Citation

Idan O, Halperin E, Hameiri B, Reifen Tagar M. Psychol. Sci. 2018; 29(6): 972-983.

Affiliation

Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1177/0956797618772823

PMID

29694268

Abstract

Given the central role of anger in shaping adversarial policy preferences in the context of intergroup conflict, its reduction may promote conflict resolution. In the current work, we drew on psycholinguistic research on the role of language in generating emotions to explore a novel, extremely subtle means of intervention. Specifically, we hypothesized that phrasing conflict-relevant policies in noun form (vs. verb form) would reduce anger and impact policy support correspondingly.

RESULTS across three experimental studies in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict supported these expectations for both support for concessions (Studies 1-3) and retaliatory policies (Study 3), with reduction in anger mediating the salutary impact of noun form (vs. verb form) on policy support. These results expand our understanding of the influence of language on emotions and policies in the context of conflict and have applied relevance for conflict-resolution efforts.

Language: en

Keywords

anger; conflict management; conflict resolution; grammatical category; intergroup conflict; linguistic cue