Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:54:30.698Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Predictors of Compromise over Social and Political Issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2013

Abstract

This article provides a social psychological analysis of the neglected issue of ‘intergroup compromise’. We discuss the factors that promote respondents' willingness to compromise with two very different outgroups. We present a framework in which altruistic motivations (such as empathy) and egoistic motivations (such as trust and symbolic threat) act as proximal predictors of compromise, with intergroup contact as a distal predictor. We found that respondents who had more positive contact with homosexuals perceived them to be less threatening, and felt more empathy towards them, and in turn, were more likely to compromise with them on group-specific issues (controlling for the general tendency to compromise). We also found that respondents who had more negative contact with Muslims perceived them to be more threatening, and in turn, were less likely to compromise with them. We discuss these results with reference to recent developments in intergroup relations and the state of public discourse in contemporary Britain, examine their implications for intergroup relations in pluralistic contexts, and make suggestions for future research on willingness to compromise with outgroups.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2012.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 Ramiah, Ananthi Al and Hewstone, Miles, ‘Discrimination: Conditions, Consequences and “Cures”’, in Huddy, L., Sears, D. O. and Levy, J. S. (eds), Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, New York, Oxford University Press, forthcomingGoogle Scholar.

3 Muzafer Sherif, O. J. Harvey, B. Jack White, William R. Hood and Carolyn Wood Sherif, Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment, Norman, OK, University of Oklahoma Book Exchange, 1961.

4 Rawls, John, Political Liberalism, New York, Columbia University Press, 1996 Google Scholar.

5 Hennessey, Beth A. and Amabile, Teresa M., ‘Reward, Intrinsic Motivation, and Creativity’, American Psychologist, 53: 6 (1998), pp. 674–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Crisp, Richard J. and Turner, Rhiannon N., ‘Cognitive Adaptation to the Experience of Social and Cultural Diversity’, Psychological Bulletin, 137: 2 (2011), pp. 242–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Isaiah Berlin, (ed.), The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas, London, John Murray, 1990.

8 Bellamy, Richard, Liberalism and Pluralism: Towards a Politics of Compromise, London, Routledge, 1999 Google Scholar.

9 From the widely adopted perspective of social identity theory, a group is made up of two or more people who share the same social identity (see John C. Turner, Michael A. Hogg, Penelope J. Oakes, Stephen D. Reicher and Margaret S. Wetherell (eds), Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-Categorization Theory, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1987), and social identity is the individual's self-concept derived from membership of meaningful social groups. Social psychologists use the term ingroup to refer to groups with which social actors identify, while outgroups are those with which social actors do not identify, and are often thought to have competing interests with the ingroup.

10 Wright, Stephen C. and Lubensky, M., ‘The Struggle for Social Equality: Collective Action vs. Prejudice Reduction’, in Demoulin, S., Leyens, J. P. and Dovidio, J. F. (eds), Intergroup Misunderstandings: Impact of Divergent Social Realities, New York, Psychology Press, 2008, pp. 291310 Google Scholar.

11 Vertovec, Steven, ‘Super-Diversity and its Implications’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 29: 6 (2007), pp. 1024–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 For examples, see Samuel L. Gaertner and John F. Dovidio, ‘The Aversive Form of Racism’, in J. F. Dovidio and S. Gaertner (eds), Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism, Orlando, FL, Academic Press, 1986, pp. 61–89; and John B. McConahay, ‘Modern Racism, Ambivalence, and the Modern Racism Scale’, in Gaertner and Dovidio (eds), Prejudice, Discrimination and Racism, pp. 91–125.

13 Festinger, Leon, ‘A Theory of Social Comparison Processes’, Human Relations, 7: 2 (1954), pp. 117–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 C. Daniel Batson, ‘Empathy-Induced Altruistic Motivation’, paper presented at the Inaugural Herzliya Symposium on Prosocial Motives, Emotions, and Behavior, Herzliya, Israel, 24–27 March 2008.

15 For examples, see C. Daniel Batson, Altruism in Humans, New York, Oxford University Press, 2011; Batson, C. Daniel and Ahmad, Nadia Y., ‘Using Empathy to Improve Intergroup Attitudes and Relations’, Social Issues and Policy Review, 3: 1 (2009), pp. 141–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Pettigrew, Thomas F. and Tropp, Linda R., ‘A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact Theory’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90: 5 (2006), pp. 751–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 For examples, see Hewstone, Miles, ‘Living Apart, Living Together? The Role of Intergroup Contact in Social Integration’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 162 (2009), pp. 243300 Google Scholar; Ulrich Wagner and Miles Hewstone, ‘Intergroup Contact’, in L. R. Tropp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Intergroup Conflict, New York, Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

18 For examples, see Pettigrew, Thomas F., Wagner, Ulrich and Christ, Oliver, ‘Are Population Ratios and Prejudice Relevant for Understanding Genocide?’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36: 4 (2010), pp. 635–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tausch, Nicole, Tam, Tania, Hewstone, Miles, Kenworthy, Jared and Cairns, Ed, ‘Individual-Level and Group-Level Mediators of Contact Effects in Northern Ireland: The Moderating Role of Social Identification’, British Journal of Social Psychology, 46: 3 (2007), pp. 541–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 For examples, see Harwood, Jake, Hewstone, Miles, Paolini, Stefania and Voci, Alberto, ‘Grandparent–Grandchild Contact and Attitudes Towards Older Adults: Moderator and Mediator Effects’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31: 3 (2005), pp. 393406 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tam, Tania, Hewstone, Miles, Harwood, Jake, Voci, Alberto and Kenworthy, Jared, ‘Intergroup Contact and Grandparent–Grandchild Communication: The Effects of Self-Disclosure on Implicit and Explicit Biases Against Older People’, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 9: 3 (2006), pp. 413–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 For examples, see Tam, Tania, Hewstone, Miles, Kenworthy, Jared and Cairns, Ed, ‘Intergroup Trust in Northern Ireland’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35: 1 (2009), pp. 4559 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Turner, Rhiannon N., Hewstone, Miles and Voci, Alberto, ‘Reducing Explicit and Implicit Prejudice Via Direct and Extended Contact: The Mediating Role of Self-Disclosure and Intergroup Anxiety’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93: 3 (2007), pp. 369–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Voci, Alberto and Hewstone, Miles, ‘Intergroup Contact and Prejudice Towards Immigrants in Italy: The Mediational Role of Anxiety and the Moderational Role of Group Salience’, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 6: 1 (2003), pp. 3754 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Paolini, Stefania, Harwood, Jake and Rubin, Mark, ‘Negative Intergroup Contact Makes Group Memberships Salient: Explaining Why Intergroup Conflict Endures’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36: 12 (2010), pp. 1723–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Maoz, Ifat and Ellis, D. G., ‘Intergroup Communication as a Predictor of Jewish–Israeli Agreement with Integrative Solutions to the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict: The Mediating Effects of Out-Group Trust and Guilt’, Journal of Communication, 58: 3 (2008), pp. 490507 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Batson, ‘Empathy-Induced Altruistic Motivation’.

25 For examples, see C. Daniel Batson, The Altruism Question: Toward a Social-Psychological Answer, Hillsdale, NJ, Erlbaum, 1991; Eisenberg, Nancy and Miller, Paul A., ‘Empathy and Prosocial Behavior’, Psychological Bulletin, 101: 1 (1987), pp. 91119 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 See research by Maoz, Ifat and McCauley, Clark, ‘Psychological Correlates of Support for Compromise: A Polling Study of Jewish-Israeli Attitudes Towards Solutions to the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict’, Political Psychology, 26: 5 (2005), pp. 791807 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on Israeli Jews' attitudes towards solutions for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

27 Halpern, Jodi and Weinstein, Harvey M., ‘Rehumanizing the Other: Empathy and Reconciliation’, Human Rights Quarterly, 26: 3 (2004), pp. 561–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Walter G. Stephan and Cookie W. Stephan, ‘An Integrated Threat Theory of Prejudice’, in S. Oskamp (ed.), Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination, Hillsdale, NJ, Erlbaum, 2000, pp. 23–46.

29 Maoz and McCauley, ‘Psychological Correlates of Support for Compromise’.

30 Gordon, Carol and Arian, Asher, ‘Threat and Decision Making’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 45: 2 (2001), pp. 196215 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Herek, Gregory M., ‘Gender Gaps in Public Opinion About Lesbians and Gay Men’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 66: 1 (2002), pp. 4066 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Roderick M. Kramer and Peter J. Carnevale, ‘Trust and Intergroup Negotiation’, in R. Brown and S. Gaertner (eds), Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology: Volume 4, Intergroup Processes, Oxford, Blackwell, 2001, pp. 431–50.

33 Kollock, Peter, ‘The Emergence of Exchange Structures: An Experimental Study of Uncertainty, Commitment, and Trust’, American Journal of Sociology, 100: 2 (1994), pp. 313–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Yamagishi, Toshio and Yamagishi, Midori, ‘Trust and Commitment in the United States and Japan’, Motivation and Emotion, 18: 2 (1994), pp. 129–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 For examples, see Roy J. Lewicki and Carolyn Wiethoff, ‘Trust, Trust Development, and Trust Repair’, in M. Deutsch and P. T. Coleman (eds), Handbook of Conflict Resolution, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2000, pp. 86–107; Maoz and McCauley, ‘Psychological Correlates of Support for Compromise’.

36 Hewstone, ‘Living Apart, Living Together?’

38 Steve Crawshaw, ‘Human Rights Do Not Merely Exist – They are Growing’, Guardian, 3 November 2010, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/belief/2010/nov/03/human-rights-exist-growing.

39 For examples, see Angelique Chrisafis, ‘Under Siege’, Guardian, 8 December 2001, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2001/dec/08/weekend.angeliquechrisafis; Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All, London, Runnymede Trust, 1997; Robin Richardson (ed.), Islamophobia: Issues, Challenges and Action: A Report by the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham Books, 2004.

40 For examples, see Michelle R. Hebl, C. Law and E. B. King, ‘Heterosexism’, in J. F. Dovidio, M. Hewstone, P. Glick and V. M. Esses (eds), The Sage Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination, Newburg Park, CA, Sage, 2010; Herek, Gregory M., ‘Beyond “Homophobia”: Thinking About Sexual Stigma and Prejudice in the Twenty-First Century’, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 1: 2 (2004), pp. 624 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Islam, Rabiul Mir and Hewstone, Miles, ‘Dimensions of Contact as Predictors of Intergroup Anxiety, Perceived Outgroup Variability, and Outgroup Attitude: An Integrative Model’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19: 6 (1993), pp. 700–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Brehm, John and Rahn, Wendy M., ‘Individual-Level Evidence for the Causes and Consequences of Social Capital’, American Journal of Political Science, 41: 3 (1997), pp. 9991023 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Batson, C. Daniel, Sager, Karen, Garst, Eric, Kang, Misook, Rubchinsky, Kostia and Dawson, Karen, ‘Is Empathy-Induced Helping due to Self–Other Merging?’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73: 3 (1997), pp. 495509 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mark H. Davis, Empathy: A Social Psychological Approach, Madison, WI, Brown & Benchmark, 1994.

44 Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All; Richardson, Islamophobia: Issues, Challenges and Action.

45 Pettigrew and Tropp, ‘A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact Theory’.

46 Pettigrew, Wagner and Christ, ‘Are Population Ratios and Prejudice Relevant for Understanding Genocide?’; and Tausch et al., ‘Individual-Level and Group-Level Mediators of Contact Effects in Northern Ireland’.

47 Harwood et al., ‘Grandparent–Grandchild Contact and Attitudes Towards Older Adults’; Tam et al., ‘Intergroup Contact and Grandparent–Grandchild Communication’.

48 Tam et al., ‘Intergroup Trust in Northern Ireland’; Turner, Hewstone and Voci, ‘Reducing Explicit and Implicit Prejudice via Direct and Extended Contact’.

49 Wright and Lubensky, ‘The Struggle for Social Equality’.

50 Saguy, Tamar, Tausch, Nicole, Dovidio, John F. and Pratto, Felicia, ‘The Irony of Harmony: Intergroup Contact Can Produce False Expectations for Equality’, Psychological Science, 20: 1 (2009), pp. 114–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Hopkins, Nick, Greenwood, Ronni Michelle and Birchall, Maisha, ‘Minority Understandings of the Dynamics to Inter-Group Contact Encounters: British Muslims' (Sometimes Ambivalent) Experiences of Representing their Group to Others’, South African Journal of Psychology, 37: 4 (2007), pp. 679701 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 For examples, see Paolini, Harwood and Rubin, ‘Negative Intergroup Contact Makes Group Memberships Salient’; Pettigrew, Thomas F., ‘Future Directions for Intergroup Contact Theory and Research’, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 32: 3 (2008), pp. 187–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Schmid, Katharina, Tausch, Nicole, Hewstone, Miles, Hughes, Joanne and Cairns, Ed, ‘The Effects of Living in Segregated vs. Mixed Areas in Northern Ireland: A Simultaneous Analysis of Contact and Threat Effects in the Context of Micro-Level Neighbourhoods’, International Journal of Conflict and Violence, 2: 1 (2008), pp. 5671 Google Scholar.

53 Gordon W. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice, Cambridge, MA, Addison-Wesley, 1954.

54 Lawler, Edward J., and Yoon, Jeongkoo, ‘Commitment in Exchange Relations: Test of a Theory of relational Cohesion’, American Sociological Review, 61: 4 (1996), pp. 89108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Kramer and Carnevale, ‘Trust and Intergroup Negotiation’, p. 438.

56 For example, see Swart, Hermann, Hewstone, Miles, Christ, Oliver and Voci, Alberto, ‘Affective mediators of Intergroup Contact: A Longitudinal Analysis in South Africa’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101: 2 (2011), pp. 1221–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Tropp, Linda R. and Bianchi, Rebecca A., ‘Valuing Diversity and Intergroup Contact’, Journal of Social Issues, 62: 3 (2006), pp. 533–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.