Conflict Resolution Lab

Emotions for solidarity: The relations of moral outrage and sympathy with hierarchy-challenging and prosocial hierarchy-maintaining action intentions in support of refugees.

Nadine Knab, BMI Postdoctoral Fellow

Academic Advisor: Dr. Boaz Hameiri

This research provides evidence for specific connections between emotions and prosocial action tendencies to support refugees. The issue is investigated in two studies by including a general population sample and a unique sample of people working in charity and human-rights organizations. Based on previous research, this research predicted different prosocial actions and differentiated between hierarchy-maintaining and hierarchy-challenging actions (prosocial actions that may maintain vs. challenge unequal power relations between advantaged and disadvantaged group members), we provide important theoretical and empirical knowledge to tailor and develop interventions addressing current needs of refugees. For this reason, this research provides implications beyond academic research, for instance, for organizations interested in fostering support for refugees or migrant groups more generally.

Refugees in Town: Assessing the "Local Turn" of Forced Migrants Integration

Nora Meissner, BMI Fellow

Academic Advisor: Prof. Adriana Kemp, Head of the School for Social ad Policy Studies

The overall research project examines how cities deal with the social and economic incorporation of forced migrants. So far, the research has focused on the challenges and the opportunities that local governments face as they mediate between national migration control policies and the influx of asylum seekers in precarious socio-legal situations. In face of the COVID-19 pandemic we have expanded and diversified the ongoing research project and are now working on two interrelated studies simultaneously. The first study focuses on the case of Haifa, to contribute to the understanding of local refugee integration and migration governance in localities that are not central gateways to migration and yet important for grasping new dynamics o

f refugees’ dispersal. The second deals with the severe consequences of the pandemic for marginalized communities and civil society action. It is of vital importance to provide up-to-date knowledge to understand contemporary crises and their impact on dynamics and outcomes of local and global migration governance.

Meta-Perceptions in the Israeli context; Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood

Gal Factor, BMI Fellow

Academic Advisor: Dr. Boaz Hameiri

Gal is currently involved in two research projects: The first project is investigating Meta-Perceptions in the Israeli context. Meta perceptions is a term describing how a group "thinks" a second group is perceiving them. Exaggerated meta-perceptions means that although the outgroup perceives the ingroup in a certain objective score, the ingroup believes they (the outgroup) have an overly pessimistic perception of themselves. For example, both Democrats and Republicans believed that the other group holds high prejudice scores towards them, although actual prejudice scores between the groups were lower than they each anticipated. Currently, the work relies on replicating the meta-perception study in Israel, looking at two specific pairs of social groups: Jewish Seculars and Ultra-Orthodox (Haredim), and Israeli Jews and Arabs. The hypothesis is that similar exaggeration in meta-perceptions will be replicated in the Israeli context between these pairs of groups. In addition, there will be an examination of whether different variables like group power and media exposure influence these meta-perceptions.

A second line of research is examining the Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV). This psychological construct implies that people have a general tendency to look at themselves as victims. When this tendency is high, people can have more aggressive behaviors on the interpersonal level. Currently, the research group is working on two different studies that should help better understand the behaviors of high-TIV individuals. In one study, the researchers seek to examine how individuals will react to an external signal of victimhood, by another person. The prediction is that higher-TIV individuals will be less willing to help others who signal themselves as victims. In this study, elements of virtue within the victims' signal also will be implemented, to observe if these have any effect on the high-TIV participants’ willingness to help the victims. A second study will examine how higher-TIV individuals react to apologies following an episode of interpersonal transgression. It is believed that participants with high TIV will have a harder time forgiving people who hurt them and will be more revengeful in comparison to lower-TIV participants.