sacred values as cultural factors in collaboration and...

Sacred Values as cultural factors in collaboration and negotiation

Jeremy Ginges (New School for Social Research) Scott Atran (CUNY, University of Michigan)

MURI graduate students: Nadine Obeid, Hammad Sheikh, Kate Jassin, Nicole Argo

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

MURI 14 Program Review-- September 10, 2009

Challenge• More is known about economic decision

making than about morally motivated behavior, such as behavior motivated by Sacred Values– SVs are preferences treated as incompatible with

the material world– refusal to measure SVs along instrumental metric– Two findings from initial work with Palestinians

and Israelis: “backfire effect” of material incentives, symbolic concessions

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Example of backfire effect• In an experiment with

Palestinian Hamas supporters, none wanted to recognize Israel for peace (taboo), for some this was a SV (red)

• Adding material sweeteners (taboo+) led to worse results

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Example of symbolic concessions• In an experiment with

the same population, Israeli apology, decreased support for violence

• Parallel results found in experiments with Israeli settlers, Palestinian refugees

• Humiliation as the mechansim

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Challenge

• The challenge is to build models that address the role of sacred values and moral decision making in influencing collaboration, cooperation and negotiations across cultures

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Research goals1. Do basic findings (backfire effect, symbolic

gestures) replicate in other contexts?2. Understand the role of humiliation in

exacerbating and thus resolving conflicts over sacred values

3. Investigate adversarial perception of moral-world view

4. Investigate identity functions & taxonomy of SVs across cultures

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Accomplishments1. Replication of backfire effect in Indonesia and

Iran2. Studies on experienced humiliation3. Investigation of identity functions & taxonomy

of moral domains in Lebanon4. Discovery of motivated misperception of

adversaries moral-world view

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Backfire effect replication: IranIranians living both inside and outside the country were asked to imagine one of the following situations:

Iran will give up its nuclear program; Israel in return will give up their nuclear program and destroy any existing nuclear weapons (taboo)

Iran will give up its nuclear program; Israel in return will give up their nuclear program and destroy any existing nuclear weapons. In addition EU will pay $40 billion to Iran (taboo+)

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Humiliation and cooperation

• Strong symbolic gestures increase flexibility over sacred values and thus increase cooperation (Ginges et al, 2007).– They do this by decreasing humiliation (Ginges &

Atran, 2008)• Humiliation then seems a significant mechanism.• What does the experience of humiliation involve?

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• In one study we surveyed people who self identified as members of minorities and primed them with feelings of humiliation, anger or shame– asked them to recall such situations and write

about them• Then measured the extent to which they felt 26

emotions.

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• Results:– Factor analysis revealed three groups of emotions:

outrage (e.g., “furious”), powerless (e.g., “helplessness”), and guilt.

– Anger: high on outrage, low on powerless and guilt– Shame: low on outrage, high on powerless and

guilt– Humiliation: high on outrage, powerless and guilt

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Humiliation and cooperation• Important because

– It may reveal why humiliation is experienced so negatively - it involves negative emotions with conflicting action tendencies: anger (attack) and shame (withdraw)

– We can now examine more precisely how symbolic acts work

• First, cross-cultural follow-ups: Germany with Muslim minorities

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Moral/sacred values and inter-group conflict in Lebanon

– history of violent conflict between religious identity groups: particularly Christian, Sunni, Shia

– little empirical study of the moral dimensions of this conflict, and how the moral world views of Lebanese influenced by the conflict

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• Goals: – Investigate moral domains of different

Lebanese religious groups– Identify taxonomies of moral values

• in response to unique issues in Lebanon– Determine identity functions

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• Constructed a research instrument to measure moral domains based on existing (Western) scales and from interviews we conducted

• “To what extent does ______ matter when deciding whether something is a matter of” right or wrong– e.g., loyalty to leader, sacrifice for country, caring

for others, democratic rights• Participants asked whether each value is relevant to

“all people everywhere” or “my group” or “my group more than other groups”

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• Initial results:– across two different studies items clustered into

three groups: autonomy, community, divinity– unlike Western samples, Lebanese do not

distinguish between individual level autonomy and group level autonomy

– autonomy values most universal, but also most parochial

• most important to individual identity?• link to SVs?

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• We need accurate perception of “other” for negotiation and collaboration to take place across cultures– What belongs in the moral domain for the other?

• Three questions: 1) how accurate? 2) motivated inaccuracy? 3) consequences of inaccuracy

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Adversarial perceptions



• In initial studies, focussed on different cultural groups in the U.S.– Liberals vs Conservatives: different (overlapping)

moral universes (Haidt) - although should be accurate about the other, plenty of examples of the opposite (Health Care)

• Basic finding: motivation to change status quo leads to inaccuracy

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• Illustration: we randomly assigned strongly identifying liberals and conservatives to either a “legal status of abortion” or “legal status of same-sex marriage condition”– Abortion: liberals wish to maintain status quo,

conservatives wish to change it– Same-sex marriage: liberals wish to change status

quo, conservatives wish to maintain it

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• After answering questions about their issue, participants filled out Haidt’s morality survey– Previous findings: both moralize “harm”,

“fairness”, but only conservatives moralize “Ingroup”, “Authority”, and “Purity/Sanctity”

• They then had to fill out the same questionnaire, imagining the results of the “other”

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• Results: Findings about “self” replicate Haidt’s. – Conservatives moralized all domains equally,

liberals moralized harm and fairness only• Issue influenced accuracy of perception of other:

– In abortion condition, liberals (maintain status quo) were accurate about conservatives, but conservatives (change status quo) were inaccurate

– In abortion condition, liberals (change) were inaccurate about conservatives, but conservatives (maintain) were accurate

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• Results important as they demonstrate the way in which even groups that interact on an everyday basis (at work, school, home) can be markedly inaccurate about the moral universe of other groups

• One source of inaccuracy appears to be motivation to change - moral distance as precursor to action?

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• Replicate and extend U.S. studies on adversarial perceptions in Lebanon and Palestine

• Replicate studies on Humiliation with Muslim minorities in Germany (pilot study carried out this summer) and extend in Israel/Palestine– focus on witnessed humiliation

• Sacred values and intractable conflicts: larger studies in Iran, Lebanon, begin work in Morocco and Turkey– workshops carried out this summer to develop

research collaborations28

Next year



• Workshop 1: Fes, Morocco (May, 2009)– Mohamed Ben Abdellah University hosted the

workshop, included faculty members– Purpose: To explore the feasibility of developing

field based research in Morocco, so that multidisciplinary experiments can be performed.

– Developed pilot study for Fes based on Lebanese research, work to begin in the Fall

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Developing research in Morocco and Turkey



• Workshop 2: Diyabakir & Ankara, Turkey (July, 2009)– Hosted by the Turkish National Police,

International Terrorism and Transnational Crime Research

– Purpose: To explore the feasibility of developing field based research in Turkey

– Evaluated and developed protocols on moral, sacred values relevant to conflict resolution in Turkey (e.g., Kurdish issue)

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Developing research in Morocco and Turkey


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