Daniel Bar-Tal

Tel Aviv University | TAU · School of Education, Tel Aviv University

History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Sinking into the Honey Trap of the Intractable Conflict: The Case of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The Informative Process Model (IPM) proposes an intervention to facilitate change in conflict-supporting narratives in protracted conflicts. These narratives develop to help societies cope with conflict; but over time, they turn into barriers for its resolution. The IPM suggests raising awareness of the psychological processes responsible for the d...

Mental perspectives can sometimes be changed by psychological interventions. For instance, when applied in the context of intergroup conflicts, interventions, such as the paradoxical thinking intervention, may unfreeze ingrained negative outgroup attitudes and thereby promote progress toward peacemaking. Yet, at present, the evaluation of intervent...

The current research measured the degree to which negative intergroup attitudes expressed by an in-group leader were judged as relatively prejudiced or truthful. Two social-psychological processes were examined: (1) the degree to which the leader embodied in-group-relevant attributes (i.e., relative “in-group prototypicality”) and (2) the relevance...

Right to know the truth

The current research examined the proposition that debates over same-sex marriage are characterized, at least in part, by conflicting understandings about what is and is not prejudiced, normative and true. Toward this end, Australians’ (N = 415) prejudice judgements of supportive and oppositional statements toward same-sex marriage were measured an...

Deep distrust of the rival is widely shared among members of society involved in intractable conflicts, and constitutes a major barrier for peace-building. In the current research we examine an intervention aimed at legitimizing the other side as a partner to peace that can be trusted through providing information about a peaceful change among a me...

Social influence processes by which women come to judge a hostile sexist attitude as relatively true and unprejudiced were examined. Based upon status characteristics theory, women's judgments were expected to be more strongly influenced by a man's than a woman's interpretation of the sexist attitude as true or prejudiced. Based upon self-categoriz...

This study examined when the realistic threat of COVID-19 leads to prejudicial social distancing. American participants reported social distancing preferences from Chinese or Italian people (out-group target) after viewing increasing or decreasing COVID-19 case numbers (threat level) in China or Italy (threat relevance). On the Bogardus Social Dist...

The present article considers the viability of a confederation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority with Jordan as a realistic solution to the ongoing conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. It presents the background and the course of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, with a description of the present situation in order to understa...

Peacemaking is especially challenging in situations of intractable conflict. Collective narratives in this context contribute to coping with challenges societies face, but also fuel conflict continuation. We introduce the Informative Process Model (IPM), proposing that informing individuals about the socio-psychological processes through which conf...

Since its inception as a modern and evolving discipline, psychology has been concerned with issues of human security. This think piece offers an initial conceptualisation of human security as a broad security concept that encompasses a range of interrelated dimensions that have been responded to by different sub-disciplinary domains within psycholo...

Intractable conflicts are demanding, stressful, painful, exhausting, and costly in both human and material terms. To adapt to these conditions, societies that are engaged in protracted, violent conflict develop an appropriate socio-psychological infrastructure that eventually becomes the foundation for the development of culture of conflict. The in...

The Israeli‐Palestinian conflict has deleterious effects on children. Our research observed mothers' conversations with their 5‐7‐year‐old children about the conflict during shared book reading (SBR) of a fiction book, indirectly depicting the conflict. Using a mixed‐methods study, we compared the SBR of secular and religious Israeli Jewish mothers...

Representations of Arabs in Israeli Jewish society.

The role of trust in conflict resolution: The Israeli-Palestinian case and beyond

The impacts of lasting occupation:

Conflict and conflict resolution

Intractable conflicts

Self-censorship in contexts of conflict: Theory and research

This article describes the autobiographical story of my professional and intellectual development. It describes sources of my values and begins the story of my doctoral study at the University of Pittsburgh that influenced my approach to making science. Next, the article describes the beginning of my academic career at School of Education of Tel Av...

We propose that part of the problem in combatting prejudice lies in people's dynamic understandings of what prejudice is. To examine this, we asked participants to rate the degree to which they perceived specific group‐relevant attitudes as prejudice. In Study 1, White participants perceived the attitudes as more prejudiced when the attitudes were...

It is the task of political psychology to examine political behaviour from a psychological or socio-psychological perspective. Its topics include the analysis of political elites, especially their personalities, motives and actions, political leadership, foreign policy decision-making processes, international and ethnic conflicts and their pacifica...

This paper presents an analysis of the ethno‐political socialization of young children in the context of intractable conflict, drawing on the case of Israeli society. The analysis is based on the integrative developmental‐contextual theory (IDCT), which proposes that in the context of intractable conflict, from a very early age onward, in‐group mem...

Members of societies involved in an intractable conflict usually consider costs that stem from the continuation of the conflict as unavoidable and even justify for their collective existence. This perception is well-anchored in widely shared conflict-supporting narratives that motivate them to avoid information that challenges their views about the...

Although anti-immigrant attitudes continue to be expressed around the world, identifying these attitudes as prejudice, truth or free speech remains contested. This contestation occurs, in part, because of the absence of consensually agreed-upon understandings of what prejudice is. In this context, the current study sought to answer the question, “w...

The present study compared participants’ evaluations of their own conflict with their evaluation of another conflict. These evaluations were examined through the prism of the ideological ethos of conflict (EOC), which was seen as the major contributing factor in the development of the biased perceptions, divergent understandings, and emotional resp...

The chapter introduces a new approach to attitude change, termed paradoxical thinking. It suggests that messages that are consistent with an individual's view, but formulated in an amplified, exaggerated, or even absurd manner, lead to an extended process of deliberative thinking and arouse lower levels of resistance compared to conventional persua...

In modern democratic societies, one of the main roles of education is to promote critical thinking and open‐mindedness. However, this objective can sometimes be seen as clashing in many societies with another one of education's primary objectives—to inculcate in the younger generation a set of common values and beliefs that reinforces collective id...

Political leaders serve as agents of peacemaking or conflict maintenance by determining society’s goals and courses of action and then mobilizing society accordingly. We propose at a distance measure that can serve as a proxy to leaders’ position regarding their conflict-related policy. Assuming that support of societal beliefs of ethos of conflict...

Changing attitudes is one of the most challenging and important endeavors social psychologists have undertaken in order to promote better quality of life for individuals and collectives. However, when addressing pressing issues, such as intergroup conflict, racism, and inequality, changing attitudes is particularly difficult as individuals are ofte...

This study investigated political socialization in Israeli‐Jewish kindergartens. Specifically, it examined the scope of conflict supporting and peace supporting themes that Jewish‐Israeli kindergarten teachers transmit to children during ceremonies of national events. Sixty‐eight observations in 17 state‐secular and state‐religious kindergartens we...

The current research examined whether for a message that is based on the paradoxical thinking principles—i.e., providing extreme, exaggerated, or even absurd views, that are congruent with the held views of the message recipients—to be effective, it needs to hit a ‘sweet spot’ and lead to a contrast effect. That is, it moderates the view of the mes...

Messages of threats and dangers are very efficient and persuasive tactics that reward the user. Threats and dangers that arouse fear and insecurity create support for the perpetrator’s position, freeze the beliefs, and feed the maintenance of the position. This feeding is powerful because the collective orientation of fear and insecurity is not onl...

The articles describes autobiographical story of my professional and intellectual development. It describes sources of my values and begins the story of my doctoral study at the University of Pittsburgh that influenced my approach to making science. Next, the article describes the beginning of my academic career at School of Education of Tel Aviv...

Background/Objectives If people who hold anti‐fat attitudes believe these attitudes to be true, then anti‐prejudice appeals are likely to be unsuccessful, if only because the targets will not see their attitudes as in need of change. The current study examined processes that may lead people to see their anti‐fat attitudes as “truth” or as “prejudic...

Social problems such as intergroup conflicts, prejudice, and discrimination have a significant effect on the world’s population. Often, to facilitate constructive solutions to these problems, fundamental attitude change is needed. However, changing the beliefs and attitudes to which people strongly adhere has proven to be difficult, as these indivi...

One major reason for their continuation is the development of well-developed narratives that provide justification, explanation, and rationalization for their outbreak and feed their continuation. These conflict-supporting narratives are imparted to society members, and are institutionalized, maintained, and reinforced constantly, systematically, a...

Self-censorship is defined as intentionally and voluntarily withholding information from others in absence of formal obstacles. We conducted cross-sectional and longitudinal research to develop a quantitative measure of individuals’ Self-Censorship Orientation (SCO) and investigated its correlates and outcomes in the context of the intractable Isra...

Conflict-resolution interventions based on the paradoxical thinking principles, i.e., expressing amplified, exaggerated or even absurd ideas that are congruent with the held conflict-supporting societal beliefs, have been shown to be an effective avenue of intervention, especially among individuals who are adamant in their views. However, the quest...

Intractable intergroup conflicts are demanding, stressful, exhausting, and costly both in human and material terms. Societies involved in this type of conflict develop appropriate sociopsychological conditions which enable them to adapt to the conflictual situation, survive the stressful period, and struggle successfully with the adversary. Changin...

Self-censorship is of great importance in societies involved in intractable conflict. In this context, it blocks information that may contradict the dominant conflict-supporting narratives. Thus, self-censorship often serves as an effective societal mechanism that prevents free flow and transparency of information regarding the conflict and therefo...

Self-censorship in education has rarely been studied and is rather difficult to identify. Nevertheless, exploring this topic may contribute to a better understanding of educational processes, particularly in societies involved in intractable conflict, serving as one of the mechanisms that significantly influence the maintenance of conflict-supporti...

Even in the extreme context of intractable conflict, individuals sometimes risk sanctions and other negative outcomes when they reveal information. This chapter examines self-censorship as a barrier to conflict resolution in this unique context, focusing on the process involved in breaking the silence as the result of successfully overcoming this b...

Self-censorship is defined as the act of intentionally and voluntarily suppressing information from others when formal impediments are absent. Self-censorship hinders the proper functioning of a democratic society because it inhibits free access to information, freedom of expression, and the flow of information. The role of self-censorship in socie...

Popular memory is important because it influences the psychological reactions of people and consequently their behavior. This importance is enhanced in conflict situations. Despite this, the Israeli-Jewish (Israeli) popular memory of the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict (" conflict ") has never been researched in an inclusive manner via a public o...

The goal of this research was to examine whether a denial of a prolonged occupation by the occupying society constitutes a meaningful sociopsychological barrier to resolving the conflict peacefully. We hypothesized that this perception will be associated with objections both to conflict resolution processes and to specific compromises intended to e...

מאמר זה בוחן את החִברות הפוליטי של ילדים ישראלים־יהודים צעירים החיים בצל הסכסוך הישראלי־פלסטיני הבלתי נשלט. המאמר טוען כי הדרך שבה החִברות הפוליטי של ילדים צעירים מתרחש, בהקשר של סכסוך מעין זה, מקדמת בקרבם רכישה של רפרטואר חברתי־פסיכולוגי הכולל ידע, עולם מושגים, תפיסות, רגשות ונרטיבים קולקטיביים המתקשרים לסכסוך. הרפרטואר החברתי־פסיכולוגי שהילדים רו...

Do rightists and leftists experience information about suffering and harm with differing emotional intensities, depending on the identity of target depicted? Do they consequently choose differently how to regulate or cope with these emotions? Research has identified ideological differences in emotional processes, but it has yet to identify what typ...

Self-censorship of information, defined as an act of intentionally and voluntarily withholding information from others in the absence of formal obstacles, serves as an obstacle to the proper functioning of a democratic society, because it prevents free access to information, freedom of expression, and the flow of information. It is of key importanc...

This groundbreaking volume explores the concept of self-censorship as it relates to individuals and societies and functions as a barrier to peace. Defining self-censorship as the act of intentionally and voluntarily withholding information from others in the absence of formal obstacles, the volumes introduces self-censorship as one of the socio-psy...

Establishing stable and lasting peaceful relations between rival sides to an intractable conflict requires the construction of a culture of peace through the processes of peace-making and reconciliation. This is the peace-building process, which in essence is a long process of major societal change involving building a new socio-psychological reper...

Self-censorship is of great importance in societies involved in intractable conflict. In this context, it blocks information that may contradict the dominant conflict-supporting narratives. Thus, self-censorship often serves as an effective societal mechanism that prevents free flow and transparency of information regarding the conflict and therefo...

Self-censorship is of great importance in societies involved in intractable conflict. In this context, it blocks information that may contradict the dominant conflict-supporting narratives. Thus, self-censorship often serves as an effective societal mechanism that prevents free flow and transparency of information regarding the conflict and therefo...

Significance Societies involved in intractable conflicts are typically polarized in their views on how to resolve the conflict. Hawkish members of society adhere to an uncompromising and nonconciliatory ideology. Therefore, interventions that may change their attitudes are particularly important but simultaneously are very difficult to apply becaus...

This article examines the political socialization of young children who live under conditions of intractable conflict. We present four premises: First, we argue that, within the context of intractable conflict, political socialization begins earlier and faster than previously suspected, and is evident among young children. Second, we propose that t...

Self-censorship, defined as an “act of intentionally and voluntarily withholding information from others in the absence of formal obstacles” often serves as a barrier to resolving intractable conflicts. Specifically, in order to protect the group, and in absence of objective constraints such as institutionalized censorship, individuals practice sel...

This article examines the political socialization of young children who live under conditions of intractable conflict. We present four premises: First, we argue that, within the context of intractable conflict, political socialization begins earlier and faster than previously suspected, and is evident among young children. Second, we propose that t...

Societies involved in intractable conflicts develop cultures of conflict because of experiences that have lasting effects on every aspect of collective life. One product of these cultures is conflict-supporting narratives that provide illumination, justification, and explanation of the conflict reality. These narratives are selective, biased, and d...

Although until early 2000 Gabi Salomon was mostly known in the area of educational psychology as a world expert on cognitive effects of media and technology on learning, few of his colleagues abroad new that he is a very dedicated peace activist who struggled to bring peaceful conflict resolution to the society that has been ridden by a bloody and...

As concluding comments to the present book, we would like to suggest that although the contributors provided many different angles to shed light on the nature of trust and distrust and then specifically on the essence of trust, or especially distrust, in the Israeli Jewish--Palestinian relations, one common denominator is found in every contributio...

Trust and distrust affect the nature relations on the interpersonal as well as on intragroup and intergroup levels. The chapter explores the functioning of trust and distrust in situations of conflict and especially in the intergroup conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinians, which is perceived as a prototypical intractable conflict. The funct...

Built on the premise that trust is one of the most important factors in intergroup relations, conflict management and resolution at large, this volume explores trust and its mechanisms and operations especially in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Significantly, this volume focuses not only on the nature of trust and distrust in the Israeli-Palesti...

The article examines the political socialization of young Jewish-Israeli children who live under the Israeli-Palestinian intractable conflict. It proposes arguments and presents empirical evidence to suggest that the way in which political socialization of young children happens in this context contributes to the development of conflict-supporting...

Overcoming socio-psychological barriers entails a long process of persuasion and cognitive change. In other words, society members and leaders must implement a process of mobilization for peacemaking in the same way the process of mobilization for supporting and participating in the conflict was implemented at the conflict’s onset. In both cases, s...

The typical collective memories of societies involved in intractable conflicts play a major role in the eruption and continuation of the conflicts, while the positive transformation of these memories to being less self-serving promotes peacemaking. A major factor that inhibits such transformation is self-censorship. Self-censorship, practiced by me...

Self-censorship of information, defined as an act of intentionally and voluntarily withholding information from others despite the absence of formal obstructions, serves as an obstacle to the proper functioning of a democratic society by preventing free access to information, freedom of expression, and the flow of information. While it is widely re...

Does ongoing exposure to political violence prompt subject groups to support or oppose compromise in situations of intractable conflict? If so, what is the mechanism underlying these processes? Political scholarship neither offers conclusive arguments nor sufficiently addresses individual-level forms of exposure to violence in the context of politi...

While emotions and ideology are important factors guiding policy support in conflict, their interactive influence remains unclear. Based on prior findings that ideological leftists' beliefs are more susceptible to change than rightists’ beliefs, we tested a somewhat counterintuitive extension that leftists would be more susceptible to influence by...

One significant socio-psychological barrier for peaceful resolution of conflicts is each party's adherence to its own collective narrative. We hypothesized that raising awareness to the psychological bias of naïve realism and its identification in oneself would provide a path to overcoming this barrier, thus increasing openness to the adversary's n...

Resolving intergroup conflicts is one of humanity’s most important challenges. Social psychologists join this endeavor, not only to understand the psychological foundations of intergroup conflicts but also to suggest interventions that aim to resolve conflicts peacefully. The present article begins by describing a specific type of conflict, namely,...

In this introductory chapter, the authors review existing work and propose a general conceptual framework to understand the development of collective memories and narratives related to experiences of victimisation in the former Yugoslavia since the early 1990s. They address the following issues. What specific beliefs about collective victimisation...

The present study aims to examine the personal stories of activists in radical peace organizations to understand their prejoining socialization experiences, their perception of the conflict and the changes they are trying to make, as well as the meaning of the activism for them. In-depth interviews with 16 female and male activists in 4 radical pea...