The power of being heard: The benefits of ‘perspective-giving’ in the context of intergroup conflict

By Emile G. Bruneau, Rebecca Saxe. 2012

266 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Although hundreds of dialogue programs geared towards conflict resolution are offered every year, there have been few scientific studies of their effectiveness. Across 2 studies we examined the effect of controlled, dyadic interactions on attitudes towards the ‘other’ in members of groups involved in ideological conflict. Study 1 involved Mexican immigrants and White Americans in Arizona, and Study 2 involved Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. Cross-group dyads interacted via video and text in a brief, structured, face-to-face exchange: one person was assigned to write about the difficulties of life in their society (‘perspective-giving’), and the second person was assigned to accurately summarize the statement of the first person (‘perspective-taking’). Positive changes in attitudes towards the outgroup were greater for Mexican immigrants and Palestinians after perspective-giving and for White Americans and Israelis after perspective-taking. For Palestinians, perspective-giving to an Israeli effectively changed attitudes towards Israelis, while a control condition in which they wrote an essay on the same topic without interacting had no effect on attitudes, illustrating the critical role of being heard. Thus, the effects of dialogue for conflict resolution depend on an interaction between dialogue condition and participants' group membership, which may reflect power asymmetries.

Subfields: Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a0d92de0d8e4951de353658c759876c2c4a4c9a9

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Citations in the corpus

Addressing Empathic Failures (2015, background): “…above, perspective taking does not lead to more positive attitudes among low-power groups; however, in line with this idea, “perspective giving”—communicating the in-group’s grievances to a member of the high-power group—improves intergroup attitudes among low-power groups (Bruneau & Saxe, 2012).”
Reducing Exclusionary Attitudes through Interpersonal Conversation: Evidence from Three Field Experiments (2020, background): “Although any competing efforts to change policy attitudes may cancel out, such efforts may still increase tolerance for those who share opposing viewpoints (Bruneau and Saxe 2012; Mutz 2002).”
Empathy: a motivated account. (2014, background): “…cases, observers might not wish to take others’ perspective (Tamir, 2013), and doing so can actually worsen their impressions of outgroup members (Bruneau & Saxe, 2012) or increase their willingness to engage in immoral intergroup behavior (Epley, Caruso, & Bazerman, 2006; J. R. Pierce,…”
The Role of Empathy and Compassion in Conflict Resolution (2019, background): “…participants observe others’ suffering (e.g., Batson et al., 1981, 1983; Klimecki et al., 2016), read empathy-inducing texts (e.g., Batson et al., 1997; Hasson et al., 2018, Porat et al., 2016), or write texts from the perspective of others (e.g., Bruneau & Saxe, 2012; Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000).”
Contestability in Algorithmic Systems (2019, background): “Contestability has often been conceptualized as a form of procedural justice: feeling one’s voice has been heard addresses a fundamental need for perceptions of fairness [13], with particularly strong effects for marginalized or disempowered populations [1].”