Feeling for Our Foes

HYPOTHESIS 2: FEELING FOR OUR FOES

I turned to the psychology of peace. Years ago the pioneering psychologist and Holocaust survivor Herb Kelman set out to challenge some of the stereotypes behind the Israel-Palestine conflict by teaching the two sides to understand and empathize with one another. He designed interactive problem-solving workshops in which influential Israeli and Palestinian leaders talked off the record about paths to peace. For years, they came together to share their own experiences and perspectives, address one another’s needs and fears, and explore novel solutions to the conflict. Over time, the workshops didn’t just shatter stereotypes—some of the participants ended up forming lifelong friendships.

Humanizing the other side should be much easier in sports, because the stakes are lower and the playing field is more level. I started with another of the biggest rivalries in sports: UNC-Duke. I asked Shane Battier, who led Duke to an NCAA basketball championship in 2001, what it would take for him to root for UNC. His immediate reply: “If they were playing the Taliban.” I had no idea so many people fantasized about crushing terrorists in their favorite sport. I wondered whether humanizing a Duke student would change UNC students’ stereotypes of the group.

In an experiment with my colleagues Alison Fragale and Karren Knowlton, we asked UNC students to help improve the job application of a peer. If we mentioned that he went to Duke rather than UNC, as long as he was facing significant financial need, participants spent extra time helping him. Once they felt empathy for his plight, they saw him as a unique individual deserving of assistance and liked him more. Yet when we measured their views of Duke students in general, the UNC students were just as likely to see them as their rivals, to say that it felt like a personal compliment if they heard someone criticize Duke, and to take it as a personal insult if they heard Duke praised. We had succeeded in changing their attitudes toward the student, but failed in changing their stereotypes of the group.

Something similar happened when we tried to humanize a Yankees fan. We had Red Sox fans read a story written by a baseball buff who had learned the game as a child with his grandfather and had fond memories of playing catch with his mom. At the very end of the piece he mentioned that he was a die-hard supporter of the Yankees. “I think this person is very authentic and is a rare Yankee fan,” one Red Sox supporter commented. “This person gets it and is not your typical Yankee fan,” a second observed. “Ugh, I really liked this text until I got to the part about them being a Yankees fan,” a third fan lamented, but “I think this particular person I would have more in common with than the typical, stereotypical Yankees fan. This person is okay.”

Herb Kelman ran into the same problem with Israelis and Palestinians. In the problem-solving workshops, they came to trust the individuals across the table, but they still held on to their stereotypes of the group.

In an ideal world, learning about individual group members will humanize the group, but often getting to know a person better just establishes her as different from the rest of her group. When we meet group members who defy a stereotype, our first instinct isn’t to see them as exemplars and rethink the stereotype. It’s to see them as exceptions and cling to our existing beliefs. These attempts changed attitudes toward individuals without changing attitudes toward their groups.