Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic Relations of Israeli Jews

Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic Relations of Israeli

Jews and Arabs

SALOMI SIMON

JM40516 (MCCOM)

UNIVERSITI PUTRA MALAYSIA

Main idea of the journal article

Introduction

• Current Research– Index of prejudice - Bogardus Scale of Social

Distance.

Problem – only measures the prejudice (distancing) held by members of the majority group toward members of one or more minority groups.

Solution - modified the Scale to emphasize personal readiness for entering into increasingly intimate social relations with members of the out-group, rather than distancing oneself from these relations.

Interethnic prejudice

• Other problems with index– Western democratic societies are less likely to say

racist things although they may think them (laws against racism);

– Social distance may have different meanings for ethnic groups engaged in ethno-national conflicts (e.g., Kurds in Turkey, French separatists in Canada);

– Responses regarding readiness for social relations with the out-group changes with the situation.

First Goal: Psychosocial and Ideological Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic

Relations of the modified Bogardus Scale

The psycho-social variables used:

1. Frequency and importance of social contact

2. Personal and Expected Readiness for Interethnic Relations

3. Ethno-cultural Empathy


Relations

The psycho-social variables


Contact importance is defined as the “subjective appraisal of a valuable interpersonal relationship that is functional for the individual’s goals”

In other words how important is the individual relationship?


Relations

• This study tested this by assessing in a majority and a minority group context and comparing the frequency of interethnic contact versus the importance attributed by each group to relations with the other.


Relations

• Historically the immigration of Jews into the country, the wars, and the emigration of local Arabs out of the country created a Jewish majority in numbers (nearly six million, or 80%) in Israel, and yet at the same time they are a minuscule minority (2%) in a region peopled by nearly 300 million Arabs.


Relations

• The researchers expected: If Jews behave as a typical majority and Arabs as a typical minority group, we would expect the Jews to be less ready than the Arabs for interethnic relations.


Relations



• This study tested this by assessing in a majority and a minority group context and comparing the frequency of interethnic contact versus the importance attributed by each group to relations with the other.

First Goal: Psychosocial and Ideological Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic Relations


2. Personal and Expected Readiness for Interethnic Relations

Personal and Expected Readiness for Interethnic Relations

Current research focuses on affect-laden variables influencing intentions and judgments of intentions – eg., stereotype threat; interethnic anxiety; and intergroup anxiety.

The problem is they are not equivalent to judgments of the intentions of others.

Personal and Expected Readiness for Interethnic Relations

The solution is to obtain from members of each ethnic group their judgment as to the readiness of the other group to accept them and to compare within each group their personal readiness for these relations and their anticipation or expectation that the other group is equally ready.

Examples of Scales for Personal and Expected Readiness for Interethnic Relations

Each of these scales consisted of five social interactions arranged in order of increasingly intimate association:

1. ready to work along side members of the “other group,”

2. ready to invite them as guests in my home or have them as friends,

3. ready to have them as neighbours residing in my community,

4. ready in the future for my children to be friends with their children,

5. ready in the future for one of my children or the children of family members to marry a member of the “other group.”

Participants were instructed to indicate what they perceived to be the intentions of members of the other group taken as a whole, and not the intentions of any particular person.

Each scale had five items and a six-point response scale from strong disagreement (1) to strong agreement (6).


Relations


1. Ethno-cultural Empathy

Ethno-cultural Empathy

Problem: Most of the research on intergroup relations has been restricted to assessing the majority group’s readiness for establishing these relations. It was assumed that the minority group will reciprocate the overtures made by the majority group.

Solution: Test the bilateral reciprocity of personal readiness of members of either group to accept members of the other group in increasingly intimate relationships versus their expectation that the other group is ready for intimate social relations with them.

Ethno-cultural Empathy

How: Researchers constructed ethnic-specific scales for Jewish and Arab students to assess manifestations aspects of empathy toward the other group.

Measured four categories:• Affective empathy (9 items): “I am moved when I see films or read about the

discrimination against Arabs and the suffering it causes them.” [Jewish Scale]• “I am moved when I see films or read about the suffering of the Jews during

the Second World War.” [Arab Scale]• 2. Cognitive empathy (7 items): “I don’t understand why Arabs maintain

their ethnic customs rather than become part of the culture of the modern world” (reversed) [Jewish Scale]

• “I don’t understand why Jews maintain their ethnic customs rather than become integrated within the major (cultural) trends in the Middle East.” (Reversed) [Arab Scale]

• 3. Inter-ethnic discomfort (2 items): “I get nervous when I find that everybody around me is speaking Arabic/Hebrew.” (Reversed) [Both Scales]

• 4. Participation (6 items): “I speak up in public about my concern about discrimination against Arabs” [Jewish Scale]

First Goal: Ideological Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic Relations

The Effect of Ideology on Interethnic Relations

(a) a general non-specific measure of a liberal versus a conservative orientation; and

A liberal orientation emphasizes social tolerance, positive attitudes toward minorities, and a professed intention to right the wrongs done to disadvantaged and exploited minorities more than a conservative orientation.

First Goal: Ideological Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic Relations

The problem with general non-specific measure of a liberal versus a conservative orientation – it makes no reference, however, to the ongoing conflict between Jews and Arabs

Solution – needed a context-specific ideological measure that makes explicit reference to the Arab-Israeli conflict and its ramifications.

Argued that it is more strongly associated with readiness for social relations with the other group than the general ideological measure.

Eg: “At times there is no alternative to the use of force to resolve hostile confrontations between countries” (conservative)

“The government must grant citizenship to all who reside within its borders without regard for their beliefs, religion, or ethnicity” (liberal)

Examples: A context-specific measure of ideologically based attitudes about resolution of

the Israeli-Palestinian/Arab conflict

“I am ashamed about the way my government treats the Palestinian people who are fighting for their own independence” (Jewish scale - liberal)

“The Jewish people are accustomed for centuries to live in many different countries and they have no right to establish a Jewish State here at our expense”

(Arab scale, conservative)

Second Goal: The Social Contract Underlying

Readiness for Interethnic Relations

• One way to conceptualize current and future states of social interaction between groups is in terms of contracts. Two used:– A relational contract;– A transactional contract.

The second goal of the research was to identify in Jews and Arabs the type of contract underlying the professed readiness for increasingly intimate social relations.

A relational contract

• A relational contract is defined as a mutually gratifying relationship that provides emotional as well as material benefits such that it survives changes in the circumstances—cultural, educational, economic, political, or ideological—of one or both parties to the contract.

• Relational contracts exist at the family, group, or international levels.

Transactional contracts

• Persist only until circumstances permit either party to cancel the contract and to behave in a different manner.

• Transactional contracts are common and are commonly broken. The relationship of management, union leaders, and workers changes in times of economic prosperity and of economic depression.

• Conflicts at the international level erupt when ethnic majorities or minorities become able and willing to subjugate, expel, or exterminate the other group, such as the conflicts in Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia in the former Yugoslavia.

Hypothesis 1

People are more ready to engage in increasingly intimate relations with members of the other group when certain conditions exist. They: • consider relations with other group are important,• anticipate reciprocal readiness from members of the other

group, • understand the culture and perspectives of the other group,

and are affectively sensitive to their grievances. • espouse a general liberal ideology and a specific context-

relevant liberal position on resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hypothesis 2(with assumptions)

If the psychosocial and ideological correlates are relatively permanent and not easily subject to change, and that the people profess a readiness for relations with the other group, it is hypothesised that the level of professed readiness for intergroup relations is probably genuine, stable and consistent with a relational contract.

Methodology

• Participants in the first study, conducted in January–February of 2005, were 60 Muslim Arab citizens and 65 Jewish citizens, half men and half women. [Goal One]

• Participants in the second study, conducted in April–June of 2005, were 60 Muslim Arabs and 60 Jews. [Goal Two]

• Christian Arab students were not included in this study because they are a small minority (4%) who suffer varying degrees of discrimination at the hands of Muslim Arabs (16%) and Jews (80%).

Methodology

• A mixed multiple analysis of variance was conducted.

First Goal Findings – General Personal and Expected Readiness

• The analysis of readiness interaction showed that Arabs were higher in personal than in expected readiness while Jews were at the same level of readiness for personal and expected readiness.

• These findings are consistent with the Arabs adopting a minority perspective about their own intentions as compared with those they attribute to the nominal majority.

• By contrast, the Jews do not appear to be adopting a majority perspective in this analysis: they declare they are as ready for interethnic relations as they expect the Arabs to be.

Personal readiness

Personal readiness: • for interethnic relations was correlated with cultural empathy,

ideology measures, and frequency and importance of contact in both groups.

• more strongly correlated with contact importance than with contact frequency for Jews, but no difference for Arabs.

• more strongly correlated with context-specific measure of ideology (conflict resolution) than with a general measure of ideology for Jews but no significant difference for Arabs.

• was correlated with peaceful conflict resolution and importance of social contact but lower for Arabs than for Jews

• was correlated with expected readiness for interethnic relations very highly for Jews but not for Arabs.

First Goal Findings –Personal Readiness

1. If members of one group are exposed to the perspectives, concerns and experiences of the other, cultural empathy with the out-group will be enhanced and with it, greater readiness for positive relations with the out-group.

2. If we accept the findings at face value, we conclude that absence of a relationship between personal readiness for interethnic relations today and personal readiness for expulsion tomorrow is possible only if there are more sub-groups among Arabs than among Jews

Implications of First Goal Findings: Psychosocial and Ideological Correlates of

Readiness for Interethnic Relations

Second Goal Findings: The Social Contract Underlying Readiness for

Interethnic Relations

• For Jews, personal readiness for relations with Arabs was highly correlated in a negative direction with personal readiness to expel the Arabs from Israel, findings consistent with a relational contract.

• For Arabs, the absence of a significant relation between personal readiness for relations and personal readiness to expel the Jews is consistent with a transactional contract.

When people are ready to make contact with the other group and believe the other group will reciprocate, they are party to perceived bilateral reciprocity and to a relational contract. They are ready to do what they perceive the out-group to be ready to do.

This finding also cuts in the opposite direction: Those who reject relations with the out-group expect the out-group to reject relations with them.

Implications of Second Goal Findings: The Social Contract Underlying Readiness for

Interethnic Relations

Conclusion

We recommend that psychosocial research on ethno-national conflicts include designs and measures that assess the long-term stability of intergroup intentions professed by parties to the conflict.

(How: By constructing specific scales that include the specific conflict)

Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic Relations of Israeli Jews

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