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Contributed by Carol S. Dweck, November 28, 2017 (sent for review May 23, 2017; reviewed by Mina Cikara and Betsy Levy Paluck)
Significance
The importance of psychological factors in conflict resolution has been well established in laboratory experiments. However, these factors have rarely been examined in longitudinal field experiments. The goal of the current project was to address this gap by comparing the effectiveness of psychological interventions during a period of extensive violence in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. An intervention that spoke to the idea that groups can change and improve over time (a group malleability intervention) proved superior to a control intervention in improving attitudes, hope, and willingness to make concessions, even 6 months after the intervention. These findings provide evidence from a longitudinal field experiment that group malleability interventions can increase openness to conflict resolution.
Abstract
Fostering perceptions of group malleability (teaching people that groups are capable of change and improvement) has been shown to lead to short-term improvements in intergroup attitudes and willingness to make concessions in intractable conflicts. The present study, a field intervention involving 508 Israelis from three locations in Israel, replicated and substantially extended those findings by testing the durability of a group malleability intervention during a 6-month period of frequent violence. Three different 5-hour-long interventions were administered as leadership workshops. The group malleability intervention was compared with a neutral coping intervention and, importantly, with a state-of-the-art perspective-taking intervention. The group malleability intervention proved superior to the coping intervention in improving attitudes, hope, and willingness to make concessions, and maintained this advantage during a 6-month period of intense intergroup conflict. Moreover, it was as good as, and in some respects superior to, the perspective-taking intervention. These findings provide a naturalistic examination of the potential of group malleability interventions to increase openness to conflict resolution.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: amitgold{at}stanford.edu or dweck{at}stanford.edu.
Author contributions: A.G., S.C.-C., C.S.D., J.J.G., and E.H. designed research; A.G., S.C.-C., and E.H. performed research; A.G., S.C.-C., and J.P.G. analyzed data; and A.G., J.P.G., C.S.D., J.J.G., and E.H. wrote the paper.
Reviewers: M.C., Harvard University; and B.L.P., Princeton University.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1706800115/-/DCSupplemental.
Published under the PNAS license.
Impact of a group malleability intervention
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