http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/28/8/652.pdf

Conceptualizations of human environments.

This study investigated the relationship between interpersonal relationships among members of different departments and individuals' perceptions of intergroup conflict within an organization. Altho...

Social Networks and Perceptions of Intergroup Conflict: The Role of Negative Relationships and Third Parties

The history and background of the analysis of the basis of power is examined, beginning with its origins in the works of Kurt Lewin and his followers at the Research Center for Group Dynamics, particularly the early research by John R. P. French. The original French and Raven (1959) bases of power model posited six bases of power: reward, coercion, legitimate, expert, referent, and informational (or persuasion; Raven, 1965), Since then, as the result of considerable research, the model has gone through significant developments. A more comprehensive model is presented here that reviews the following: various motivations of the influencing agent; an assessment of available power bases in terms of potential effectiveness, time perspective, personal preferences, values and norms; consideration of other strategies such as manipulation; utilization of various preparatory and stage-setting devices to strengthen one's power resources; implementation of the power strategies; assessment of effectiveness of influence attempt and its positive and/or negative aftereffects; use of various ameliorative devices; and review, reconsideration, and another round of influence strategies. The overall model is examined in terms of its applicability to various settings including hospital infection control, patient compliance with physicians' recommendations, confrontations between political figures, children's influence on their peers, conflict resolution and negotiation, as well as supervisor/subordinate relationships.

The Bases of Power: Origins and Recent Developments

Preface Introduction General overview 1. The psychological basis of intergroup relations 1.1 Intergroup behaviour 1.2 Psychological intergroup repertoire 1.3 Formation of the psychological intergroup repertoire 1.4 Conclusions 2. Psychological intergroup repertoire in intractable conflicts 2.1 Intractable conflicts 2.2 Societal beliefs in intractable conflicts 2.3 Negative psychological intergroup repertoire 2.4 Conclusions 3. The context: The Arab-Israeli intractable conflict 3.1 Socio-cultural context 3.2 The intractable nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict 3.3 The Jewish narrative of the Arab-Israeli conflict 3.4 Israeli Jewish ethos of conflict 3.5 Conclusions 4. Representation of Arabs in public discourse 4.1 The impact of mass media 4.2 Public discourse before the establishment of the State 4.3 Public discourse by leaders 4.4 Public discourse through the media in the State of Israel 4.5 Research on the presentation of Palestinians in the Israeli mass media 4.6 Research on the presentation of Arab citizens of the State of Israel in the media 4.7 Conclusions 5. Representation of Arabs in school textbooks 5.1 Presentation of Arabs in school textbooks of the pre-state period 5.2 Presentation of Arabs in school textbooks from 1948 up to the early 1970s 5.3 Presentation of Arabs in school textbooks between the mid 1970s and 1990s 5.4 Conclusions 6. Representation of Arabs in cultural products 6.1 Adult Hebrew literature 6.2 Children's literature 6.3 Hebrew drama 6.4 Israeli films 6.5 Conclusions 7. Representation of Arabs by Israeli Jews: review of empirical research 7.1 Psychological repertoire towards Arabs 7.2 Views about Arab-Israeli relations 7.3 Views about Arabs 7.4 Citizens of Israel 7.5 Conclusions 8. The development of shared psychological intergroup repertoire in a conflict: theory and methods 8.1 The cognitive foundations of social representations 8.2 Personality development, personality states, and social representations 8.3 The context of social representations 8.4 An integrative developmental-contextual approach for the acquisition and development of stereotypes and prejudice 8.5 Assessment of children's social representations - general considerations 8.6 Conclusions 9. Studies with preschoolers 9.1 Objectives and overview 9.2 Words, concepts, identities, stereotypes, and attitudes 9.3 Images, stereotypes, and attitudes in different social environments 9.4 General discussion 9.5 Conclusions 10. Studies with school children, adolescents, and young adults 10.1 Objectives and overview 10.2 Image acquisition 10.3 Influences of specific environments 10.4 Differentiation and generalisation 10.5 Sense of knowledge, perceived similarity, and perceived quality of relations as predictors of stereotypes and attitudes 10.6 General discussion 10.7 Conclusions 11. The reflection of social images in human figure drawing 11.1 The development and meaning of drawings 11.2 Obtaining and scoring the drawings 11.3 Scoring the beliefs and intentions questionnaire 11.4 Research overview and objectives 11.5 General discussion 11.6 Conclusions 12. General conclusions and implications 12.1 Conclusions 12.2 Changing the shared psychological intergroup repertoire of people involved in intractable conflict: general observations 12.3 Changing the psychological intergroup repertoire in the context of intractable conflict: thoughts about intervention 12.4 Final words 12.5 References.

Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflict: Representations of Arabs in Israeli-Jewish Society

The question of why fear overrides hope in societies embarked on the road of peacemaking after years of intractable conflict is answered on the basis of accumulated knowledge in the psychology and sociology of emotions. This knowledge suggests that fear is an automatic emotion, grounded in the perceived present and often based on the memorized past (also processed unconsciously), that leads to freezing of beliefs, conservatism, and sometimes preemptive aggression. Hope, in contrast, involves mostly cognitive activity, which requires the search for new ideas and thus is based on creativity and flexibility. Because hope is based on thinking, it can be seriously impeded by the spontaneous and unconscious interference of fear. Both fear and hope can become collective emotional orientations that organize society’s views and direct its forms of action. It is assumed that societies involved in intractable conflict are dominated by a collective emotional orientation of fear, which is functional in their coping with the stressful and demanding situation. But such an orientation serves as a psychological obstacle to a peace process once it starts. The Israeli Jewish case of collective fear orientation is offered as an example. The presentation includes the roots of this orientation, the ways in which it is reflected and disseminated, and its expressions among the Israeli Jewish public; it ends optimistically with the suggestion that societies can determine to overcome their fear and establish a collective orientation of hope for peace.

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Why does fear override hope in societies engulfed by intractable conflict, as it does in the Israeli society?

Some consensus exists as to what a fair, peace-promoting settlement would be. Both sides reject it. Why? Some nonrational reasons are considered. Four wars are reviewed. Each side tends not to perceive the real fear and realistic anger on the other side and not to perceive its own actions that have largely created and are now sustaining the other's fear and anger. Sullivan, Freud, Heider, S-R theory, and Jones-and-Nisbett are invoked. Circular processes in the Arab-Israeli conflict-system predominate; they are unlikely to be reversed unless strong influences from outside the system are brought to bear.

Misperception in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Misperception and the Vietnam War

Many Americans seem to assume that the tone of Communist propaganda is similar to Khrushchev's celebrated statement, "We will bury you." This statement has usually been interpreted to reflect the assumed Communist intention to conquer the world by force of arms. In this context it has been interpreted to mean, "We will kill you and then bury you." However, in its own context the statement could be better interpreted as meaning: "We will outlast you and be present at your funeral when you die a natural death." In other words, it would seem that Khrushchev was simply boasting, in accordance with classical Communist theory, that socialism would outlast capitalism in the process of social evolution. As opposed to the interpretation of Communist propaganda emphasizing offensive uses of military methods to achieve Communist purposes, Bronfenbrenner (1961) has suggested that the Cold War attitudes of Russians are very similar to those of Americans. As a result of many conversations with Russian people in the Soviet Union, Bronfenbrenner came to the conclusion that the Russians' distorted picture of

A test of the mirror-image hypothesis: Kennedy and Khrushchev

When the Serbs started the war in Bosnia, their chief motive was not a Hider-like desire for domination or conquest. It was fear. The Serbs of Bosnia mainly feared that if they remained a minority in Bosnia they would be persecuted by a coalition of diabolical enemies. The Serbs of Serbia, shocked by Yugoslavia's disintegration, feared continuing weakness in a dangerous world. Both feared continuing national disunity of both Serbs and Yugoslavs. In addition, there was some desire for power (domination) as an end in itself, and for revenge. Several misperceptions also contributed: a diabolical enemy image (leading to exaggerated fear), an innocent self-image (not seeing that their own actions were aggressive and therefore would be perceived by others as aggression), overconfidence based on lack of empathy with the potential fighting spirit of both victims and onlookers, and failing to see a promising alternative to violence. Their Manichean world-picture was in turn supported by continual selective inatten...

Why the Serbs Fought: Motives and Misperceptions

There are two things in this world that don’t quite fit together. One is that mushroom cloud. We try not to think about it-but it’s there, rising, enormously, behind everything else we do. And then there’s the other thing: the whole complicated spectacle of all the old causes of war going on as usual. There’s the arms race, and ABM, and-much worse than ABM-that hydraheaded monster, MIRV. Most of all, there’s the war in Vietnam. It stands there as a continual, glaring reminder that the United States-our own peace-loving United States-is capable of the kind of bungling that got us into that war. And then comes the thought: ijeven the peace-loving United States could bungle itself into a little war like Vietnam, what guarantee is there that we won’t bungle ourselves into a big war-a nuclear war? It might be possible to exorcize the specter of that mushroom cloud if the Vietnam war did not exist. But it does exist. The sense of bafflement is especially great perhaps among psychologists, because a good many psychologists feel that the bungling that got us into the Vietnam war, and could get us into a nuclear war, consists largely of ignoring certain fundamental Psychological truths. Most of our American policy-makers (both Johnson and Nixon, for instance) behave as if they don’t recognize certain things that we psychologists take for granted-things such as the necessity of empathy (including empathy with our

Ralph K. White

Papers

Misperception in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Misperception and the Vietnam War

A test of the mirror-image hypothesis: Kennedy and Khrushchev

Why the Serbs Fought: Motives and Misperceptions

Three Not-So-Obvious Contributions of Psychology to Peace