Three studies used the Palestinian-Israeli context to investigate the tendency for political antagonists to derogate each other's compromise proposals. In study 1, Israeli Jews evaluated an actual Israeli-authored peace plan less favorably when it was attributed to the Palestinians than when it was attributed to their own government. In study 2, both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs similarly devalued a Palestinian plan when it was ascribed to the “other side.” Furthermore, both Arabs and Jewish “hawks” (but not Jewish “doves”) perceived a proposal attributed to the dovish Israeli government as relatively bad for their own people and good for their adversaries. Study 3 explored the role that differences in construal of proposal terms play in mediating “reactive devaluation.” These studies expand theoretical understanding of this devaluation phenomenon and the barrier it creates to the resolution of real-world conflicts.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adams, J. S.1965. Inequity in social exchange. In Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 2, edited by L. Berkowitz, 267-299. New York: Academic Press.
2.
Allport, G. W.1954. The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
3.
Alwin, D. F. , R. L. Cohen, and T. M. Newcomb. 1991. Political attitudes over the life span: The Bennington women after fifty years. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
4.
Asch, S. E.1940. Studies in the principles of judgments and attitudes: II. Determination of judgments by group and ego standards. Journal of Social Psychology12:433-465.
5.
Asch, S. E.1948. The doctrine of suggestion, prestige, and imitation in social psychology. Psychological Review55:250-276.
6.
Asch, S. E.1952. Social psychology. New York: Prentice Hall.
7.
Baron, R. A. , and D. A. Kenny. 1986. The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology51:1173-1182.
8.
Bar-Tal, D. , A. Raviv, and T. Freund. 1994. The anatomy of political beliefs: A study of their centrality, confidence, contents, and epistemic authority. Journal of Applied Social Psychology24:849-872.
9.
Bar-Tal, D. , and Y.I.I. Vertzberger. 1997. Between hope and fear: A dialogue on the peace process in the Middle East and the polarized Israeli society. Political Psychology18:667-700.
10.
Bazerman, M. H. , J. R. Curhan, and D. A. Moore. Forthcoming. The death and rebirth of the social psychology of negotiations. In Blackwell handbook of social psychology. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
11.
Brehm, J. W.1966. A theory of psychological reactance. New York: Academic Press.
12.
Brehm, S. , and J. W. Brehm. 1981. Psychological reactance: A theory of freedom and control. New York: Academic Press.
13.
Brock, T. C.1968. Implications of commodity theory for value change. In Psychological foundations of attitudes, edited by A. G. Greewald, T. C. Brock, and T. M. Ostrom, 243-275. New York: Academic Press.
14.
Cacioppo, J. T. , and R. E. Petty. 1982. The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology42:116-131.
15.
Chaiken, S.1980. Heuristic versus systematic information processing and the use of source versus message cues in persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology39:752-766.
16.
Chaiken, S.1987. The heuristic model of persuasion. In Social influence: The Ontario symposium, vol. 5, edited by M. P. Zanna, J. M. Olson, and C. P. Herman, 3-39. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
17.
Chaiken, S. , A. Liberman, and A. H. Eagly. 1989. Heuristic and systematic processing within and beyond the persuasion context. In Unintended thought, edited by J. S. Uleman and J. A. Bargh, 212-252. New York: Guilford.
18.
Cialdini, R. B.1985. Influence. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.
19.
Crabb, P. B.1989. When aggression seems justified: Judging intergroup conflict from a distance. Aggressive Behavior15:345-352.
20.
Festinger, L.1957. A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
21.
Feuerwerger, M. , M. Indyk, and R. Satloff. 1993. Peacewatch anthology: Analysis of the Arab-Israeli peace process from the Madrid peace conference to the eve of President Clinton's inauguration. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
22.
Fink, E. L. , L. D. Rey, K. W. Johnson, K. Spenner, D. R. Morton, and E. T. Flores. 1975. The effects of family occupational type, sex, and appeal style on helping behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology11:43-52.
23.
Fisher, R. , and W. Ury. 1984. Getting to YES: Negotiating agreement without giving in. New York: Penguin.
24.
Heider, F.1958. The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: John Wiley.
25.
Heradstveit, D.1974. Arab and Israeli elite perceptions. Oslo, Norway: Oslo University Press and Humanities Press.
26.
Heradstveit, D.1979. The Arab-Israeli conflict. Oslo, Norway: Universitetsforlaget.
27.
Houston, D. A. , and R. H. Fazio. 1989. Biased processing as a function of attitude accessibility: Making objective sentiments subjectively. Social Cognition7:51-66.
28.
Hovland, C. I. , I. L. Janis, and H. H. Kelley. 1953. Communication and persuasion: Psychological studies of opinion change. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
29.
Hovland, C. I. , A. A. Lumsdaine, and F. D. Sheffield. 1949. Experiments on mass communication. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
30.
Hovland, C. I. , and W. Weiss. 1951. The influence of source credibility on communication effectiveness. Public Opinion Quarterly15:635-650.
31.
Hunter, J. A. , M. Stringer, and R. P. Watson. 1991. Intergroup violence and intergroup attributions. British Journal of Social Psychology30:261-266.
32.
Jones, E. E.1990. Interpersonal perception. New York: Freeman.
33.
Kahneman, D. , and A. Tversky. 1979. Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica47:263-291.
34.
Kahneman, D. , and A. Tversky. 1984. Choices, values, and frames. American Psychologist39:341-350.
35.
Kahneman, D. , and A. Tversky. 1995. Conflict resolution: A cognitive perspective. In Barriers to conflict resolution, edited by K. Arrow, R. Mnookin, L. Ross, A. Tversky, and R. Wilson, 44-61. New York: Norton.
36.
Kelman, H. C.1999. Transforming the relationship between former enemies: A social-psychological analysis. In After the peace: Resistance and reconciliation, edited by R. Rothstein. London: Lynne Rienner.
37.
Kruglanski, A. W. , D. M. Webster, and A. Klem. 1993. Motivated resistance and openness to persuasion in the presence or absence of prior information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology66:861-876.
38.
Langer, E. J.1978. Rethinking the role of thought in social interaction. In New directions in attribution research, vol. 2J, edited by H. Harvey, W. I. Ickes, and R. Kidd, 35-58. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
39.
Lax, D. A. , and J. K. Sebenius. 1986. The manager and negotiator: Bargaining for cooperation and competitive gain. New York: Free Press.
40.
Lepper, M. R., L. Ross, J. Tsai, and A. Ward. 1999. The grass is always greener: “Reactive devaluation” of proffered concessions. Unpublished manuscript, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
41.
Maoz, M.1999. The Oslo agreements: Towards Arab-Jewish reconciliation. In After the peace: Resistance and reconciliation, edited by R. Rothstein. London: Lynne Rienner.
42.
Mnookin, R. , and L. Ross. 1995. Strategic, psychological, and institutional barriers: An introduction. In Barriers to conflict resolution, edited by K. Arrow, R. Mnookin, L. Ross, A. Tversky, and R. Wilson, 2-25. New York: Norton.
43.
Morris, M. W., and S. K. Su. 2000. Why impartial conflict mediators are mistrusted: The influence of egocentric expectations on social judgment. Unpublished manuscript, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
44.
Osgood, C. E. , and P. H. Tanenbaum. 1955. The principle of congruity in the prediction of attitude change. Psychological Review62:42-55.
45.
Petty, R. E. , and J. T. Cacioppo. 1981. Attitudes and persuasion: Classic and contemporary approaches. Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown.
46.
Petty, R. E. , and J. T. Cacioppo. 1986. Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change. New York: Springer-Verlag.
47.
Petty, R. E. , and D. T. Wegener. 1998. Attitude change: Multiple roles for persuasion variables. In The handbook of social psychology, 4th ed., vol. 1D, edited by T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, and G. Lindzey, 323-390. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
48.
Pruitt, D. G.1998. Social conflict. In The handbook of social psychology, 4th ed., vol. 2D, edited by T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, and G. Lindzey, 470-503. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
49.
Quattrone, G. A.1986. On the perception of a group's variability. In Psychology of intergroup relations, 2d ed., edited by S. Worchel and W. G. Austin, 25-48. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
50.
Rawls, J.1971. A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
51.
Rhodes, N. , and W. Wood. 1992. Self-esteem and intelligence affect influenceability: The mediating role of message reception. Psychological Bulletin111:156-171.
52.
Ross, L.1995. Reactive devaluation in negotiation and conflict resolution. In Barriers to conflict resolution, edited by K. Arrow, R. Mnookin, L. Ross, A. Tversky, and R. Wilson. New York: Norton.
53.
Ross, L. , and C. Stillinger. 1991. Psychological barriers to conflict resolution. Negotiation Journal7:389-404.
54.
Ross, L. , and A. Ward. 1995. Psychological barriers to dispute resolution. In Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 27, edited by M. Zanna, 255-304. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
55.
Ross, L. , and A. Ward. 1996. Naive realism: Implications for social conflict and misunderstanding. In Values and knowledge, edited by T. Brown, E. Reed, and E. Turiel, 103-135. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
56.
Rouhana, N. N.1993. Accentuated identities in protracted conflict: The collective identity of Palestinian citizens in Israel. Asian and African Studies27:97-127.
57.
Rouhana, N. N. , and D. Bar-Tal. 1998. Psychological dynamics of intractable ethnonational conflicts: The Israeli-Palestinian Case. American Psychologist53:761-770.
58.
Rouhana, N. N. , and S. Fiske. 1995. Perception of power, threat, and conflict intensity in asymmetric intergroup conflict. Journal of Conflict Resolution39:49-81.
59.
Saunders, H. H.1991. The other walls. Rev. ed.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
60.
Shikaki, K.1999. The internal consequences of unstable peace: Psychological and political responses of Palestinians. In After the peace: Resistance and reconciliation, edited by R. Rothstein. London: Lynne Rienner.
61.
Stillinger, C., M. Epelbaum, D. Keltner, and L. Ross. 1990. The reactive devaluation barrier to conflict resolution. Unpublished manuscript, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
62.
Thompson, L. L.1991. Information exchange in negotiation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology27:161-179.
63.
Thompson, L. L.1998. The mind and heart of the negotiator. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
64.
Vallone, R. , L. Ross, and M. Lepper. 1985. The hostile media phenomenon: Biased perception and perceptions of media bias in coverage of the Beirut massacre. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology49:577-585.
65.
Webster, D. M. , and A. W. Kruglanski. 1994. Individual differences in need for cognitive closure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology67:1049-1062.
66.
Wicklund, R. A.1974. Freedom and reactance. Potomac, MD: Lawrence Erlbaum.
67.
Wolfsfeld, G.1997. Promoting peace through the news media: Some initial lessons from the Oslo peace process. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics2:52-70.
68.
Wood, W. , N. Rhodes, and M. Biek. 1995. Working knowledge and attitude strength: An information processing analysis. In Attitude strength: Antecedents and consequences, edited by R. E. Petty and J. A. Krosnick, 283-313. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
