Sacred bounds on rational resolution of violent political conflict

We report a series of experiments carried out with Palestinian and Israeli participants showing that violent opposition to compromise over issues considered sacred is (i) increased by offering material incentives to compromise but (ii) decreased when the adversary makes symbolic compromises over the...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 104; no. 18; pp. 7357 - 7360
Main Authors Ginges, Jeremy, Atran, Scott, Medin, Douglas, Shikaki, Khalil
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 01.05.2007
National Acad Sciences
Subjects
Arab Israeli relations
Arabs - ethnology
Arabs - psychology
Cognitive science
Compromises
Conflict (Psychology)
Conflict resolution
domain_scco.cogpsy
domain_scco.psyemo
domain_scco.socialpsy
domain_shs.phil.ethics
Economics and Finance
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
Morality
Palestinian refugees
Peace negotiations
Peacefulness
Philosophy
Political conflict
Political science
Political violence
Politics
Psychology
School violence
Social Anthropology and ethnology
Social Sciences
Sociology
T tests
Taboo - psychology
Taboos
Tradeoffs
Values
Violence - ethnology
Violence - psychology
cultural conflict Middle East conflict negotiation sacred values
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Summary:We report a series of experiments carried out with Palestinian and Israeli participants showing that violent opposition to compromise over issues considered sacred is (i) increased by offering material incentives to compromise but (ii) decreased when the adversary makes symbolic compromises over their own sacred values. These results demonstrate some of the unique properties of reasoning and decision-making over sacred values. We show that the use of material incentives to promote the peaceful resolution of political and cultural conflicts may backfire when adversaries treat contested issues as sacred values.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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Contributed by Douglas Medin, March 1, 2007
Author contributions: J.G., S.A., D.M., and K.S. designed research; J.G. and K.S. performed research; J.G., S.A., D.M., and K.S. analyzed data; and J.G., S.A., D.M., and K.S. wrote the paper.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.0701768104