The Group Malleability Intervention: Addressing Intergroup Conflicts by Changing Perceptions of Outgroup Malleability

Amit  Goldenberg; J. J. Gross; Eran  Halperin

Chapter | Handbook of Wise Interventions: How Social Psychology Can Help People Change | 2020

The Group Malleability Intervention: Addressing Intergroup Conflicts by Changing Perceptions of Outgroup Malleability

by Amit Goldenberg, J. J. Gross and Eran Halperin

Abstract

Precise shifts in the ways people make sense of themselves, others, and social situations can help people flourish. This compelling handbook synthesizes the growing body of research on wise interventions—brief, nonclinical strategies that are "wise" to the impact of social-psychological processes on behavior. Leading authorities describe how maladaptive or pejorative interpretations can undermine people’s functioning and how they can be altered to produce benefits in such areas as academic motivation and achievement, health, well-being, and personal relationships. Consistently formatted chapters review the development of each intervention, how it can be implemented, its evidence base, and implications for solving personal and societal problems.

Keywords: social psychology; personality;

Format: Print

Citation:

Goldenberg, Amit, J. J. Gross, and Eran Halperin. "The Group Malleability Intervention: Addressing Intergroup Conflicts by Changing Perceptions of Outgroup Malleability." Chap. 15 in Handbook of Wise Interventions: How Social Psychology Can Help People Change, edited by Gregory M. Walton and Alia J. Crum. New York, NY: Guilford Press, 2020.

In this study, we examined parental reflective functioning using the Parental Developmental Interview when parents were talking about their interactions with their child with autism versus the child’s typically developing siblings. Our sample included 30 parents who had a child between the ages of 3 and 18 years with a clinical diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and at least one typically developing child. Findings indicated that parents exhibited significantly higher reflective functioning when interacting with their child with autism spectrum disorder versus the typically developing siblings, and the difference was moderated by parental self-efficacy.

When analyzing situations in which multiple people are experiencing emotions together—whether the emotions are positive or negative and whether the situations are online or offline—we are intuitively drawn to the emotions of each individual in the situation. However, this type of analysis often seems incomplete. In many of the cases in which people experience emotions together, there appear to be emergent macro-level affective processes that cannot be readily captured at the individual level. This paper examines these macro-level affective phenomena, termed collective emotions. We open with a general review of research on collective psychological processes. We then define collective emotions and discuss their key features. Next, we focus our attention on the emergent properties of collective emotions and map them using three dimensions: quality, magnitude, and time course. Finally, we discuss pressing open questions and future directions.

People spend considerable time on digital media, and during this time they are often exposed to others’ emotion expressions. This exposure can lead their own emotion expressions to become more like others’ emotion expressions, a process we refer to as digital emotion contagion. This paper reviews the growing literature on digital emotion contagion. After defining emotion contagion, we suggest that one unique feature of digital emotion contagion is that it is mediated by digital media platforms that are motivated to upregulate users’ emotions. We then turn to measurement, consider the challenges of demonstrating that digital emotion contagion has occurred, and determine how these challenges have been addressed. Finally, we call for a greater focus on understanding when emotion contagion effects will be strong versus weak or nonexistent.

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The Group Malleability Intervention: Addressing Intergroup Conflicts by Changing Perceptions of Outgroup Malleability

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