Gender-empathic Constructions, Empathy, and Support for Compromise in Intractable Conflict

Yossi David*, Nimrod Rosler, Ifat Maoz

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

The goal of the present study was to investigate how empathy and gender-empathic constructions affect the levels of support for political compromise in an intractable conflict. Gender-empathic constructions relate to perceptions that individuals hold about self or others as having feminine-empathic gender traits. We hypothesized that empathy will be positively associated with support for compromise, but that perceiving one’s own group as feminine empathic will be negatively associated with such attitudes, with empathy being a significant mediator. Data were collected through a public opinion survey conducted with a representative sample of Israeli-Jewish adults (N = 511). The findings supported our hypotheses, thus indicating that perceiving one’s own group as having feminine-empathic traits and empathy toward opponents made significant contributions to explaining Jewish-Israeli willingness to compromise with Palestinians. The implications of our findings for understanding the role of gender-empathic constructions and of empathy in conflict resolution are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1727-1752
Number of pages26
JournalJournal of Conflict Resolution
Volume62
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Sep 2018

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2017.

Keywords

  • Israeli-Palestinian conflict
  • empathy
  • gender
  • gender perception
  • public opinion
  • support for compromise

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