Emotion Regulation and the Cultivation of Political Tolerance: Searching for a New Track for Intervention

The goal of the current project is to integrate psychological research on emotion regulation with the study of democratic practices in general and political intolerance in particular. We hypothesized that the use of a well-established emotion regulation strategy, cognitive reappraisal, would be associated with lower levels of group-based negative emotions toward one’s least-liked group and lower levels of political intolerance toward that group. Preliminary data based on nationwide survey conducted among Jews in Israel show that the tendency to reappraise negative emotions during war is associated with more tolerant attitudes. In studies 1 and 2, we experimentally manipulated reappraisal, and this led to reduced levels of political intolerance toward Palestinian Citizens of Israel (study 1) and toward one’s least-liked group (study 2). These effects were transmitted via a decrease in negative emotions in both studies, as well as by an increase in support for general democratic values in Study 2. 1 Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel 2 Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel 3 Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA * Both authors have contributed to this article equally Corresponding Author: Eran Halperin, School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Kanfei Nesharim 167, Herzliya 46150, Israel. Email: [email protected] Journal of Conflict Resolution 2014, Vol. 58(6) 1110-1138 a The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0022002713492636 jcr.sagepub.com at Interdisciplinary Center for on August 20, 2014 jcr.sagepub.com Downloaded from