People often respond emotionally to the dramatic socio-political events that are taking place around the word. This is especially true when such events are occurring in well-established democracies and at home, and not just in faraway countries. In many cases, expressing strong emotions can create and perpetuate conflicts with others who may be responding to these events in very different ways. Acknowledging the importance of emotions in intergroup conflicts has led to recent attempts to reduce conflict-related emotions using psychological interventions. Initial studies show that these efforts can be helpful in reducing destructive emotions and promoting conflict resolution. However, it is not typically possible to apply interventions to an entire population. Instead, interventions must be applied to a portion or subgroup of the population. This project examines whether reducing a subgroup's emotions can have a long-lasting influence on the overall group's emotions and level of conflict. The goal of the project is to find ways to optimize psychological interventions and reduce harmful conflict.
Three studies use the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a case study. The first study examines the unfolding of negative emotional dynamics within groups. Recent developments in computer science are utilized to create an online network that allows the examination of real-time, online interactions. The second study examines how these emotional dynamics are influenced by emotion regulation interventions applied to different portions of the group. This will enable the identification of the conditions under which interventions achieve maximum utility in influencing overall negative group emotions. The third study tests the long-term effects of the emotion regulation interventions and assesses how these effects are influenced by emotional dynamics. The research will make an important contribution to maximizing the scalability of psychological interventions and achieving the long-term aim of reducing harmful conflict. Immediate applications resulting from the project can be facilitated by the Stanford Center for Social Psychological Answers to Real-World Questions (SPARQ), which provides consultation to many organizations interested in psychological interventions. A collaboration with researchers at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel provides additional opportunities for implementation and dissemination. The project includes the development of an open source platform that can be utilized by researchers in many fields, thereby advancing other areas of science.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
