Sacred bounds on the rational resolution of violent political conflict

Jeremy Ginges (), Scott Atran (), Douglas Medin and Khalil Shikaki
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Jeremy Ginges: Dept Psychology - New School for Social Research
Scott Atran: IJN - Institut Jean-Nicod - DEC - Département d'Etudes Cognitives - ENS-PSL - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CdF (institution) - Collège de France - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Département de Philosophie - ENS-PSL - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres
Douglas Medin: Dept Psychology - Northwestern University [Evanston]
Khalil Shikaki: Research Director - Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey research

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Abstract: We report a series of experiments carried out with Palestinian and Israeli participants showing that violent opposition to compromise over issues considered sacred is (i) increased by offering material incentives to compromise but (ii) decreased when the adversary makes symbolic compromises over their own sacred values. These results demonstrate some of the unique properties of reasoning and decision-making over sacred values. We show that the use of material incentives to promote the peaceful resolution of political and cultural conflicts may backfire when adversaries treat contested issues as sacred values.

Keywords: cultural; conflict; Middle; East; conflict; negotiation; sacred; values (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/ijn_00505179v1
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Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2007, 104, pp.7357-7360

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