconsistent messages. We argue that attitude-inconsistent messages are often automatically rejected among highly involved individuals with extreme views. The paradoxical thinking approach is intended to lead individuals to perceive their held societal beliefs or the current situation as farfetched and implausible, and ultimately, to lead to unfreezing and reevaluation of held attitudes. Eventually, unfreezing may lead to openness to alternative, more † Daniel Bar-Tal and Boaz Hameiri contributed equally to this work and are listed in alphabetical order. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology # 2020 El...
Peace Psychology Book Series
Self-censorship is of great importance in societies involved in intractable conflict. In this con... more Self-censorship is of great importance in societies involved in intractable conflict. In this context, it blocks information that may contradict the dominant conflict-supporting narratives. Thus, self-censorship often serves as an effective societal mechanism that prevents free flow and transparency of information regarding the conflict and therefore can be seen as a barrier for a peacemaking process. We begin the chapter by describing the distinguishing characteristics of intractable conflicts, most notably the socio-psychological barriers that fuel this type of conflict, focusing on self-censorship. Then we turn to review research conducted with the Jewish-Israeli population, which provides empirical evidence of the operation of self-censorship as a barrier, its antecedents, and consequences. Finally, we discuss a number of conclusions that stem from the reviewed literature.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
People’s actions toward a competitive outgroup can be motivated not only by their perceptions of ... more People’s actions toward a competitive outgroup can be motivated not only by their perceptions of the outgroup, but also by how they think the outgroup perceives the ingroup (i.e., meta-perceptions). Here, we examine the prevalence, accuracy, and consequences of meta-perceptions among American political partisans. Using a representative sample (n= 1,056) and a longitudinal convenience sample (n= 2,707), we find that Democrats and Republicans equally dislike and dehumanize each other but think that the levels of prejudice and dehumanization held by the outgroup party are approximately twice as strong as actually reported by a representative sample of Democrats and Republicans. Overestimations of negative meta-perceptions were consistent across samples over time and between demographic subgroups but were modulated by political ideology: More strongly liberal Democrats and more strongly conservative Republicans were particularly prone to exaggerate meta-perceptions. Finally, we show tha...
Social Psychological and Personality Science
Anti-migrant policies at the U.S. southern border have resulted in the separation and long-term i... more Anti-migrant policies at the U.S. southern border have resulted in the separation and long-term internment of thousands of migrant children and the deaths of many migrants. What leads people to support such harsh policies? Here we examine the role of two prominent psychological factors—empathy and dehumanization. In Studies 1 and 2, we find that empathy and dehumanization are strong, independent predictors of anti-migrant policy support and are associated with factually false negative beliefs about migrants. In Study 3, we interrogated the relationship between empathy/dehumanization, erroneous beliefs, and anti-migrant policy support with two interventions: a media intervention targeting empathy and dehumanization and an intervention that corrects erroneous beliefs. Both interventions were ineffective separately but reduced anti-migrant policy support when presented together. These results suggest a synergistic relationship between psychological processes and erroneous beliefs that ...
Frontiers in Psychology
Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities have issued several guidelines to cu... more Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities have issued several guidelines to curb the pandemic's disastrous effects. However, measures' effectiveness is dependent upon people's adherence to them. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the potential factors that explain guideline adherence. In the present brief research report, we investigated need for structure and trait victimhood, i.e., the tendency to feel like a victim, and their effect on fear of the pandemic, which in turn, predicted guideline adherence. Furthermore, the association between fear and guideline adherence was shaped by participants' global self-efficacy: higher levels of self-efficacy predicted more guideline adherence regardless of fear levels. The present findings may be relevant to health messaging endeavors aiming to improve compliance with guidelines.
In the present research, we introduce a conceptualization of the Tendency for Interpersonal Victi... more In the present research, we introduce a conceptualization of the Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV), which we define as an enduring feeling that the self is a victim across different kinds of interpersonal relationships. Then, in a comprehensive set of eight studies, we develop a measure for this novel personality trait, TIV, and examine its correlates, as well as its affective, cognitive, and behavioral consequences. In Part 1 (Studies 1A-1C) we establish the construct of TIV, with its four dimensions; i.e., need for recognition, moral elitism, lack of empathy, and rumination, and then assess TIV's internal consistency, stability over time, and its effect on the interpretation of ambiguous situations. In Part 2 (Studies 2A-2C) we examine TIV's convergent and discriminant validities, using several personality dimensions, and the role of attachment styles as conceptual antecedents. In Part 3 (Studies 3-4) we explore the cognitive and behavioral consequences of TIV. Specifically, we examine the relationships between TIV, negative attribution and recall biases, and the desire for revenge (Study 3), and the effects of TIV on behavioral revenge (Study 4). The findings highlight the importance of understanding, conceptualizing, and empirically testing TIV, and suggest that victimhood is a stable and meaningful personality tendency.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
In 16 independent samples from five countries involving ~7,700 participants, we employ a mixture ... more In 16 independent samples from five countries involving ~7,700 participants, we employ a mixture of cross-sectional, longitudinal, and quasi-experimental methods to examine the effect of intergroup contact on (a) the blatant dehumanization of outgroups, and (b) the perception that outgroup members dehumanize the ingroup (meta-dehumanization). First, we conduct a meta-analysis across 12 survey samples collected from five countries regarding eight different target groups (total N = 5,388) and find a consistent effect of contact quality on dehumanization and meta-dehumanization. Second, we use a large longitudinal sample of American participants ( N = 1,103) to show that quality of contact with Muslims at Time 1 predicts dehumanization of Muslims and meta-dehumanization 6 months later. Finally, we show that sustained semester-long “virtual contact” between American and Muslim college students is associated with reduced American students’ ( N = 487) dehumanization of, and perceived dehu...
Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
Social and Personality Psychology Compass
Journal of Social and Political Psychology
Self-censorship is defined as intentionally and voluntarily withholding information from others i... more Self-censorship is defined as intentionally and voluntarily withholding information from others in absence of formal obstacles. We conducted cross-sectional and longitudinal research to develop a quantitative measure of individuals’ Self-Censorship Orientation (SCO) and investigated its correlates and outcomes in the context of the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Stage 1 investigated the factor structure of the scale and its convergent and discriminant validity in a representative sample (N = 499). Findings revealed two negatively related factors representing preferences for self-censorship and for disclosure of information. The factors were distinct from measures of similar constructs and correlated as expected with variables representing conservatism, ingroup commitment and universalistic values. In Stage 2, participants were re-surveyed five months later to establish test-retest reliability and predictive validity. SCO factors assessed at Stage 1 predicted readiness to ...
Journal of Social and Political Psychology
The current research examined whether for a message that is based on the paradoxical thinking pri... more The current research examined whether for a message that is based on the paradoxical thinking principles—i.e., providing extreme, exaggerated, or even absurd views, that are congruent with the held views of the message recipients—to be effective, it needs to hit a ‘sweet spot’ and lead to a contrast effect. That is, it moderates the view of the message's recipients. In the framework of attitudes toward African refugees and asylum seekers in Israel by Israeli Jews, we found that compared to more moderate messages, an extreme, but not too extreme, message was effective in leading to unfreezing for high morally convicted recipients. The very extreme message similarly led to high levels of surprise and identity threat as the extreme message that was found to be effective. However, it was so extreme and absurd that it was rejected automatically. This was manifested in high levels of disagreement compared to all other messages, rendering it less effective compared to the extreme, para...
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Intergroup conflicts have detrimental effects on individuals, collectives, and the international ... more Intergroup conflicts have detrimental effects on individuals, collectives, and the international community more broadly. During such conflicts, in-group members of each adversarial group behave destructively against members of the rival out-group, sometimes in ways that would be considered by the in-group as violations of accepted moral values and norms (Halperin, 2016). When this occurs, some members of the groups immersed in conflict may experience moral emotions like group-based guilt and shame (Branscombe
Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2022
A large portion of research in the social sciences is devoted to combating societal and social pr... more A large portion of research in the social sciences is devoted to combating societal and social problems, such as prejudice, discrimination, and intergroup conflict, with interventions. However, these interventions are often developed based on the theories and/or intuitions of those who developed them and evaluated in isolation without comparing their efficacy to other interventions. Here, we make the case for an experimental design that addresses such issues: an intervention tournament, i.e., a study that compares several different interventions against a single control and utilizes the same standardized outcome measures during assessment and participants drawn from the same population. We begin by highlighting the utility of intervention tournaments as an approach that complements other, more commonly used, approaches to addressing societal issues. We then describe various approaches to intervention tournaments, which include crowdsourced, curated, and in-house developed intervention tournaments, with their unique characteristics. Finally, we discuss practical recommendations and key design insights for conducting such research, based on the existing literature. These include considerations of intervention tournament deployment, characteristics of included interventions, statistical analysis and reporting, study design, longitudinal and underlying psychological mechanism assessment, and theoretical ramifications.
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
Muslims are consistently the target of dehumanization and hostile policies. Previous research sho... more Muslims are consistently the target of dehumanization and hostile policies. Previous research shows that interventions that highlight the hypocrisy wherein people collectively blame entire groups for the heinous acts of individual members of outgroups but not ingroups are effective in reducing animosity towards Muslims. However, these interventions rely on aversive materials (e.g., terrorist acts), which can hinder the scalability of interventions due to individuals' tendency to resist/avoid challenging and aversive stimuli. In three preregistered studies (combined N = 2,635), we developed and tested a nonaversive, hypocrisy-based intervention that highlights the hypocrisy involved in attributing ingroup members' prosocial acts to the entire ingroup (i.e., Christians) but not doing the same for outgroup members (i.e., Muslims). Results indicated that this collective praise intervention reliably reduces dehumanization of Muslims, anti-Muslim policy support, and collective blame of Muslims. We argue that the intervention's use of nonaversive stimuli allows for both practical and scalable applications.
Psychology of Violence
Objective: Understanding the drivers of political violence is critical, given the destructive con... more Objective: Understanding the drivers of political violence is critical, given the destructive consequences it has on the fabric of society. Prior work has established the importance of situational and dispositional predictors of political violence, such as search for significance and meaning and experiencing trauma. However, these predictors do not fully account for one of its most worrisome ingredients—the tendency to feel aggrieved and to express that grievance violently. Here, we examine how trait victimhood undergirds individuals’ support for, and engagement with, political violence among Democrats and Republicans in the U.S.
Method: In Study 1 (N = 393), we examined the predictive power of trait victimhood on support for political violence. In Study 2 (N = 1,000), we tested the same model among a nationally representative sample of U.S. partisans with (self-reported) real-world participation in political violence. In Study 3 (N = 824), we experimentally examined whether inducing intergroup competitive victimhood increases support for political violence, as a function of trait victimhood.
Results: In Studies 1-2 trait victimhood strongly predicted support for political violence—an association mediated through intergroup competitive victimhood beliefs. The association between search for meaning and support for violence was also moderated by trait victimhood. In Study 3, the intergroup competitive victimhood manipulation significantly increased support for political violence only among high trait victimhood participants.
Conclusion: These results illustrate the importance of trait victimhood—a psychological mechanism that has been under-valued in this context—as a critical psychological force underlying political violence.
Deep distrust of the rival is widely shared among members of society involved in intractable conf... more Deep distrust of the rival is widely shared among members of society involved in intractable conflicts, and constitutes a major barrier for peace-building. In the current research we examine an intervention aimed at legitimizing the other side as a partner to peace that can be trusted through providing information about a peaceful change among a member of the rival group. Study 1 (N = 253) revealed that providing Jewish-Israelis with such information about a Palestinian increases unfreezing, trust of the rival group, and support for peace-building compared to the control condition. Moreover, we found that unfreezing followed by trust mediated the effect of the intervention on increased support for peace-building. Comparing the effects of four variations of the change story, we found in Study 2 (N = 801) that the story of a Palestinian who had to deal with adversity within his own group created more trust and hope among rightist participants, while the story of a Palestinian coming from the family that believes in peace created heightened trust and hope for center-left participants. We offer insights into ideological-based differences of persuasive messages relating to peace-building.
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 2022
Members of historically advantaged groups are often unwilling to support actions or policies aime... more Members of historically advantaged groups are often unwilling to support actions or policies aimed at reducing inequality between advantaged and disadvantaged groups, even if they generally support the principle of equality. Based on past research, we suggest a selfaffirmation intervention (an intervention in which people reflect on a positive trait or value in order to affirm their positive self-image) may be effective for increasing the willingness of advantaged group members to address inequality. Importantly, while self-affirmation has in the past only operationalized as a written exercise, in this project we adapt it into video messages for use in public campaigns. In Study 1, we experimentally tested an initial video adaptation of self-affirmation and found that it is effective in increasing the willingness of advantaged group members to address inequality in the context of Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. Based on this study, NGOs developed a real campaign video and used it in their public campaign, and we tested this applied intervention (in Study 2) and found it to be effective compared to a control condition that only presented information about inequality. Together, these studies represent the first implementation of self-affirmation in real world campaigns and indicate that it can be effective way to increase support for action to address inequality.
Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 2022
The current paper is a personal account, describing the behind the scenes of an ongoing translati... more The current paper is a personal account, describing the behind the scenes of an ongoing translational research project, initiated by Emile Bruneau in 2018, in collaboration with a team of scientists, filmmakers, and protagonists of the peace process in Colombia. The paper is divided to two sections. The first section highlights the raising demand for the use of brain and behavioral sciences in program design and evaluation, especially to update and advance the area of peace and security. The second section reviews how we applied the three significant steps proposed by Moore-Berg, Bernstein et al. (in press) to carry out a research project faithful to the translational science approach in Colombia by: (1) engaging with the communities involved to learn about the issues they face; (2) partnering with practitioners, to do research that will affect change in those communities; and (3) translating findings through different forms of engagement. Finally, we offer some concluding remarks about the advantages of adopting a Bruneau-ian approach to research.
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 2022
Western countries have witnessed increased hostility towards Muslims among individuals, and stru... more Western countries have witnessed increased hostility towards Muslims among individuals, and structurally in the ways that media covers stories related to Islam/Muslims and in policies that infringe on the rights of Muslim communities. In response, practitioners have created media interventions that aim to reduce Islamophobia. However, it is unclear what causal effects these interventions have on reducing Islamophobia. Here we test the effects of 11 media interventions developed by practitioners with an intervention tournament among U.S. samples. In Study 1, we identified three videos that most effectively reduced Islamophobia, both immediately after watching and one-month later. In Studies 2-4, we examined the psychological mechanisms of these successful videos and found an indirect effect of the interventions on reduced support for anti-Muslim policies through recognition of media bias against Muslims. This research highlights that drawing attention to structural biases, including biased media coverage of Muslims, is one potential target for ameliorating Islamophobia.
The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood
This chapter discusses individual differences in the tendency to perceive interpersonal victimhoo... more This chapter discusses individual differences in the tendency to perceive interpersonal victimhood, and parallels to collective victimhood. Specifically, some people are more likely than others to perceive victimization on the interpersonal level, experience it more intensely, and incorporate these experiences into their identity. The tendency to perceive (interpersonal) victimhood consists of four dimensions: a need for recognition of suffering, perceived moral superiority, lack of empathy for others’ suffering, and rumination over negative feelings and thoughts related to experienced offenses. People who score higher on these dimensions show greater biases in their interpretation, memory, and attributions of interpersonal transgressions: They recall them more, perceive them as more severe, expect more to be harmed by others, and perceive more harm in ambiguous situations. They are also less willing to forgive transgressions. The authors compare this with parallel findings on inter...
The Social Psychology of Humor, 2021
The chapter introduces a new approach to attitude change, termed paradoxical thinking. It suggest... more The chapter introduces a new approach to attitude change, termed paradoxical thinking. It suggests that messages that are consistent with an individual’s view, but formulated in an amplified, exaggerated, or even absurd manner, lead to an extended process of deliberative thinking and arouse lower levels of resistance compared to conventional persuasive approaches that use attitude-inconsistent messages. We argue that attitude-inconsistent messages are often automatically rejected among highly involved individuals with extreme views. The paradoxical thinking approach is intended to lead individuals to perceive their held societal beliefs or the current situation as farfetched and implausible, and ultimately, to lead to unfreezing and reevaluation of held attitudes. Eventually, unfreezing may lead to openness to alternative, more † Daniel Bar-Tal and Boaz Hameiri contributed equally to this work and are listed in alphabetical order. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology # 2020 El...
Peace Psychology Book Series
Self-censorship is of great importance in societies involved in intractable conflict. In this con... more Self-censorship is of great importance in societies involved in intractable conflict. In this context, it blocks information that may contradict the dominant conflict-supporting narratives. Thus, self-censorship often serves as an effective societal mechanism that prevents free flow and transparency of information regarding the conflict and therefore can be seen as a barrier for a peacemaking process. We begin the chapter by describing the distinguishing characteristics of intractable conflicts, most notably the socio-psychological barriers that fuel this type of conflict, focusing on self-censorship. Then we turn to review research conducted with the Jewish-Israeli population, which provides empirical evidence of the operation of self-censorship as a barrier, its antecedents, and consequences. Finally, we discuss a number of conclusions that stem from the reviewed literature.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
People’s actions toward a competitive outgroup can be motivated not only by their perceptions of ... more People’s actions toward a competitive outgroup can be motivated not only by their perceptions of the outgroup, but also by how they think the outgroup perceives the ingroup (i.e., meta-perceptions). Here, we examine the prevalence, accuracy, and consequences of meta-perceptions among American political partisans. Using a representative sample (n= 1,056) and a longitudinal convenience sample (n= 2,707), we find that Democrats and Republicans equally dislike and dehumanize each other but think that the levels of prejudice and dehumanization held by the outgroup party are approximately twice as strong as actually reported by a representative sample of Democrats and Republicans. Overestimations of negative meta-perceptions were consistent across samples over time and between demographic subgroups but were modulated by political ideology: More strongly liberal Democrats and more strongly conservative Republicans were particularly prone to exaggerate meta-perceptions. Finally, we show tha...
Social Psychological and Personality Science
Anti-migrant policies at the U.S. southern border have resulted in the separation and long-term i... more Anti-migrant policies at the U.S. southern border have resulted in the separation and long-term internment of thousands of migrant children and the deaths of many migrants. What leads people to support such harsh policies? Here we examine the role of two prominent psychological factors—empathy and dehumanization. In Studies 1 and 2, we find that empathy and dehumanization are strong, independent predictors of anti-migrant policy support and are associated with factually false negative beliefs about migrants. In Study 3, we interrogated the relationship between empathy/dehumanization, erroneous beliefs, and anti-migrant policy support with two interventions: a media intervention targeting empathy and dehumanization and an intervention that corrects erroneous beliefs. Both interventions were ineffective separately but reduced anti-migrant policy support when presented together. These results suggest a synergistic relationship between psychological processes and erroneous beliefs that ...
Frontiers in Psychology
Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities have issued several guidelines to cu... more Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities have issued several guidelines to curb the pandemic's disastrous effects. However, measures' effectiveness is dependent upon people's adherence to them. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the potential factors that explain guideline adherence. In the present brief research report, we investigated need for structure and trait victimhood, i.e., the tendency to feel like a victim, and their effect on fear of the pandemic, which in turn, predicted guideline adherence. Furthermore, the association between fear and guideline adherence was shaped by participants' global self-efficacy: higher levels of self-efficacy predicted more guideline adherence regardless of fear levels. The present findings may be relevant to health messaging endeavors aiming to improve compliance with guidelines.
In the present research, we introduce a conceptualization of the Tendency for Interpersonal Victi... more In the present research, we introduce a conceptualization of the Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV), which we define as an enduring feeling that the self is a victim across different kinds of interpersonal relationships. Then, in a comprehensive set of eight studies, we develop a measure for this novel personality trait, TIV, and examine its correlates, as well as its affective, cognitive, and behavioral consequences. In Part 1 (Studies 1A-1C) we establish the construct of TIV, with its four dimensions; i.e., need for recognition, moral elitism, lack of empathy, and rumination, and then assess TIV's internal consistency, stability over time, and its effect on the interpretation of ambiguous situations. In Part 2 (Studies 2A-2C) we examine TIV's convergent and discriminant validities, using several personality dimensions, and the role of attachment styles as conceptual antecedents. In Part 3 (Studies 3-4) we explore the cognitive and behavioral consequences of TIV. Specifically, we examine the relationships between TIV, negative attribution and recall biases, and the desire for revenge (Study 3), and the effects of TIV on behavioral revenge (Study 4). The findings highlight the importance of understanding, conceptualizing, and empirically testing TIV, and suggest that victimhood is a stable and meaningful personality tendency.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
In 16 independent samples from five countries involving ~7,700 participants, we employ a mixture ... more In 16 independent samples from five countries involving ~7,700 participants, we employ a mixture of cross-sectional, longitudinal, and quasi-experimental methods to examine the effect of intergroup contact on (a) the blatant dehumanization of outgroups, and (b) the perception that outgroup members dehumanize the ingroup (meta-dehumanization). First, we conduct a meta-analysis across 12 survey samples collected from five countries regarding eight different target groups (total N = 5,388) and find a consistent effect of contact quality on dehumanization and meta-dehumanization. Second, we use a large longitudinal sample of American participants ( N = 1,103) to show that quality of contact with Muslims at Time 1 predicts dehumanization of Muslims and meta-dehumanization 6 months later. Finally, we show that sustained semester-long “virtual contact” between American and Muslim college students is associated with reduced American students’ ( N = 487) dehumanization of, and perceived dehu...
Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
Social and Personality Psychology Compass
Journal of Social and Political Psychology
Self-censorship is defined as intentionally and voluntarily withholding information from others i... more Self-censorship is defined as intentionally and voluntarily withholding information from others in absence of formal obstacles. We conducted cross-sectional and longitudinal research to develop a quantitative measure of individuals’ Self-Censorship Orientation (SCO) and investigated its correlates and outcomes in the context of the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Stage 1 investigated the factor structure of the scale and its convergent and discriminant validity in a representative sample (N = 499). Findings revealed two negatively related factors representing preferences for self-censorship and for disclosure of information. The factors were distinct from measures of similar constructs and correlated as expected with variables representing conservatism, ingroup commitment and universalistic values. In Stage 2, participants were re-surveyed five months later to establish test-retest reliability and predictive validity. SCO factors assessed at Stage 1 predicted readiness to ...
Journal of Social and Political Psychology
The current research examined whether for a message that is based on the paradoxical thinking pri... more The current research examined whether for a message that is based on the paradoxical thinking principles—i.e., providing extreme, exaggerated, or even absurd views, that are congruent with the held views of the message recipients—to be effective, it needs to hit a ‘sweet spot’ and lead to a contrast effect. That is, it moderates the view of the message's recipients. In the framework of attitudes toward African refugees and asylum seekers in Israel by Israeli Jews, we found that compared to more moderate messages, an extreme, but not too extreme, message was effective in leading to unfreezing for high morally convicted recipients. The very extreme message similarly led to high levels of surprise and identity threat as the extreme message that was found to be effective. However, it was so extreme and absurd that it was rejected automatically. This was manifested in high levels of disagreement compared to all other messages, rendering it less effective compared to the extreme, para...
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Intergroup conflicts have detrimental effects on individuals, collectives, and the international ... more Intergroup conflicts have detrimental effects on individuals, collectives, and the international community more broadly. During such conflicts, in-group members of each adversarial group behave destructively against members of the rival out-group, sometimes in ways that would be considered by the in-group as violations of accepted moral values and norms (Halperin, 2016). When this occurs, some members of the groups immersed in conflict may experience moral emotions like group-based guilt and shame (Branscombe
Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2022
A large portion of research in the social sciences is devoted to combating societal and social pr... more A large portion of research in the social sciences is devoted to combating societal and social problems, such as prejudice, discrimination, and intergroup conflict, with interventions. However, these interventions are often developed based on the theories and/or intuitions of those who developed them and evaluated in isolation without comparing their efficacy to other interventions. Here, we make the case for an experimental design that addresses such issues: an intervention tournament, i.e., a study that compares several different interventions against a single control and utilizes the same standardized outcome measures during assessment and participants drawn from the same population. We begin by highlighting the utility of intervention tournaments as an approach that complements other, more commonly used, approaches to addressing societal issues. We then describe various approaches to intervention tournaments, which include crowdsourced, curated, and in-house developed intervention tournaments, with their unique characteristics. Finally, we discuss practical recommendations and key design insights for conducting such research, based on the existing literature. These include considerations of intervention tournament deployment, characteristics of included interventions, statistical analysis and reporting, study design, longitudinal and underlying psychological mechanism assessment, and theoretical ramifications.
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
Muslims are consistently the target of dehumanization and hostile policies. Previous research sho... more Muslims are consistently the target of dehumanization and hostile policies. Previous research shows that interventions that highlight the hypocrisy wherein people collectively blame entire groups for the heinous acts of individual members of outgroups but not ingroups are effective in reducing animosity towards Muslims. However, these interventions rely on aversive materials (e.g., terrorist acts), which can hinder the scalability of interventions due to individuals' tendency to resist/avoid challenging and aversive stimuli. In three preregistered studies (combined N = 2,635), we developed and tested a nonaversive, hypocrisy-based intervention that highlights the hypocrisy involved in attributing ingroup members' prosocial acts to the entire ingroup (i.e., Christians) but not doing the same for outgroup members (i.e., Muslims). Results indicated that this collective praise intervention reliably reduces dehumanization of Muslims, anti-Muslim policy support, and collective blame of Muslims. We argue that the intervention's use of nonaversive stimuli allows for both practical and scalable applications.