Three related social psychological themes in the context of the Jewish-Palestinian conflict

Three related social psychological themes in the context of the Jewish-Palestinian conflict

Yechiel Klar, Noa Schori, Hadas Baram & Dennis T. Kahn

Department of Psychology

Tel-Aviv University

From a lecture given by David Grossman, Israeli novelist, in PEN American center (April 07)

And I feel the heavy toll that I, and the people I know and see around me, pay for this ongoing state of war. The shrinking of the “surface area” of the soul that comes in contact with the bloody and menacing world out there. The limiting of one’s ability and willingness to identify, even a little, with the pain of others; the suspension of moral judgment. The despair most of us experience of possibly understanding our own true thoughts in a state of affairs that is so terrifying and deceptive and complex, both morally and practically. Hence, you become convinced, I might be better off not thinking and opt not to know perhaps I’m better off leaving the task of thinking and doing and establishing moral norms in the hands of those who might “know better.”

A few questions

What makes us responsive or non-responsive to outgroup’s pain and suffering?

What makes us responsive or non-responsive to the ingroup’s pain and suffering?

What makes us willing to endure a prolonged conflict (e.g., passing up opportunities to better ingroup members’ condition)?

More generally, what makes us able or unable to relate to the story of the outgroup?

CINTGEPIVOIntroduction

Three Themes

Three concepts will be presented: Perpetual Ingroup Victimhood Orientation (PIVO) The group as a trans-generational entity (TGE) Commitment to Ingroup Narrative (CIN)


Perpetual Ingroup Victimhood Orientation

What makes us responsive or non-responsive to outgroup’s pain and suffering?

Past suffering and collective memory Most national-ethnic groups’ histories are rife

with suffering, persecution and violence. Such traumatic events often serve as a basis for

common identity (Volkan, 1997), and are never completely absent from the group’s narrative.

Past suffering is frequently used by groups and their members to provide an interpretive framework for contemporary events and experiences.

The past is never truly past.


Perpetual Ingroup Victimhood Orientation Collective victimhood: the belief that ingroup has been

harmed intentionally and immorally by an outgroup. Perpetual Ingroup Victimhood Orientation (PIVO) is

made up of three components: Uniqueness of past trauma (“No group or people have ever

been harmed as we have”) Need for mistrust (“History teaches us that we must be

suspicious of other groups' intentions toward us”) Past and present threat (“All our enemies throughout history

share a common denominator – the will to annihilate us”) The threat is perceived as posed not only by

contemporary enemies but also by past adversaries, embodied in new rivals.


Amalek

Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt; how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God; Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget. Deuteronomy 25, verses 17-

19

“Think Amalek”

I recently asked one of (prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s) advisers to gauge for me the depth of Mr. Netanyahu’s anxiety about Iran. His answer: “Think Amalek.”

If Iran’s nuclear program is, metaphorically, Amalek’s arsenal, then an Israeli prime minister is bound by Jewish history to seek its destruction, regardless of what his allies think.

In our recent conversation, Mr. Netanyahu avoided metaphysics and biblical exegesis, but said that Iran’s desire for nuclear weapons represented a “hinge of history.”

Jeffery Goldberg, New York Times, 16/5/09

I cannot stand to hear German in the Knesset. My grandmother and grandfather were murdered in that language.

They are Amaleks, they are the mother of all Amaleks. The Jews must not return to be doormats.

MP Uri ArielMP Aryeh Eldad

SE Model: the effects of PIVO are fully mediated by Moral Entitlement

PIVO

MA

Moral EntitlementR2=.55

Group-basedGuiltR2=.73

Tolerance to collateral damage

R2=.44

.62*

-.23*

-.68*

.28* .66* -.41*

χ2 (60; N = 103) = 78.544. NFI, NNFI, CFI = .95, .98, .98, respectively, and RMSEA = .052 [.000 -.081]. All coefficients are statistically significant at p < .01.

Current threat, PIVO and group-based guilt The goal of this study was to examine the

effect of threat, one of the components of PIVO, on group-based guilt.

We sought to explore the impact of situational changes on the relations between PIVO and group-based guilt.

Hypothesis: different levels of PIVO would be affected by conflict-related threat, but not other types of threat.


Current threat and PIVO: method

71 Jewish-Israeli Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: control, general threat, or conflict-related threat.

After completing the PIVO questionnaire, participants were required to put in logical order two sets of scrambled instructions. Each double set represented a different condition.

Following that task, participants filled a group-based guilt questionnaire about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Victimhood, threat and group-based guilt: results

Gro

up

-ba

sed

gu

ilt

Type of threat

The effects of real-life conflict-related threat: PIVO and consequences during and 2 months after a large military operation in the Gaza strip

The “Collateral Damage” experiment

Security forces received intelligence about the whereabouts and movements of Mahmoud Al-Dahduh, a senior member of the military branch of the Islamic Jihad. Dahduh, known as Abu Ubeida, is a commander in the organization and one of its prominent explosives specialists. He was involved in various terrorist acts, including the launch of "grad" missiles, preparing large explosive devices and striking Israeli civilians. The security system decided to commit "focused thwart" on the wanted Dahduh. Various alternatives were weighed and evaluated, and it was decided to proceed by launching missiles from air force fighter jets. Now is the time to decide the strength of the missiles to be launched. The stronger the weapon, the greater the chance of finishing off the wanted man. The collateral damage also increases, i.e. the number of civilians who might also be harmed. Several options for the thwart will now be presented to you, as well as their implications. You need to choose the option which you think is best and most suitable.


Collateral Damage experiment (cont.)

Type of missileProbability of killing Al-Dahduh

Estimated number of civilians hurt

Option AX140%0 people

Option BX250%1-2 people

Option CX370%Up to 5 people

Option DX490%Up to 10 people

Option EX5100%Up to 20 people

Please write down, in as much detail as possible, the considerations that guided you in making your choice.

The effect of threat on tolerance of collateral damage

Number of expected casualties

% o

f re

spon

ses

Where was the dot?

Interaction between PIVO and experimental condition as predictor of group-based guilt

Gro

up-b

ased

gui

lt

The group as a trans-generational entity

• What makes us responsive or non-responsive to the ingroup’s pain and suffering?

• What makes us willing to endure a prolonged conflict (e.g., passing up opportunities to better ingroup members’ condition)?

The Paradox of Commitment

Committed to the Group

or Committed to the Group Members

In some situations, commitment to the group may entail willingness to harm or sacrifice the members of the group for the sake of the group


The study of group perception has produced a wealth of research in the last decade

(Yzerbyt, Judd, & Corneille, 2004)

Entitativity – the group is an independent entity (Campbell, 1958; Brewer & Harasty, 1996; Hamilton & Sherman, 1996; Lickel, Hamilton,

Wieczokowska, Lewis, Sherman, & Uhles, 2000)

Psychological essentialism – the group stems from a unique group essence

(Haslam, 1998; Haslam, Rothschild & Ernst, 2000; Gelman, 2003)

Background


Background cont.

Time is a crucial building block in the construction and maintanence of social identity

(Anderson, 1991; Hobsbawn, 1990; Reicher & Hopkins, 2001; Liu & Hilton, 2005)

Social Psychological research has been virtually non-existent

Recent exception – Perceived Collective Continuity (PCC) – the group has remained unchanged through history

(Sani, Bowe, Herrera, Manna, Cossa, Miao & Zhou, 2007; Sani, F., Herrera, M., & Bowe, M., 2009).


Background cont.

In addition to being perceived as entitative (constituting an independent entity) and:

continuous (unchanged through history), we propose that large-scale social groups can be perceived as

Trans-generational Entities (TGEs). We define TGE as perceiving the group as an entity including all past and future generations of the group.


Perception of the group as a Trans-Generational Entity

1. The group exists at a certain time

2. The group is a collection of individuals

1. The group has a history and a future (eternal)2. The group is an independent entity

For the sake of the group is not necessarily for the sake of its members

For the sake of the group members is not necessarily for the sake of the present day group members

Trans-generational Entity Scale


Study 1 & 2

Goal: Create a measure for the concept of TGE and test the hypothesized relations between TGE, Group Primacy and Endurance of Ingroup Suffering

Scales• Trans-generational Entity (sample item: “For me, my national group includes all the generations of group members that ever have and ever will exist"); • Group Primacy (e.g., “It is justified that members of my national group sometimes need to sacrifice themselves for the good of the group")• Endurance of Ingroup Suffering (e.g. “Even if the conflict will require present day suffering from us, we have to be ready to endure it for as long as it takes for the sake of the future of the group”

Study 1, N = 103; Study 2, N = 119


Conflict Endurance

Religiosity

Right wing Political Orientation

Trans-generational Entity

Group Primacy.33**(.35**)

.24*(15 n.s.)

.36**(.39**)

Figure 1: Relation between antecedents and consequences of TGE, study 1 & 2. Results from

study 2 are in parentheses

.39**(.28**)

(.33**)


For the good of the country or for the good of one Israeli? Gilad Shalit

Study 3, N = 152 Gilad Shalit questions:

(sample item: “The people of

Israel is morally justified to ask from Gilad Shalit's family to put the national interest before their personal interest”)


Mediation

Willingness to sacrifice Gilad Shalit for the sake of the

national group

Trans-generational Entity

Group Primacy

.66**

.27**

.33**

(.10)

Figure 3: Standardized regression coefficients for the relationship between TGE and willingness to sacrifice Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for the sake of the national group as mediated by Group Primacy. The regression coefficient when controlled for Group Primacy is in parentheses.

Commitment to Ingroup Narrative

what makes us able or unable to relate to the story of the outgroup?

Commitment to Ingroup Narrative Commitment to Ingroup Narrative (CIN) reflects

the extent to which individual group members adhere to the consensual ingroup story.

CIN is measured on a 12-items scale: “The history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which we have

grown up with, is the truest one”. “To retain our unity as a group, we must believe we

are right”. “People who cast doubt on our basic justifications in

the conflict are assisting the other side”. CINTGEPIVOIntroduction

.-513 **

.283**

-.297**/-.060, n.s

.707**

-.222*/-.008, n.s

.574**

A student sample


.176/-.077, n.s

.309*/.005, n.s

.573**

.450**

.611**

.703**

Figures 1, 2: Standardized regression coefficients for the relationship between Identification with the group (Attachment and Glorification) and Intention to participate in Narrative Challenging Activities / Agreement with the Nakba bill, as mediated by Commitment to Ingroup Narrative (CIN). The regression coefficient when controlled for CIN is in parentheses.

A sample of new immigrants from USSR, relating to the Nakba Bill


Thirty two Students at a preparatory program for the Technion in Haifa completed the CIN and PIVO (Perpetual Ingroup Victimhood Orientation, sample item: “No group or people have ever been harmed as much as we have”) scales, and read a story about a commander of a military underground group, presented either as an Israeli (Abraham Stern, the Lechi) or Palestinian (Muchamad Abu-Hazna, the Palestinian Jihad), captured and killed by the ruling security forces (either the British Mandate Police or the IDF). Except for the names and the period, the two stories were identical in all respects. Following Bartlett’s (1932) classical methodology, participants were asked to reconstruct the story they read after three hours. We tested how these stories were recalled and recounted by the participants.


A Tale of Two Stories

A Tale of Two Stories: method

Two independent judges rated the text for "added positivity", the amount of positive information added to the text, "added negativity", the amount of negative added information, and "omitted negativity", the amount of negative information omitted from the text. Ratings were on a 6 point scale, ranging from 0 (not at all) to 5 (very much).


Predictions

1. When relating the outgroup story, group members will add negative information (unmentioned in the text) and not omit negative information (mentioned in the text). The opposite was predicted when relating the ingroup story.

2. This tendency should be especially marked among high (vs. low) CIN participants.


* Omitted negativity:This measure refers to the amount of negative information that participants did not recall. The higher the score, the more negative the information in the text that was not recalled.

Reconstruction of Ingroup/Outgroup stories

The two-judges ratings are on a 6 point scale, differences are significant at the 0.05 level

Reconstruction of Ingroup/Outgroup stories

CIN: Conclusions

Individual group members differ in their commitment to the ingroup narrative.

CIN mediates the influence of identification with the national group (i.e., attachment and glorification) on the intention to participate in narrative challenging activities and on agreement with the Nakba bill.

High (vs. low) CIN individuals exhibit a positivity bias in the ingroup story and a negativity bias in the outgroup story.

Three related social psychological themes in the context of the Jewish-Palestinian conflict

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