Perspective-Taking in Evaluating Conflict

Summary: Conflicts between groups are affected by myriad historical and situational factors. Yet people are rarely overwhelmed by this complexity and are able to adopt a coherent depiction of the conflict, often with an unequivocal allocation of blame to one group. A person's final judgment tells only a fraction of the story. To uncover the whole story, numerous factors must be considered. Two such factors are whether the person harbors implicit prejudice toward an involved group and whether the way in which relevant information is presented will allow for the emergence of perspective-taking and provide insight into the conflict that will aid third-party observes in making a coherent end judgment. This research explored the role of anti-Muslim prejudice and perspectivetaking in allocating blame for an ambiguous conflict between two groups that differed only on the dimension of religion (Muslim vs. Christian). Participants completed two measures of prejudice-an anti-Muslim Implicit Association Test and an explicit antiMuslim prejudice questionnaire. Participants then viewed one of two versions of a filmed conflict scene. While both films were identical in content, the order of their contents was reversed (conflict first vs. history first). Participants were then asked to allocate blame for the conflict to one group over the other. Following this judgment of blame, participants recorded their thoughts and feelings regarding this judgment into an audio recorder. These recordings were then played back while they used the Mouse Paradigm to express the feelings portrayed in their recordings. Results indicated no relationship between explicit prejudice and allocation of blame. Implicit prejudice scores were strongly related to allocation of blame, with increases in IAT scores positively correlating with blame of the Muslim group. Results also suggested a link between performance on the lA T and the Mouse Paradigm. More specifically, the results suggest that IAT performance
2008
Includes bibliography.
Degree granted: Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008.
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Charles E. Schmidt College of Science