Empathising with the enemy: emotion regulation and support for humanitarian aid in violent conflicts

ABSTRACT

Considering that negative intergroup emotions can hinder conflict resolution, we proposed integrative emotion regulation (IER) as possibly predicting conciliatory policies towards outgroups in violent conflict. Two studies examined Jewish Israelis’ self-reported IER, empathy, liberal attitudes, and support for humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Study 1 (N = 298) found that unlike reappraisal Jewish Israelis’ ability to explore emotions (e.g. IER) promoted concern for others’ emotions (empathy), which in turn predicted support for humanitarian aid (while controlling for education level, and religiosity). Study 2 (N = 291) replicated this mediation model, additionally confirming that liberal attitudes (upholding equal, fair treatment for minorities) moderated the relation between IER and support for humanitarian aid. Thus, IER linked more strongly with humanitarian support when the commitment for liberal egalitarian beliefs was high. Preliminary results hold important theoretical and practical implications regarding the potential to empathise with outgroup members in intractable conflicts.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion regulation
• integration
• reappraisal
• empathy
• intractable conflicts

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. As mentioned, earlier past research by Halperin and colleagues tested, alongside empathy, group-based emotions such as hope and negative emotions as possible mediating processes of the relation between emotion regulation capacities and support for conciliatory policies. It is important to note that empathy/sympathy is distinct from these other processes because unlike group-based emotions, empathy is defined as an ability that involves cognitive and emotional aspects.