The "Research Cooperation Lower Saxony - Israel" is attempting to defuse hostility between groups - including in the Middle East conflict.
Tensions, hostility and violent conflicts around the globe dominate the news on a daily basis. Currently, one of the news stories keeping the world on tenterhooks is the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. A project supported by the "Research Cooperation Lower Saxony - Israel" is working on solutions that could serve as a model: working groups from Leuphana University Lüneburg and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are pooling their expertise and jointly developing psychological interventions - i.e. measures intended to reduce hostility and foster positive contacts between groups. It is one of eight academic cooperation projects that the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation are using to strengthen cooperation between researchers from Lower Saxony and Israel.
Since 1977, this joint initiative has enabled the Ministry and the Foundation to support academic exchange between Lower Saxon and Israeli universities (...) and research institutions in the humanities and social sciences, in thebio- and life sciences and medicine, and in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering sciences". The projects currently being funded - to the tune of four million euros in total - encompass a wide range of topics: these include the ethical challenges posed by a digital healthcare policy, the problems bilingual people have understanding speech in noisy environments, and an ancient temple that has been excavated near Jerusalem and is to be reconstructed. Against the backdrop of the brutal terrorist attack carried out by Hamas on 7 October 2023, the state of Lower Saxony and the Volkswagen Foundation have increased the funding amounts and extended the duration of ongoing projects that have additional needs as a result of the hostilities.
The project "Using Self-Affirmation to Reduce Intergroup Hostility and Facilitate Intergroup Contact in the Israel-Palestinian Conflict" focuses on the reasons why conflicts occur in the first place. "In social psychology we distinguish between in- and out-groups," explains motivational psychologist Dr Timur Sevincer, project leader at the Institute for Sustainability Psychology at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Self-regulation is one of the topics his research focuses on. "We identify strongly with our in-group and see it as being more rational and as acting more morally than out-groups." While this creates a sense of belonging on the one hand, it often leads to a distorted perception that the members of other groups are inferior. "These mechanisms can give rise to prejudice and discrimination between groups," explains Sevincer. This can even result in hostilities and armed conflicts.
The concept of self-affirmation is all about positively influencing a person's sense of self-worth. "We want to understand the processes that prevent people from opening their minds, seeing things from another person's perspective, accepting compromises or trusting others," says Professor Eran Halperin, who oversees the project at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Department of Psychology. The objective of his work in intervention and conflict research of groups is to overcome these barriers by carrying out psychological interventions. An expert in self-affirmation is also part of the Lower Saxony-Israeli cooperation, namely the American psychology professor David Sherman from the University of California in Santa Barbara. "We have all been researching for years how conflicts arise in groups," explains Halperin. All of them pursuing their own work with a different focus. "In this project we now actually have the opportunity to study how different measures can be combined in the optimal manner to achieve maximum effectiveness."
Eight studies are planned in four different contexts: for the purposes of the project, Israelis and Palestinians in Israel will be surveyed, as will German left- and right-wing extremists, religious Muslims in Western and Arab countries, and pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli students in the USA. On this basis, the aim is to develop easily implementable interventions with considerable impact and to use them on various target groups.
But how can those individuals be reached who are most affected by a conflict and have particularly negative attitudes? "That is one of the most difficult questions in social psychology," stresses Project Leader Sevincer. "Our idea therefore is to develop video interventions that build upon tried and tested principles but are short, and indeed entertaining, and can be widely disseminated via social media such as Instagram or TikTok." He explains that it will be about appealing to people's own basic moral values and encouraging them to adopt a new perspective, for example by presenting positive examples of reconciliation. "After all, pretty much everyone wants in fact to be a person of integrity, not a hostile person," says Sevincer. Psychological interventions aimed at bringing this about strengthen a person's own ego, foster contact between groups and combat fears and feelings of being threatened.
"Each of us has our own view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I am studying it within the context itself," says Halperin. "That makes it very, very difficult to view the situation objectively." This is why he attaches such value to the diverse family, religious, cultural and professional backgrounds of the participating project teams, and to their ability to take an external view of the situation. "My goal is to develop measures that can be effectively deployed in different contexts, with different groups and in different political situations," the professor emphasises. "Programmes like the Research Cooperation Lower Saxony - Israel give us the chance to make progress along this path."