Functions of the Socio-Psychological Infrastructure

The socio-psychological infrastructure meets at least three challenges. First, it facilitates coping with stress that develops under the conditions of intractable conflict. Second, it helps to satisfy various needs during intractable conflict. Finally, it is supposed to create conditions that help to achieve the conflict's goals in the confrontation with the rival. I will now delineate five functions that the socio-psychological infrastructure fulfills in reference to the three challenges.¹ The first three functions and the last one respond mainly to the second challenge of satisfying needs, while the first function also refers to coping with stress. The fourth and the fifth functions are related to the challenge of withstanding the enemy.

Construction of the Conflict-Supporting Narratives

Because the socio-psychological infrastructure has been shown to fulfill very important functions with its narrative, it is appropriate now to describe the principles and the methods of the narratives’ construction that is embedded in this infrastructure. Master narratives provide the general outlook on the conflict. In addition to these general narratives, societies may construct many more specific narratives about particular events, such as battles or individual deeds, that contain themes of the ethos of conflict.All these narratives are supposed to fulfill functions to meet the challenges that the conditions of the conflict pose and contribute to the epistemic basis in support of the conflict. Agents of conflict (also called entrepreneurs) are responsible for constructing the repertoire of the socio-psychological infrastructure with its narratives. The most important agents are the society's leaders, who prepare their society for conflict and need to formulate the epistemic basis of the eruption of the conflict and later its protracted continuation. They are supported by various institutions, organizations, cultural products, and channels of communication represented by journalists, writers, artists, school curricula developers, teachers, and others.

Because both the master narratives and the other more specific narratives must contain functional themes, they have to be constructed according to certain principles. First, the narratives are constructed in a selective way, consistent with the themes of the conflict-supporting narratives; inconsistent contents are omitted (Brandenberger, Reference Brandenberger2009; Tint, Reference Tint2010; Wertsch, Reference Wertsch2002). Second, the narratives are constructed in a biased way, with the motivation to reach the particular conclusion that supports them. Therefore, the processing of the information such as evidence and experiences is guided by this motivation (i.e., their interpretations, evaluations, inferences) (Boyd, Reference Boyd2008; Brandenberger, Reference Brandenberger2009; Wertsch, Reference Wertsch2002). Third, the narratives are constructed through distortion because they either omit contents that are inconsistent with the themes of the narrative or add contents that do not have any support in evidence but relate to these themes (Anderson, Reference Anderson1983; Baker, Reference Baker2006; Baumeister & Hastings, Reference Baumeister1997; Heisler, Reference Heisler2008; Tint, Reference Tint2010). Fourth, the principle of simplification suggests that the narratives contain uncomplicated and general arguments that support their major themes. They are constructed as black-and-white stories in which the rival is portrayed in negative and evil terms, while the ingroup is viewed in a positive and glorifying frame (Auerbach, Reference Auerbach and Bar-Siman-Tov2010; Baker, Reference Baker2006; Gonzalez-Allende, Reference Gonzalez-Allende2010; Papadakis, Reference Papadakis2008; Torsti, Reference Torsti2007).

These general principles serve as guidelines that allow construction of narratives in line with the dominant themes of the ethos of conflict and collective memory (see also Bar-Tal, Oren, & Nets-Zehngut, 2012). Methods used to achieve these narratives include:

1. 1. Reliance on supportive sources. In using this method, the construction of the conflict-supportive narratives is based on sources that provide information that is consistent with this narrative's themes. In their construction, documents, testimonies, materials, historians, and leaders that support the major themes of the master narrative are used, while sources that provide contents contradicting these themes are intentionally disregarded or minimized (Havel, Reference Havel2005; Papadakis, Reference Papadakis2008; Podeh, Reference Podeh2002).

2. 2. Magnification of supportive themes. Themes of the conflict-supporting narratives are exaggerated, salient, and central (Kelman, Reference Kelman and Zartman2007), especially ones that concern the justness of the goals, self-collective presentation, delegitimization of the rival, and patriotism. They can be repeated in different minor specific narratives. Every event in the past that supports the narrative receives special emphasis (Deutsch & Merritt, Reference Deutsch, Merritt and Kelman1965; Sears, Reference Sears and Monroe2002). In addition, every new information or experience that is in line with the narrative gets prominence (Barnard, Reference Barnard2001; Baumeister & Hastings, Reference Baumeister1997). A specific example of magnifying themes of the master narrative is to deliberately and consistently present the rival very negatively as a homogeneous entity with an innate evil disposition as a threat to the ingroup (Bar-Tal & Teichman, Reference Bar-Tal and Teichman2005; Papadakis, Reference Papadakis2008; White, Reference White1970).

3. 3. Marginalization of contradictory information. In general, conflict-supportive narratives marginalize contents that contradict their major themes. These contents are presented with minimized importance, are often hidden, and are not repeated. Their appearance provides credibility to the narrative because the narratives include some contradicting elements, but at the same time their influence is not significant. This method is used especially to minimize exposure to information that impinges negatively on the justness of group goals or a positive collective self-image.

4. 4. Skewed interpretations. Inferences, evaluations, judgments, and causal explanations of events and processes are provided in a way that upholds the themes of the conflict-supporting narratives (Baumeister & Hastings, Reference Baumeister1997; Tint, Reference Tint2010). This method is used especially with regard to ambiguous information and knowledge that is open to different interpretations. But it also is used with unambiguous unsupportive contents as human beings have motivated cognition to support their claims in the narrative (Kruglanski, Reference Kruglanski1989, Reference Kruglanski2004).

5. 5. Fabrication of supportive contents. Contents (details and even events) are used in the narratives that do not have any support in evidence in order to create a coherent and meaningful story to promote its major themes (Baumeister & Hastings, Reference Baumeister1997; Hobsbawm, Reference Hobsbawm1990; Podeh, Reference Podeh2002; Sibley, Liu, Duckitt, & Khan, Reference Sibley and Duckitt2008).

6. 6. Omission of contradictory contents. Conflict-supporting narratives omit contents (e.g., events, processes, or individuals) that have a firm evidential basis but contradict their themes. This method is sometimes entitled “silence” or “collective amnesia” (Baumeister & Hastings, Reference Baumeister1997; Maksudyan, Reference Maksudyan2009; Tint, Reference Tint2010; Winter, Reference Winter2010). Groups in intractable conflict use this method to suppress evidence that shatters the presumed justness of the goals in the conflict and that undermines the moral image of the group.

7. 7. Use of framing language. Terms, concepts, and wordings are used to frame the story in a way that is in line with the themes of the conflict-supportive narratives. It is based on the assumption that the language used dictates the way the reality is perceived by people. The language also triggers existing emotions, memory, cognition, and motivations, and it nurtures and shapes them in line with conflict-supporting narrative (Bozic-Roberson, Reference Bozic-Roberson2004; Hrvatin, Reference Hrvatin and Trampuz2000; Riskedahl, Reference Riskedahl2007; Tsur, Reference Tsur, Bar-Tal and Schnell2013). Euphemism is also used to present milder, indirect, or vague expressions to diminish the damaging impact of aspects that do not support the themes of the narrative (Harkabi, 1974; Maksudyan, Reference Maksudyan2009; Tsur, Reference Tsur, Bar-Tal and Schnell2013; Winter, Reference Winter2010).

Although every society in conflict uses these methods in constructing its master narrative of intractable conflict and more specific narratives, societies differ with regard to the extent of their use. One important reason is that societies involved in intractable conflict differ with regard to the justness of their own goals according to the prevailing international codes of morality and justice and therefore differ in their need to excuse immoral goals (see, e.g., Amstutz, Reference Amstutz2005; Lauren, Reference Lauren2011; Walzer, Reference Walzer1994, Reference Walzer2006). Also, in each conflict, and at different periods of its duration, various combinations of these methods can be used. These methods can also be used in different degrees. Some of the specific methods relate to what aspects are discussed, while others relate to the ways in which these aspects are discussed in order to increase their preferred impact. The use of these methods may be carried out automatically, because society members who produce the narrative are involved in intractable conflicts and characterized, inter alia, by selective, biased, and distorted information processing (Isen, Reference Isen, Dalgleish and Power1999; Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, Reference Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski and Sulloway2003; Rouhana & Bar-Tal, Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal1998). These methods, however, are also deliberately used by gatekeepers in the ingroup, who try to prevent the society from attaining knowledge and information that contradicts the themes of the master narrative, which support the continuation of the conflict (Baumeister & Hastings, Reference Baumeister1997; Langenbacher, Reference Langenbacher, Langenbacher and Shain2010; Nets-Zehngut, Pliskin, & Bar-Tal, Reference Nets-Zehngut2012; Tint, Reference Tint2010).

The master conflict-supporting narratives as well as more specific narratives provide a “good story” that is well understood and meaningful. The plot of the story is simple and clear, elaborated in a black-and-white form with unambiguous villains, victims, and heroes. It provides a flawless beginning and then follows the events or the processes, or both. The narratives also provide stories that are relevant and related to the society members’ identity. Thus, the stories not only elicit emotional involvement but also evoke strong identification. Finally, the narratives are moralizing (White, 1987). They provide criteria for judging the events and the processes of the conflict. These three characteristics of the conflict-supporting narratives help explain why they are so well absorbed by society members. In general, human beings like these types of stories, remember them well, and assimilate them easily.

Eventually, the constructed master narratives of collective memory of conflict and the ethos of conflict with many other specific narratives serve as the foundations of the culture of conflict.

Evolvement of the Culture of Conflict

After the socio-psychological infrastructure crystallizes into a well-organized system of societal beliefs of collective memory and the ethos of conflict with the emotions of the collective emotional orientation and penetrates into the institutions and communication channels of the society, in the next phase a culture of conflict develops (the process is depicted in Figure 1 and described also in Chapter 3).

A culture of conflict develops when societies saliently integrate the elements of the socio-psychological infrastructure into their cultural symbols, which then communicate a particular meaning about the prolonged and continuous experiences of living in the context of conflict. This outlook is based on Geertz's (Reference Geertz1973, p. 89) definition of culture as “a historically transmitted pattern of meaning embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life.” Here culture is viewed as publicly shared meanings in which worldviews, behaviors, institutions, and cultural products are understood as culturally constituted phenomena (Spiro, Reference Spiro, Shweder and LeVine1984). Ann Swidler's (Reference Swidler1986, p. 273) discussion of culture as “a ‘tool kit’ of rituals, symbols, stories, and world views” that people use to construct “strategies of action” is an important addition and can serve as a foundation for the present discussion. These approaches place a focal emphasis on evolved tangible and intangible symbols that provide meaning to life under the conditions in which the society lives. These symbols, representing the prolonged experiences and their meaning, provide a hegemonic worldview. Bond (Reference Bond2004, p. 62) defines culture psychologically as “a shared system of beliefs (what is true), values (what is important), expectations, especially about scripted behavioral sequences, and behavioral meanings (what is implied by engaging in a given action) developed by a group over time to provide the requirement of living.…This shared system enhances communication of meaning and coordination of actions among culture's members by reducing uncertainty and anxiety through making its members’ behavior predictable, understandable, and valued.” In a similar way, Ross (Reference Ross1993, Reference Ross, Jacquin, Oros and Verweij1998) directs attention to the way beliefs reflect the culture of society members about social reality and in turn lead to particular courses of action. These elaborations fit perfectly into the present attempt to describe the development of the culture of conflict.

My basic premise is that the prolonged experiences of living under the conditions of intractable conflict lead to the development and crystallization of the culture of conflict, which becomes interwoven into the fabric of the societal life on every level and in every domain. Ross (Reference Ross, Jacquin, Oros and Verweij1998, pp. 157–158) points out that “the culture of conflict defines what people consider valuable and worth fighting over, investing particular goods, statuses, positions or actions with meaning; it suggests appropriate ways to wage disputes, identifies suitable targets of conflict; it supports institutions in which disputes are processes; and it determines how conflict are likely to end.”

In this line, Bond (Reference Bond, Drozdek and Wilson2007, p. 27) more specifically elaborates that the culture of conflict serves “as educator, as motivator, as roadmap, as coordinator and as legitimizer of the evil we do in the name of good. Culture provides the plausibility structures…for these essential supports to the collective violence we wreak upon one another, but culture is not the agent of the carnage; it is we as social agents acting in concert who provide the daily, proximal supports for the orchestration of collective violence. We reward and we punish those who act with us or against us or who by-stand, thereby motivating ourselves and others to act in accordance with those plausibility structures.” Essentially when a culture of conflict becomes dominant, intractable conflicts come to be way of life, affecting its every aspect.

We can diagnose the existence of a culture of conflict with four criteria that were briefly noted in Chapter 3.

1. 1. Extensive sharing. The beliefs of the socio-psychological infrastructure pertain to the eight themes that appear in the ethos of conflict and collective memory, and the accompanying emotions are widely shared by society members. Society members are deeply convinced in the justness of their own group's goals; they view the rival in an extremely negative way with delegitimizing categories that deny humanness and legitimize his harming; they view their own group in glorifying terms, emphasizing their own moral qualities, but at the same time view their own group as a sole victim in the conflict; they identify great threats originating from the rival and develop ways to cope with them; they believe in the need for patriotic mobilization for the conflict and for the need to be united; and finally they believe that they are lovers of peace, which will eventually be achieved. Also, they share group emotions such as anger, fear, and hatred that characterize societies involved in intractable conflict. They acquire and store this repertoire, as part of their socialization, from an early age and carry it through their lives. They learn the repertoire from agents of socialization, such as family, teachers, or mass media. It is impossible to live in an intractable conflict without being exposed to the contents of societal beliefs of the ethos of conflict and collective memory. Thus every member of the society acquires them. But societies do differ with the extent of their consensus regarding this repertoire, and it changes over time. In some societies schisms about societal beliefs may even develop in some stages of the conflict. But at the climax of the intractable conflict a high consensus usually develops about these beliefs in many of the societies involved. Nevertheless, in all the societies involved in intractable conflict, they are readily available, and therefore exposure to them is unavoidable. Once they are acquired, they are stored and even unconsciously become accessible in situations of stress (see Sharvit, Reference Sharvit2008).

2. 2. Wide application. The repertoire of the societal beliefs of collective memory and the ethos of conflict as well as of shared emotions is not only held by society members but also used in their daily conversations. This repertoire is chronically accessible and therefore often features in interpersonal communications, because the conflict is part of the daily lives of society members. Many of the personal judgments, evaluations, and decisions are influenced by the conflict repertoire. Moreover, in societies involved in intractable conflict that do not have access to media and formal societal institutions, interpersonal networks serve as means to disseminate elements of the socio-psychological infrastructure. In addition, in many other societies themes of socio-psychological infrastructure appear to be dominant in public discourse via societal channels of mass communication. They deal with the conflict almost daily, and the socio-psychological infrastructure serves as a frame for interpretation and assessment of the situation and events. It is often used for justification and explanation of decisions, policies, and courses of actions taken by the leaders at different levels. Finally, it is also expressed in institutional and civil ceremonies, commemorations, rituals, and memorials.

3. 3. Expression in cultural products. The socio-psychological infrastructure also appears in cultural products, such as literary books, TV programs, films, theater plays, and visual arts. It becomes a society's cultural repertoire, relaying themes of collective memory and the ethos of conflict, as well as emotions promoted by the dominant group. The cultural products focus on them, and they constitute major themes in artworks. Through these cultural products, societal beliefs and emotions of the socio-psychological infrastructure are disseminated and can reach every sector of the public. Many of these products portray the ingroup's suffering or heroism and depict the brutality and inhumanness of the adversary.

4. 4. Appearance in educational systems. The societal beliefs of collective memory and the ethos of conflict appear also in the educational system, including even in higher education. They are used as a major venue of collective socialization. They appear in different modes. First, the societal beliefs appear in school textbooks and other written materials that serve as an epistemic authority and are viewed usually as sources that provide a truthful and valid account of the past and present. Societal beliefs are also propagated by teachers on different occasions in formal instruction and informal encounters. Finally, they are transmitted in various curricula and extracurricular activities, such as art classes and field trips. All these modes have an influence because education is compulsory in almost all societies and therefore whole new generations are exposed to the contents of the ethos of conflict and collective memory, and it can be assumed that many of the students also acquire them.

Thus, as the culture of conflict develops, the processes of institutionalization, socialization, and diffusion transmit, disseminate, and maintain the societal beliefs of collective memory and the ethos of conflict, as well as group-based emotions, among society members and society's institutions. They become easily accessible, solidified, and dominant.

The development of a culture of conflict seems to be unavoidable because of the intensive psychological experiences that society members go through during intractable conflict, which lasts at least a few dozen years. These powerful experiences leave their mark on every aspect of societal life. They eventually shape the system of societal beliefs, attitudes, values, norms, and practices of society members, who produce tangible and intangible symbols that reflect them. Nevertheless, societies differ with regard to the level of dominance of the culture of conflict. While in some societies during the climax of intractable conflict a culture of conflict can be absolutely hegemonic (as in the Jewish and Palestinian societies), in other societies its dominance can be more limited, being restricted to certain segments of the society (e.g., in Northern Ireland). Factors that determine the level of dominance of a culture of conflict include the level of threat, level of homogeneity of the society involved, level of agreement on the goals of the conflict and its management, level of a society's tolerance to deviant views, level of openness of the society to alternative information, strength of the segments of the society that oppose the conflict, level of indoctrination through a mobilized educational system and the mass media, types of violent experiences, level of trust in the channels of communication, and the extent of the use of societal mechanisms to enforce consensual thinking. When there is a high level of threat perception, a high level of homogeneity, a consensus regarding the conflict in society, a high level of closure to alternative information, high indoctrination through mobilized mass media and the educational system, high trust in leaders who are agents of conflict, and high use of societal sanctions to enforce consensus, then in such a society the culture of conflict would achieve hegemonic status. Under these conditions, a society evolves with a single-minded agenda directed toward continuation of the conflict. The presented list of factors is not exhaustive, but it provides the general view that the hegemonic status of a culture of conflict depends on the conditions of the intractable conflict, characteristics of the societal system and its channels of communication, characteristics of the leadership, and characteristics of society members. The factors operate from the beginning of the intractable conflict and influence its development. Some have linear influence, and some curvilinear. These factors change over time and may affect the maintenance of the culture of conflict at any point in time.

This analysis indicates that a culture of conflict may not be hegemonic during the long period of intractable conflict; its level of dominance is dynamic and may change, as its development and maintenance are not linear. It may even compete with a culture that provides alternative symbols that cherish peace and value practices of peacemaking. It may even lose its dominance, as the majority of the society members may embrace an alternative culture that promotes peace building.

The Israeli Jewish culture of conflict has been thoroughly investigated, partly in the framework of the described conception (Bar-Tal, Reference Bar-Tal2007a). Thus, we can use this research in order to provide a concrete example of a culture of conflict.

The Culture of Conflict: The Case of Israeli jewish Society

The Israeli-Arab conflict, and specifically the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was a prototypical case of extreme intractable conflict, being violent, perceived as unsolvable, fought over goals considered existential, and perceived as a zero-sum conflict between 1948 and 1977. The conflict greatly preoccupies society members, and the parties involved invest much in its continuation (see Bar-Tal, Reference Bar-Tal1998, Reference Bar-Tal2007a, Reference Bar-Tal2007b; Kriesberg, Reference Kriesberg1993, Reference Kriesberg2007). Although some of the intractable features are still intact, between 1977 and 2000 the conflict began to move toward the tractable end of the dimension. The peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, the Madrid convention in 1991, the Oslo agreements in 1993 and 1995, and the peace treaty with Jordan in 1994 are hallmarks of the peace process that changed the relations between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East (see detailed descriptions in Caplan, Reference Caplan2009; Dowty, Reference Dowty2005; Morris, Reference Morris2001; Tessler, Reference Tessler2009; Wasserstein, Reference Wasserstein2003). A reescalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began with the failure of the Camp David summit meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in July 2000. After violent encounters that lasted a few years, both sides attempted to continue negotiations with the help of third parties, mostly the United States, but these efforts did not yield a peaceful settlement of the conflict. On the contrary, in recent years since the ascendance to power in Israel of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu there has been an intensification of the conflict, without any negotiations. Nevertheless, even the state of the present conflict is far removed from the extreme level of intractability that characterized it in the 1950s or 1960s.

With this background, and focusing only on the climax of the Israeli-Palestinian intractable conflict (which was in this period part of the more general Israeli-Arab conflict) during late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s until the visit of the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in Jerusalem in November 1977, one can detect all the features of the culture of conflict in Jewish Israeli society.

Characteristics of the Culture of Conflict

The culture of conflict has various characteristics, the first of which is that its general themes, as reflected in collective memory and the ethos of conflict, are universal. Themes about the justness of one's own goals, the importance of security, self-collective glorification, self-collective presentation as a victim in the conflict, delegitimization of the rival, emphasis on patriotism and on unity, and valuing peace can be found in the culture of societies that are involved in intractable conflict. These eight themes serve as an organizing framework to view the reality of the conflict and even beyond; they form part of the general worldview – an ideology – that influences information processing.

Second, one theme that receives particular significance in the culture of conflict and therefore needs a specific note is glorification of violence. It praises the personnel, organizations, and the institutions that carry out the violence. Because many of the societal activities in the frame of the intractable conflict are related to violence and because violent acts stand at the core of the dynamics of intractable conflict, it is thus natural that those society members who perform the violence on behalf of the society and the organizations and the institutions that are responsible for its performance receive focal attention, a large part of the societal resources, and glory. The fighters and the supportive staff are the front runners of the society. They are considered as the ultimate patriots who are ready to sacrifice their lives. It is thus not surprising that they are the desirable societal models, and their acts are viewed with reverence and glorification. This focus is reflected in many different ways. The violent events, such as battles or wars, and the fallen are noted in mass media; leaders talk about them; they are commemorated in ceremonies, rituals, and monuments, and eternalized in different cultural products (songs, poems, visual arts, films, or literature); and they figure saliently in educational materials and curricula. They communicate particular meaning by symbolically reflecting beliefs, values, and attitudes toward the violent conflict that eternalize the collective memory of conflict, granting hegemony to the beliefs of the ethos of conflict, and by expressing emotions of conflict. Specifically, they glorify battles and wars and the heroism of those who participated in the events, recall the martyrdom of those who fell, cultivate the sense of collective victimhood, and emphasize the malevolence of the enemy and the necessity to continue the struggle in fulfillment of the patriotic “will” of the fallen in order to achieve their sacred goals. As such, they serve as an important socializing and cultural factor (all this stands in complete contrast to disapproving, negating, condemning, and delegitimizing the violence used by the rival). The reverence toward violent events and those involved in them creates symbols that fuel the continuation of the violence. Thus, these elements contribute greatly to what is also sometimes referred as the culture of violence (Bar-Tal, Reference Bar-Tal, Cairns and Roe2003; Rupesinghe & Rubio, Reference Rupesinghe and Rubio1994).

Third, each society has particular contents that fill out the general themes with narratives that concern its specific symbols, including experiences, history, conditions, events, heroes, and myths (see an example of the Israeli society by Bar-Tal, Reference Bar-Tal2007a). Thus, each society accumulates through its history in general and especially during years of the intractable conflict in particular specific contents that fill out the eight general themes and provide cultural meaning to the given conflict. For example, Palestinians draw the particular contents of their cultures, such as a key (the symbol of returning back to their homes), the notion of shahid, and the olive tree, as a symbol of their deep-rootedness in the country from their unique experiences and symbols of other ethoses.

Fourth, the specific symbols of the culture of conflict (e.g., sacrifice, heroism, sacred value of the goals, suffering, or victimhood) are expressed through different contents (e.g., stories about heroes, old myths, aspirations, prescriptions, narratives about major events). The same symbols appear and reappear in different narratives. Thus, for example, the narrative of heroism can appear in Israel in the story about Masada, which tells about the heroic act of Jews about 2000 years ago who defended a fortress against Romans and eventually committed suicide in order not to fall in the enemy hands; in the story of Bar Kokhba, who rebelled against Rome in the second century during Hadrian's reign and bravely fought the superior legions; in the story of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which tells about a hopeless uprising of few hundred Jews who decided to put up a fight against the Nazis, who sent millions of Jews to their death; in the story of Joseph Trumpeldor, who together with his few friends fought a battle against hundreds of Arabs in 1920 and, after being injured and while dying, said that “it is good to die for our country”; and in the stories of heroic battles fought by Israeli Jews in many wars against Arabs.

Fifth, some contents of the culture of conflict are expressed through different cultural modes and channels, such as books, ceremonies, art, films, speeches, and monuments. That is, various institutions and channels take an active part in the dissemination of the contents among society members and their socialization, and they do so in different ways. Thus, for example, memory of the heroic act of Joseph Trumpeldor is maintained with a museum in the place where the battle took place, a monument built in this area, ceremonies held to commemorate this event, and a description in the school textbooks and in the stories, songs, and poems that were written about this event and its hero.

Sixth, symbols of the conflict and of the culture of conflict become routinized into everyday life experience (see Bar-Tal, Abutbul, & Raviv, in press). There are at least four aspects of this routinization process. First, society members regularly engage in practices that are related to the conflict situation. These practices are a result of the constraints of the conflict conditions and can be formally or informally imposed. For example, Israelis go through a security search in the entrance to every public space, such as a bank, mall, or public office. Second, society members are exposed to images and symbols of the conflict in public spaces such as streets and parks and even private residences. For example, in many of the societies it is part of the daily experiences to see soldiers and weapons. Also, the symbols and objects can be statues, sculptures, names of streets, shelters, and gas masks. This exposure is an inescapable part of living in the context of intractable conflict. Third, part of the everyday life experience is to be exposed to information about the conflict, which is very central in the public discourse. The exposure can be to news and commentaries presented in the newspapers or on radio, television, or the Internet. Also, many of the private discourses touch on the conflict. Fourth, words and expressions that portray the conflict with their meaning become part of the daily language. These words and expressions become a slang that describes events unrelated to conflict. All these aspects are responsible for the routinization and even ritualization of the culture of conflict. That is, the physical and social spaces are fully saturated with expressions of the conflict. In other words, a whole complex of “beliefs, assumptions, habits, representations and practices” are reproduced in a “banally mundane way” (Billig, Reference Billig1995, p. 6), because the intractable conflict is part of everyday life.

All these reflections regularly charge the climate of individual and collective life with a particular orientation that strengthens the conflict-supporting ideology. For example, Ross (Reference Ross2007) investigated the role of murals and parades in Northern Ireland where both elements appear in daily life. He suggests that they are part of contests over everyday cultural expressions and performance that signify identities of the rival groups in conflict. Indeed, hundreds of murals appear on many of the buildings and walls depicting divisive events, slogans, and persons in the past and present history of Northern Ireland. Parades are an important part of the Northern Irish culture especially for the Unionist (Protestant) side, which holds well over 1,000 parades during a year. Nationalists (Catholics) organize over 100 parades every year. Both groups use the parades to solidify their own identity and secure continuous mobilization of society members. Also, Hadjipavlou (Reference Hadjipavlou, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004, p. 200) notes that everywhere in Cyprus are visible images of “barbed wire, the military posts, the blue berets, and the blue and green posters that read ‘Buffer UN Zone,’ ‘Beware Mine Fields,’ ‘No Entry-Occupied Zone,’ ‘Dead Zone,’ and ‘No Photographs-Security Zone.’ Flags of all kinds wave together or apart.” In addition, on the Turkish side were displayed photographs of atrocities performed by the Greek Cypriots as well as photographs of Turkish Cypriots who were killed. According to Hadjipavlou, these everyday symbols of conflict helped “to adapt to the conflict and the status quo, especially when there is no daily interethnic violence.”

Indeed, the routinization has a number of important functions. First, it normalizes what is an unusual life by turning conflict-related experiences into everyday routines. In addition, this way of life prepares society members to cope with life characterized by threats and dangers. In some ways, it strengthens the psychological resilience that allows overcoming stress. Routinization also reinforces solidarity, cohesiveness, and fate interdependence. Society members live daily in a particular way, one that is different from normal life without a conflict. They are aware of their uniqueness that creates a bond and also boundaries of belonging. Thus, these daily experiences contribute to the formation of a unique collective identity. Finally, this way of life solidifies support for the ethos of conflict because the routines of life are based on an ideology of conflict.

As an additional characteristic, the culture of conflict evolves through a long process that takes years and decades. It takes time to construct the symbols and to institutionalize them via processes of dissemination and socialization until they become dominant parts of the culture that is shared by at least a majority of society members. Therefore, intractable conflicts that last for at least 25 years are special candidates for the evolvement of the culture of conflict.

Finally, the culture of conflict is not static but changes dynamically in accordance with prolonged experiences that the society goes through. The changes are usually gradual because culture changes not overnight but in a long process that can be observed from the perspective of time. Intractable conflicts can escalate, deescalate, and change their form. These different phases of conflict can last years and thus have effects on the culture of conflict. Also, in societies involved in intractable conflict, there may slowly emerge an alternative culture with symbols propagating peace. Thus, new societal beliefs may be formed, new symbols may appear, new narratives, new ceremonies, new cultural products, and even new schoolbooks. These developments are dependent not only on the changes in the nature of the conflict but also on the nature and development of the society. In societies that are closed or not tolerant to alternative views, or use mechanisms that prevent dissemination of alternative information, alternative culture has difficulty developing. But when the new culture develops, it competes with the culture of conflict. The competition may last for many years, and sometimes one of them becomes more dominant. It is important to note, though, that an alternative culture may exist all the time, even during the climax of intractable conflict, as was the case in Northern Ireland, when the two cultures competed.

In addition to the culture of conflict, another important societal component that also is greatly affected by the lasting intractable conflict and plays an important role in its continuation is collective identity. Collective identity and the culture of conflict are in a complementary relationship. On the one hand, the culture of conflict feeds its contents into the collective identity and, on the other hand, collective identity serves as a supporting foundation of the culture of conflict.

Identity and Conflict

Last, but not least, the described narratives of collective memory and ethos not only serve as foundations of the culture of conflict but also fulfill the unique role of contributing to the formation, maintenance, and strengthening of collective identity that reflects the lasting conditions and experiences of intractable conflict (Auerbach, Reference Auerbach and Bar-Siman-Tov2010). Collective identity “indicates a joint awareness and recognition that members of a group share the same social identity” (David & Bar-Tal, Reference David and Bar-Tal2009, p. 356). This definition puts an emphasis not only on the identification with the collective but also on awareness that other members of the collective share this identification and hold similar beliefs and feelings and act in a similar fashion. This macroapproach has two major foundations: generic features that are found in every collective and characterize it on a general level (see Chapters 2 and 3), and specific contents that provide the collective with features that endow it with unique and particular characteristics (Barthel, Reference Barthel1996; Cairns, Lewis, Mumcu, & Waddell, Reference Cairns, Lewis, Mumcu and Waddell1998; Gillis, Reference Gillis1994; Oren, Bar-Tal, & David, Reference Oren, Bar-Tal, Ben-Amos and Bar-Tal2004). Clearly, self-categorization and identification are fundamental for self-definition as a society member, but that is only an initial phase, which has to be followed by acceptance of additional societal beliefs that provide meaning to the collective identity (Bar-Tal & Oren, Reference Bar-Tal and Oren2000; Turner, Reference Turner1991, Reference Turner, Ellemers, Spears and Doosje1999). Society members, as thinking human beings, need an elaborated system of societal beliefs that justifies and explains their belonging, describes their characteristics and concerns as society members, and explains the meaning of their social identity (Oren & Bar-Tal, in press).

Thus, the contents (also called narratives or societal beliefs), defined by Ashmore, Deaux, and McLaughlin-Volpe (Reference Ashmore, Deaux and McLaughlin-Volpe2004, p. 94) as “the semantic space in which identity resides – a space that can include self-attributed characteristics, political ideology, and developmental narratives,” provide the particular epistemic basis for the collective identity (see Andrews, Reference Andrews2007; Tilly, Reference Tilly2002). They portray the specific meaning of a particular collective and draw from at least three sources: a tradition that refers to memories, cultural products, symbols, and institutions that have formed a collective identity in the past (these may be religious, cultural, national, or some fusion of these); ideology that articulates the right to self-determination and self-definition in a certain territory and that provides a general orientation to the members of the collective; and crucial experiences, based on important events that have taken place in the society and that have been experienced by its members, either directly (through participation) or indirectly (by observation, hearing, or reading) (Eriksen, Reference Eriksen, Ashmore, Jussim and Wilder2001).

This conception implies that collective identity is charged with the contents of the culture of conflict. In other words, it is proposed that when intractable conflict lasts for a long time, the collective identity of the involved societies is filled with contents of collective memory and the ethos of conflict (see Oren & Bar-Tal, in press; also Bar-Tal, Reference Bar-Tal, Worchel, Morales, Paez and Deschamps1998c; Oren, Bar-Tal & David, Reference Oren, Bar-Tal, Ben-Amos and Bar-Tal2004). These contents provide the meaning to the particular collective identity. Obviously, the culture, as well as identity, of every collective involved in intractable conflict has other elements that provide the epistemic content to their foundation (e.g., national, religious, or economic). But the intensity of the conflict experiences, their durability, and their major role in the life of the society members as individuals and as the collective turn them into a dominant part of the culture and identity (Cash, Reference Cash1996; Northrup, Reference Northrup, Kriesberg, Northrup and Thorson1989; Ross, Reference Ross2001; Worchel, Reference Worchel1999). Members of societies involved in intractable conflicts view themselves in a particular way, with a unique identity that gives special place to the conflict. They perceive the experiences of the conflict as marking boundaries that differentiate them from other collectives. Often they even see themselves as so unique in their conflict experiences that they differentiate themselves even from other societies involved in intractable conflicts as well. This view contributes to the collective identity by strengthening their sense of a common fate and perception of the uniqueness – both generic features of the collective identity (see David & Bar-Tal, Reference David and Bar-Tal2009). The former feature pertains to feelings of mutual dependence in view of the conflict, implying that the fate of each one of the collective's members is perceived as dependent on the fate of the whole collective. The latter refers to the definition of the collective's selfhood as a unique entity that is different from that of other collectives. Both features are shaped by the experiences of intractable conflict. Members of the collective realize that their fate as a result of the conflict is interdependent. They also believe that these experiences, as well as the conditions of the conflict, do not resemble conditions and experiences of other collectives involved in intractable conflict.

The conditions of intractable conflict and the accompanied experiences have additional effects on the collective identity of society members. First, in times of intractable conflict there is an increase in saliency of identity. It becomes an important feature that marks who is in and who is out (Kelman, Reference Kelman, Ashmore, Jussim and Wilder2001; Northrup, Reference Northrup, Kriesberg, Northrup and Thorson1989). This differentiation is often used within a society to distinguish supporters and opponents of continuing the conflict. Also, it becomes useful in cases where the intractable conflict is intrasocietal in one state. Second, in times of intractable conflict society members tend to increase their sense of identification with the society in order to fulfill their need of belonging and security. Third, participation in collective action leads to politicized identification that indicates greater involvement, increased readiness to participate, and commitment to the conflict goals (De Weerd & Klandermans, Reference De Weerd and Klandermans1999; Drury & Reicher, Reference Drury and Reicher1999; Reicher, Reference Reicher and Robinson1996; Simon & Klandermans, Reference Simon and Klandermans2001; Turner, Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty, Reference Turner, Oakes, Haslam and McGarty1994). Finally, Kelman (Reference Kelman1999) proposes that identities of parties in some of the intractable conflicts become negatively interdependent, such that a key component of each group's identity is based on negation of the other. As a result, often for one group to maintain its legitimacy, it must not only delegitimize the other but also cannot accept compromising solutions. As a case in point, Kelman (Reference Kelman1999, p. 588) describes the “psychological core” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as “the perception by both parties that it is a zero-sum conflict, not only with respect to territory, but, most importantly, with respect to national identity and national existence.” Under such a zero-sum conceptualization, each party holds the perception that only one can be legitimately recognized as a nation, which means that one can sustain national identity only at the expense of the other's claim to nationhood.

Much of the Pakistani national identity was formed around the rivalry with India. The need to justify Muslim communalism in face of the Indian Hindu-secular identity was evident from the beginning of the Pakistani nationalism led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah (Nasr, Reference Nasr and Paul2005). The fear of Hindu domination in the formative years of Muslim nationalism and the rejection of Indian secularism and of Hindu cultural and political domination in the postpartition era were underpinning the Pakistani-Islamic ideology. The military, which is a major power in Pakistan, held similar views, while fortifying nationalism as opposition to India and maintaining the flames of the conflict until the late 1990s (Nasr, Reference Nasr and Paul2005). Alongside proximity in religious identity, many Pakistanis, especially those from Punjab province, hold ethnic kinship with Kashmir's inhabitants (Saideman, Reference Saideman and Paul2005).

A study by Bar-Tal, Sharvit, Halperin, and Zafran (Reference Bar-Tal, Hammack and Tropp2012) shows that the ethos of conflict, being a distinct construct, is related to identity. Members of the Israeli Jewish society who identified closely with their nation also adhered to the ethos of conflict. This study suggests that while social identity reflects the extent of identification with the society on the individual level, ethos as the dominant orientation provides contents that give meaning to the identity (Oren, Bar-Tal, & David, Reference Oren, Bar-Tal, Ben-Amos and Bar-Tal2004).

Of special interest is the study by Kreidie and Monroe (Reference Kreidie and Monroe2002) that has direct implication on the understanding of the nature and effects of social identity in societies torn by intractable conflict. Specifically, the researchers investigate what turns ordinary individuals into the perpetrators who performed atrocities in the Lebanese civil war. In-depth interviews of five Lebanese with different backgrounds, who all were involved in different ethnic massacres, killing members of the other ethnic groups, show in all the cases that identity was the key factor that influenced their choices of behavior. Their identification with their ethnic group with clear boundaries differentiating “us” from “them,” with clear delegitimization of “them” as being a threat to “us,” led ordinary human beings to perform the most horrible acts of violence. The researchers note that “what triggered the violence was the way our subjects situated themselves within the ingroup in the Lebanese multiethnic society and how each one, as a group member, perceived the other group and their relations between groups. The identity described in the narrative analysis thus is as follows. The fighters first see themselves as victims of the sectarian political arrangement. They then see themselves either as subordinates and victims of an unjust distribution of power and resources or as members of the dominant group that must protect its existence against larger threatening populations, who might destroy the group's existence. It is at the moment when a perpetrator feels a threat to his existence that he resorts to the use of force” (p. 28). This analysis suggests that the culture of conflict and the new shaped identity have a tremendous critical influence on the way societies engulfed in intractable conflict function.

Conclusions and Implications

This chapter suggests that intractable conflicts lead to prolonged continuous imprinting of experiences that serve as a fertile ground for the evolvement of the culture of conflict. The culture of conflict evolves especially in response to continuous physical violence, which claims human losses of compatriots and motivates mobilization and continuation of the conflict. Its major societal beliefs concern the justness of one's own goals, security considerations, delegitimization of the opponent, group's victimization and glorification, and patriotism and unity, as well as peace as a desired aim. In the context of protracted violent conflict, all eight themes of societal beliefs flourish intensively and extensively. That is, these beliefs preoccupy a central place in the societal repertoire; are used often in the public discourse; appear in various societal, cultural, and educational products and channels; and are disseminated as the violence continues over an increasing number of years. Within the culture of conflict, on the one hand, various tangible and intangible symbols (e.g., memorial sites, books, or ceremonies) help to maintain the societal beliefs, making them more accessible, relevant, and concrete; and, on the other hand, the societal beliefs provide the conceptual framing for the creation of these symbols. That is, the societal beliefs of the culture of conflict, which serve as a prism through which society members attach meaning to the acts and the artifacts, provide the contents elaborated in the symbols.

From another perspective, societal beliefs of the culture of conflict serve as the cognitive and affective foundations of the conflict by providing explanations and justifications for its continuation. They constitute the comprehensive narrative in its entirety that provides a simplistic and one-sided picture of the conflict with all the related themes. In fact, this narrative constitutes experienced and imagined reality for the society members participating in intractable conflict. It is experienced because intractable conflicts by their nature have direct and indirect effects on the lives of the society members as individuals and collectives. They witness the falling members, see the destruction, and experience stress and hardship. But it is also imagined because societies and society members also rely in the construction of their narrative on misinformation, exaggerations, and myths. In turn, the societal beliefs of the narrative arouse emotions (fear, hatred, and anger toward the opponent, and feelings of self-pride, esteem, and pity) and also lead to behaviors that are consistent with them, such as acts geared to persevering one's own goals, avenging losses, hurting the opponent, and sacrificing one's own life for the group. Society members who hold these beliefs (i.e., the narrative) and accept their rationale are compelled to continue the violent conflict. Furthermore, once these beliefs become embedded in the culture, it is difficult to change them.

The fundamental premise is that every society needs the narratives of the societal beliefs of the culture of conflict because they enable successful adaptation to the conditions of conflict and to withstanding the rival. Specifically, as an example, every society engaged in intractable conflict needs justification of its own goals and patriotism for mobilization of their members. Thus, in every society engaged in intractable conflict at least the leading agents of conflict and segments in the society believe that their goals exclusively are justified. But this observation does not imply that all these societies have a similar underlying moral basis in the justness of the goals according to prevailing contemporary moral intergroup codes. In some of them, there is a moral gap between the prevalent moral codes and posed goals as well as practices during the conflict. That is, some of the societies involved in intractable conflict try to achieve goals that are unacceptable by the present codes of intergroup behavior. Societies such as whites in South Africa or French in the case of Algeria tried to maintain systems that negated the emerged moral norms. But even these societies had a well-elaborated system of societal beliefs that not only justified goals of colonialism or apartheid but also presented themselves as being the victims in the conflict.

The basic thesis of this chapter suggests that when intractable conflict, with its violence, continues throughout decades, then violence and the accompanied experiences constitute a determinative factor in intergroup conflict. Therefore, it is of special importance to understand not only the specific acts of violence but also the socio-psychological and cultural bases that evolve and then underlie these acts. These bases play a crucial role in violent conflicts because human beings have various needs, aspirations, and drives that have to be satisfied in every human society.

A question, though, that can be asked is whether the developed bases with the socio-psychological infrastructure are indeed functional and adaptive, as they fuel continuation of the conflict. It is important in answering this question to take into account that the analysis is done from the perspective of the involved societies in intractable conflict, which try to adapt to the harsh conditions of the conflict context, achieve their goals, withstand the rival, and survive the violent period in the best way possible. Those are the aspirations and objectives during the climax of intractable conflict, when there is no light at the end of the tunnel – when neither side can win the conflict and achieve its conflict goals, and neither party thinks about compromises in order to settle it peacefully. That is, the analysis applies to the situation when both societies are engulfed in violent confrontation, without seeing any possibility of engaging in a peace process. In this situation, human beings involved in intractable conflict develop a socio-psychological repertoire that is functional to their individual and collective needs and goals. It fulfills many functions that greatly facilitate the adaptation of the society. When the prospect of a peace process appears and the indications for constructive negotiations become salient, however, then the same socio-psychological repertoire embedded in the culture of conflict that was functional during the period of intense confrontation without signs of peace becomes a barrier to conflict resolution and detrimental to peacemaking, as will be discussed in Chapter 8.

The present chapter attempts to elaborate on the evolvement of the culture of conflict with its components, which has the determinative role in the dynamics of intractable conflict. This culture comes to serve as the major motivating, justifying, and rationalizing factor of the conflict. It is underlined by epistemic motivation for specific content and resistant to change during the intractable conflict. Any negative actions taken then serve as information validating the existing psychological repertoire and, in turn, magnify the motivation and readiness to engage in conflict. The behaviors of each side confirm the held expectations and justify harming the opponent. In this way, cycles of conflict develop that often lead not only to its escalation and blind continuation but also to the solidification of the culture of conflict. It is the hegemonic culture of conflict that serves as a major factor for the continuation of the conflict and a barrier for resolving it, being part of the vicious cycle of the intractable conflict. In the next chapter I elaborate further on the barriers to peaceful conflict settlement, discussing their nature on societal and individual levels.

Societal Mechanisms as Barriers

Societal mechanisms are used to block alternative information and narratives from entering social spheres. When they do penetrate, they are often rejected before society members might be persuaded by their evidence and arguments (Bar-Tal, Reference Bar-Tal2007b; Horowitz, Reference Horowitz2000; Kelman, Reference Kelman and Zartman2007). The use of societal mechanisms can be activated by the formal authorities of the ingroup – in some cases, of the state – or by other agents of conflict, who have a vested interest in preventing dissemination of alternative information. The former agents can be governments, leaders, and societal institutions, while the latter can be NGOs and various organization, as well as individuals, who play the role of the gatekeeper. (For detailed descriptions of the mechanisms and for examples from various conflicts, see Bar-Tal, Oren, & Nets-Zehngut, 2012; Burns-Bisogno, Reference Burns-Bisogno1997; Miller, Reference Miller1994; Morris, Reference Morris and Morris2000; Oren, Nets-Zehngut, & Bar-Tal, Reference Oren, Nets-Zehngut and Bar-Tal2012; and Wolfsfeld, Reference Wolfsfeld2004.)

These societal mechanisms are used against individuals as well as organizations and groups. In the category of individuals are often found mass media journalists, academic experts, and artists, as well as individuals who saw and experienced events that in their essence contradict the societal beliefs of the culture of conflict and want to make them known to a wider public. Organizations may also collect and provide alternative information. Some are established to provide information, some monitor the behavior of the ingroup to prevent violations of human rights, and others try to build relations with the rival groups.

Control of information is practiced when the dissemination of information, including for the mass media, is controlled by the formal authorities and other agents of conflict. Then, sources that are supposed to provide information for the most part just report what is provided to them. In this situation of control, the authorities try to provide information that is in line with the dominant narrative of the culture of conflict and avoid providing information that may challenge this narrative. In principle the authorities may use a different method to control the information as, for example, providing selective information, limiting or even closing access to particular areas in order to prevent collection of information, or controlling who is allowed to get information. This list of possible control methods is partial. But the control does not have to be formal or institutional; it can also be done by controlling the flow of information, by rewarding those who adhere to the desired narrative, or by punishing those who deviate from preferred methods. The control of mass media is not necessarily by state leaders and its institutions; it can also be done by groups and organizations that function as agents of conflict or even by those without the support of the state. The control comes to assure that society members adhere to the societal belief of the culture of conflict and accept a group narrative about major specific events that occur in the course of the conflict. The way the Russian authorities dealt with the media during the second Russia-Chechnya war illustrates use of this mechanism. They established the Russian Information Center with the objective to disseminate the Russian narrative. This Information Center briefed journalists, but Russian officials were instructed on what to tell the media. In addition, Russians exercised tight control of journalists' movement in Chechnya. Even when journalists were allowed to enter war zones, they were accompanied by Russian officials, who decided where they could go and what they could see (Caryl, Reference Caryl2000).

Academia may also be controlled. Academics may seek new information, examine innovative research questions, provide creative new knowledge, and shed new and critical light on various issues. Thus, by this nature, it is the role of the academic to provide knowledge that may contradict the societal beliefs of the culture of conflict. Formal authorities of a state or authorities of the academic institutions may try to prevent researchers from carrying out their mission. They may practice selective hiring, censor research findings, prevent promotions, provide awards to conformists, not award grants, and even close departments. They may also directly prevent investigation of research questions that contradict the dominant conflict-supporting worldview. Nets-Zehngut (Reference Nets-Zehngut2011a, Reference Nets-Zehngut2011b) analyzes the way the Israeli research community dealt with the information about the Palestinian exodus during the 1948 war. He found that during 1949–1957 almost all the studies disregarded the available information, indicating that the exodus at least partially happened because of the organized expulsion of Palestinians by the Jewish military forces. He found that the Israeli higher-educational institutions refrained from hiring historians who challenged the formal Zionist narrative and provided alternative information and interpretations about the history of Israel and especially about the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict (see also Zand, Reference Zand2004).

Censorship on information occurs when the authorities practice formal control over information and decide what can be published. In contrast to the previous mechanism, this formal mechanism assures that contradicted information does not appear in the media and other channels. The censorship office can be related to government, formal leaders, or military institutions (De Baets, Reference De Baets2002). It can be limited to certain themes or be general. In any case, when censorship is practiced, information about the conflict has to be submitted for approval by an authority. This mechanism exercises formal power to assure that no alternative, unwanted information will be presented. This method is used by almost every society involved in intractable conflict. As one example, the government of Sri Lanka in its struggle against the Tamil minority enacted in 1973 the Press Council bill that formed a censoring council. Its members authorized considerable limitation on public debates in the mass media about issues related to the way the conflict was handled (Tyerman, Reference Tyerman1973). Also, Harrison (Reference Harrison1964) describes various acts of the French government during the Algeria war to censor and limit freedom of press.

Delegitimization of alternative sources of information is done in an attempt to discourage its distribution to prevent the shedding of positive light on the rival, negative light on the ingroup, and news about the concrete possibilities of peacemaking. The delegitimization is usually done by presenting the sources of alternative information as being traitorous, harmful to the cause of the group, and disloyal. It implies that the source of information is not among society's compatriots but also signals that the source can be harmed formally or informally. This mechanism is a socially powerful one because society members do not want be excluded and potentially punished or harmed. The price paid for providing alternative information is high and serves well the mechanism of preventing the collection and dissemination of information that contradicts the narrative provided by the societal beliefs of the culture of conflict. Also, this mechanism is practiced in many of the societies involved in intractable conflict. The Greek society in Cyprus exemplifies extensive use of this mechanism. Conflict-supporting governments as well as political parties, NGOs, and individuals have tried, continuously and systematically, to discredit and even delegitimize individuals, groups, and organizations that have engaged in dissemination of information that counters the prevailing official societal beliefs about the conflict, the rival, and the Greek society (Papadakis, Peristianis, & Welz, Reference Papadakis, Peristianis and Welz2006).

Monitoring is a mechanism of following and supervising information provided by specific individuals and organizations that have a role in providing enlightening alternative information. This mechanism is often applied to academic experts who study research questions regarding the conflict or the societies involved and then publish this knowledge. Also, it is used against media sources and their correspondents or NGOs that are active in the conflict, as, for example, peace organizations or human rights NGOs. Using this mechanism, government or other agents of conflict monitor what is written, published, or aired and then single out the alternative information and its source, presenting them as harming the causes of the ingroup. This method is used by organizations in Israel that monitor information that in their view is harmful to the Israeli Jewish society in conflict with Palestinians. Israel Academia Monitor systematically documents academics, from students to professors, who the Web site operators believe “undermines Jewish Zionist interests,” including signing petitions, attending conferences, speaking to the media, and writing articles that criticize government policy toward Palestinians. Based on that monitoring, the organization submits an annual report to the Israeli universities’ boards of trustees, with the warning “this is what people do with your money.” Another monitoring organization is NGO Monitor, which tracks organizations that “claim to promote moral agendas, such as humanitarian aid and human rights.” The description of the mission says, “The aim of NGO Monitor, as outlined in the mission statement, is to generate and distribute critical analysis and reports on the output of the international NGO community for the benefit of government policy makers, journalists, philanthropic organizations and the general public. We intend to publicize distortions of human rights issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict and provide information and context for the benefit of NGOs working in the Middle East. We hope this will lead to an informed public debate on the role of humanitarian NGOs” (http://www.mgo_monitor.org?articles.php?type=about, November 24, 2011). An NGO named The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel even called students in schools “to provide information about teachers who introduce anti-Zionist contents into schools” (http://www.haforum.org.il/newsite/cat.asp?id=1146, December 7, 2011).

Punishment is through formal and informal sanctions, both social and physical, for providers of alternative information in an attempt to silence these sources that may contradict the dominant narrative. In extreme cases, the carrier of the alternative information may be even eliminated. Elimination usually is done unofficially and never admitted. But in many cases the carrier may be tried and then sentenced to a term in prison. Also, the punishment can involve intimidation and restrictions. This mechanism was used extensively in El Salvador during the civil war. Journalists, scholars, and students who criticized the government were constantly labeled as “destabilizing” and traitors; they were harassed, arrested, and physically attacked; their residences and offices were bombed, and some were even murdered. In addition, harsh measures were taken also against the institutions themselves, such as newspapers and even the National University of El Salvador (Matheson, Reference Matheson1986).

Closure of archives is done either completely or for a long time by the authorities with the aim of preventing the appearance of information that may contradict the societal beliefs of the dominant narrative. This mechanism is most often exercised by states, which have archives as a formal institutions, but a closure can also be practiced by informal groups. The closure can last many decades and thus prevent the appearance of information that may shed a negative light. Usually such information pertains to misdeeds of the ingroup, including performed atrocities or missed opportunities to make peace, or to positive deeds of the rival, which might present him in a new favorable light. For example, since War World I the Ottoman and later the Turkish archives were closed to the public with regard to documents that pertain to the Armenian genocide. State officials had access to such documents but only to search for documents that supported the Turkish “no genocide” narrative. In 1985 the archives were partially opened, but even then the access to the documents was very selective (Dixon, Reference Dixon2010; Safarian, 1999).

An encouragement and rewarding mechanism uses a “carrot” for those sources, channels, agents, and products that support the psychological repertoire of conflict. In the case of mass media, for example, the particular correspondent may receive exclusive information or permission to conduct an interview. In the case of cultural products, the writer or painter may get a prize for a creative work that supports the culture of conflict. The goal is to show that those who follow the line have benefits and rewards. They should serve as models for others. The Israeli Minister of Culture, for example, decided to give an annual prize for cultural work in the area of Zionism that gives “an expression to values of Zionism, to the history of the Zionist movement and to the return of the Jewish people to its historical homeland” (http://www.mcs.gov.il/Culture/Professional_Information/CallforScholarshipAward/Pages/PrasZionut2011.aspx).

The described societal barriers provide illumination on the context in which society members function on the individual level. Nevertheless, although in every society these mechanisms appear on at least some level, societies involved in intractable conflict differ with regard to their use. Their appearance depends on various cultural, political, societal, and even international determinants. Among the important categories of variables that influence the development of these processes are structural characteristics of the society and especially its political culture (Almond & Verba, Reference Almond and Verba1989). Of special importance is its level of openness, pluralism, tolerance, and freedom of speech, which have determinative influence on control of information, freedom of expression, openness to consider alterative information, the free flow of information, availability of free agents of information, and access to global sources of information. The higher the level of control the society exercises over its members, the less freedom of expression there is to consider alternative information and the more closure there is. A society that has these characteristics prevents pluralism, skepticism, or criticism – emergence of alternative ideas that may push for peaceful resolution of the conflict (e.g., Russian society in the case of the conflict with the Chechens).

Also, societies in conflict differ with regard to the need to use societal mechanisms to obstruct the flow of alternative information. In asymmetrical conflicts, one society may have a more solidified moral epistemic basis in line with international moral codes. This epistemic basis requires less use of societal censoring mechanisms, as, for example, in the case of blacks in South Africa or Algerians in Algeria demanding an end of legal discrimination and end of colonialism, respectively. Other societies may need to construct an epistemic basis that negates moral codes of intergroup behavior and also to use societal mechanisms in order to uphold this narrative, as in the case of whites in South Africa and the French during the Algerian crisis.

The described societal processes and mechanisms influence the way society members think, process information, and act. Individuals’ behavior is embedded within the societal context with its special conditions. This context provides not only the space in which society members can act cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally but also the stimulations, opportunities, and limitations of these actions. The more open the space is, with more stimulations and opportunities and fewer limitations, the more society members can flourish and provide new, creative, and innovative ideas. Now I can turn to the discussion of the functioning of the socio-psychological barriers on the individual level.

Socio-Psychological Barriers on the Individual Level: Freezing

In all the societies involved in intractable conflicts, in their climax, all societies’ members acquire the societal beliefs of the ethos of conflict and of collective memory, and at least a significant portion of the society's members see these beliefs as central and hold them with high confidence. These societal beliefs, which can be also called conflict-supporting beliefs, are the pillars of the culture of conflict and provide the narrative that is used in the society. Theoretically, the societal beliefs could be easily changed with persuasive arguments that provide information about costs of the conflict, humane characteristics of the rival, the rival's willingness to negotiate a peaceful resolution, or immoral acts of the ingroup. But in reality this change rarely happens in a short time;² even when society members are presented with alternative valid information that refutes their beliefs, they continue to adhere to them. One of the reasons for this functioning is the presence of socio-psychological barriers that are defined as “an integrated operation of cognitive, emotional and motivational processes, combined with a pre-existing repertoire of rigid conflict-supporting beliefs, world views and emotions that result in selective, biased and distorting information processing” (Bar-Tal & Halperin, 2011, p. 220). Thus, the individual functioning of the barriers results in one-sided information processing that obstructs and inhibits a penetration of new information that can contribute to the facilitation of the development of the peace process. That is, individuals are not interested even in exposure to alternative information that may contradict their held societal beliefs about the conflict.

The reason for this closure before alternative information is freezing of the societal beliefs of the narrative, which is the essence of barriers’ functioning (Kruglanski, Reference Kruglanski2004; Kruglanski & Webster, Reference Kruglanski, Gollwitzer and Bargh1996). The state of freezing is reflected in continuous reliance on the held societal beliefs that support the conflict, the reluctance to search for alternative information, and resistance to persuasive arguments that contradict held positions (Kruglanski, Reference Kruglanski2004; Kruglanski & Webster, Reference Kruglanski, Gollwitzer and Bargh1996; Kunda, Reference Kunda1990). The freezing of the societal beliefs of the culture of conflict is based on the operation of cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes and a number of socio-psychological factors (see also the integrative model of socio-psychological barriers to peacemaking in Bar-Tal & Halperin, 2011, for elaboration). In analyzing the cognitive processes, which I consider first, I focus on the rigid structure of societal beliefs.

Consequences of the freezing

The repertoire of the culture of conflict with its narratives, which is shared by many segments of the society involved in intractable conflict, serves as a prism through which group members view the world in general and view specifically all the issues related to conflict. The prism influences how society members construe their reality, collect new information, interpret their experiences, and then make decisions about their course of action. This is selective, biased, and distorting information processing, which reflects functioning of the socio-psychological barriers. There is selection of information, biased interpretation of information, addition of one's own knowledge for evaluation, and distortion of available information – all in order to inhibit the exposure, consideration, and acquisition of the alternative new information that sheds light on the conflict and the participating parties. On the psychological level, the held repertoire affects the way incoming information is anticipated, selectively attended to, encoded, interpreted, recalled, and acted upon. A series of specific consequences of freezing occurs on the individual level.³

Automatic activation of conflict-supporting beliefs of the culture of conflict tends to occur when cues about the conflict become salient (see, e.g., studies by Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, Reference Bargh, Chen and Burrows1996, and Devine, Reference Devine1989, which demonstrate automatic activation in a nonconflict situation). Being often used and maintained by public discourse and societal channels of information, these beliefs are readily accessible in the minds of group members. As they become accessible, they paint the absorbed information in line with their content. Moreover, accessibility of one theme of these beliefs serves to activate other themes even without society members’ awareness. In turn, the activated beliefs can then influence not only the specific information and stimuli one attends but also the ways in which this person interprets and reacts to subsequently encountered stimuli in a more general way (Bargh, Reference Bargh2007).

Selective attention affects society members who adhere to conflict-supporting beliefs because they are more sensitive to information that confirms these beliefs; in other words, they are selectively attentive in their information processing. They are actively searching for confirmatory information that provides validation to their views about the conflict and the rival group, identify it easily, and tend to absorb this information, being less open to alternative information (see, e.g., studies by Fiske, Reference Fiske, Gilbert, Fiske and Lindzey1998; Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, Reference Macrae, Milne and Bodenhausen1994; Stephan, 1989; Sweeney & Gruber, Reference Sweeney and Gruber1984; Vallone, Ross, & Lepper, Reference Vallone, Ross and Lepper1985, which demonstrates this selectivity in nonconflict situation). Sharvit (Reference Sharvit2008) demonstrates that individuals spend a longer time viewing the ethos-contradicting information than the ethos-consistent information and that this difference is greater in the high-stress than in the low-stress conditions, supporting the hypothesis that activation of the ethos in response to stress would hinder the processing of ethos-contradictory information.

Memorizationis another consequence according to which information that is consistent with conflict-supporting beliefs is more likely to be remembered, whereas inconsistent information is often neglected (see, e.g., Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, Reference Macrae, Milne and Bodenhausen1994; reviews by Rojahn & Pettigrew, Reference Rojahn and Pettigrew1992, and Stangor & McMillan, Reference Stangor and McMillan1992; and studies by De Dreu & Carnevale, Reference De Dreu and Carnevale2003).

Search of information that confirms their conflict-supporting beliefs is actively conducted by society members who hold conflict-supporting beliefs (see, e.g., Schultz-Hardt, Frey, Luthgens, & Moscovici, Reference Schultz-Hardt, Frey, Luthgens and Moscovici2000); in addition, they examine information that confirms these beliefs less critically (see, e.g., Ditto & Lopez, Reference Ditto and Lopez1992; Edwards & Smith, Reference Edwards and Smith1996). Thus, society members tend to accept more easily information that is consistent with the societal beliefs supporting the conflict without making efforts to validate it.

Interpretation and organization of new information by society members tend to be based on a framework that uses their conflict-supporting beliefs. (see, e.g., Feldman, 1988; Kimhi, Canetti-Nisim, & Hirschberger, Reference Kimhi, Canetti-Nisim and Hirschberger2009; Pfeifer & Ogloff, Reference Pfeifer and Ogloff1991; Rosenberg & Wolfsfeld, Reference Rosenberg and Wolfsfeld1977; Shamir & Shikaki, Reference Shamir and Shikaki2002; Sommers & Ellsworth, Reference Sommers and Ellsworth2000). Group members use a theory-driven strategy to absorb new information about the conflict in line with the dominant societal beliefs of the culture of conflict. Specifically, society members tend to use their conflict-supporting beliefs in making attributions, evaluations, judgments, or decisions about the conflict (see, e.g., Bartels, Reference Bartels2002; Sibley, Liu, Duckitt, Khan, Reference Sibley, Liu, Duckitt and Khan2008; Skitka, Mullen, Griffin, Hutchinson, & Chamberlin, Reference Skitka, Mullen, Griffin, Hutchinson and Chamberlin2002). In situations of intractable conflict, information is absorbed in specific ways: group members not only encode it in line with the view of the conflict but also tend to make inferences that go far beyond the data. They make evaluations, interpretations, and attributions that, for example, shed negative light on the rival group, in line with their held view. This tendency reflects biased and distorting information processing in which group members change and add elements to construct images that are consistent with their societal beliefs and emotions. The influence of their held repertoire on information processing is especially pronounced in situations in which the information is ambiguous. But when the repertoire is well established and institutionalized, as is the case in intractable conflicts, biased and distorting information processing also occurs even when information is unequivocal.

A study testing the interpretation and organization framework performed in the context of the Cold War demonstrates how group members go beyond the information they have and add interpretations that are in line with their psychological intergroup repertoire. In a study by Burn and Oskamp (Reference Burn and Oskamp1989), American students were asked to stereotype Soviet and American citizens and their governments. In addition, they were asked to explain four comparable acts by the Soviet Union or the United States in the international arena (e.g., the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and American invasion of Grenada, the Soviet presences in Poland and American support of Nicaraguan contras). They were supplied with four different reasons, which varied in terms of how favorable they were. The results first showed that the Soviets were evaluated negatively in absolute terms. Then, they showed that all four Soviet actions were evaluated negatively, whereas the actions of the United States, with one exception, were evaluated positively.

A similar study by Bar-Tal, Raviv, Raviv, and Degani-Hirsch (Reference Bar-Tal, Chernyak-Hai, Schori and Gundar2009) described in Chapter 5 clearly demonstrated how adherence to the ethos of conflict influences interpretation and organization of the new information. In this study, Israeli Jewish participants were shown four photos that depicted different Israeli-Palestinian encounters and were asked to evaluate the extent of aggressiveness of each side and then make attributions about the causes of the aggression. The results indicate that participants who hold a high level of societal belief of the ethos of conflict perceived Israeli Jews to be less aggressive and Palestinians to be more aggressive than participants who hold a low level of societal belief of the ethos of conflict. Also, participants with a higher ethos of conflict attributed in general more negative qualities to Palestinians and more positive qualities to Jews than participants with a lower ethos of conflict. Finally, more participants with a high level of ethos of conflict than participants with a low level of ethos of conflict attributed external causes to the Israeli Jews’ aggression, internal causes to the Palestinians’ aggression, unstable-circumstantial causes to the Israeli Jews’ aggression, uncontrollable causes to the Israeli Jews’ aggression, and controllable causes to the Palestinians’ aggression.

Expectationsare based on the conflict-supporting beliefs of society members, who tend to expect particular events, behaviors of the rival and other groups, and experiences – all associated with the conflict (see, e.g., Darley & Gross, Reference Darley and Gross1983; Hamilton, Sherman, & Ruvolo, Reference Hamilton, Sherman and Ruvolo1990). Such expectations may cause the self-fulfilling-prophecy phenomenon. In expecting negative intentions and behavior, society members themselves behave toward the rival group in a negative way (Kelman, Reference Kelman1997). This behavior instigates hostile reactions by the rival. In turn, the hostile behavior of the rival confirms the initial expectations. In effect, this circle of mutual expectations and behaviors leads to a vicious hostile cycle and validates the societal beliefs of the culture of conflict (see the analysis of Hamilton et al., Reference Hamilton, Sherman and Ruvolo1990, and Jussim & Fleming, Reference Jussim, Fleming, Macrae, Stangor and Hewstone1996).

Behavioral guidance indicates that society members tend to be guided by the conflict-supporting beliefs in their behavior (Jost, Reference Jost2006). This guidance means that societal beliefs of the culture of conflict play a determinative role in the decision about courses of action taken by the society on an individual and collective level. Being ideological, they provide the direction for action. This particular premise serves as a basis of numerous case studies that present how leaders determine policies and implement them in line with their ideological beliefs, which supported continuation of the conflict even when their decisions were detrimental to their groups (see, e.g., Barber, Reference Barber1999, in the case of the policies of the National Party in the South African conflict; Horne, Reference Horne2006, in the case of French policies in the war in Algeria; and Maoz, 2009, in the case of the Israeli policies regarding the Israeli-Arab conflict).

In addition to these consequences of freezing, various specific phenomena elucidated by social and political psychologists take place in conflict situations and illustrate the selective, biased, and distortive information processing (see also Fisher & Kelman, Reference Fisher, Kelman and Bar-Tal2011).

False polarization indicates that groups in conflict tend to exaggerate their disagreements, especially on key issues (Chambers, Baron, & Inman, Reference Chambers, Baron and Inman2006; Keltner & Robinson, Reference Keltner and Robinson1993; Thompson & Nadler, Reference Thompson, Nadler, Deutsch and Coleman2000). This notable example of cognitive bias is based on a held psychological repertoire about the ingroup, the outgroup, and the nature of the relations between them. It gives expression to exaggerated disparity in the basic goals, values, beliefs, and positions, and therefore it increases the perception of the level of disagreement, with serious implications. With this perception, societies in conflict and their leaders may not begin negotiations because they assume a disparity that cannot be easily closed. Rouhana and his colleagues (Rouhana, O’Dwyer, Morrison, & Vaso, Reference Rouhana, O'Dwyer and Morrison Vaso1997) found in a study conducted among Jews and Arabs in the Middle-East that this tendency is much more common among supporters of less conciliatory political parties (i.e., hawks) than among supporters of more conciliatory political parties (i.e., doves).

Bias perceptionis part of a larger set of biases Ross and Ward (Reference Ross, Ward and Zanna1995, 1996) originally defined as “naïve realism” and reflects a tendency for people to assume that their perceptions and judgments are more objective and attuned to reality than the differing perceptions and judgments of their peers. This tendency may be amplified in conflict situations in which people tend to perceive their opponents as being biased, and this perception causes them to act in a violent way, which escalates the confrontations (Pronin, Gilovich, & Ross, Reference Pronin, Gilovich and Ross2004). Three studies by Kennedy and Pronin (Reference Kennedy and Pronin2008) demonstrate that people perceive those who disagree with them as biased, use conflict-escalating approaches, and eventually act toward them in a conflictive way.

Double standard indicates that a judgment or an evaluation of similar acts by the ingroup and by the rival is done with two different standards favoring the ingroup. This bias is well demonstrated in the study by Sande et al. (Reference Sande, Goethals, Ferrari and Worth1989) done during the Cold War in 1985, in which American high school and college students gave opposing explanations of similar acts performed by either the Soviet Union or the United States (a positive act of smashing ice fields to allow whales to reach an open sea and a negative act of building a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines). The results indicate that the positive act was evaluated as more typical of Americans than of Soviets and different attributions were put forward. While the actions of the United States were attributed to the positive moral characteristics of the Americans, the same acts of the Soviet Union were attributed to the self-serving and negative motives of the Russians in line with their enemy image (e.g., Ashmore, Bird, Del-Boca, & Vanderet, Reference Ashmore, Bird, Del-Boca and Vanderet1979; Burn & Oskamp, Reference Burn and Oskamp1989; Oskamp, Reference Oskamp1965; Oskamp & Levenson, Reference Oskamp and Levenson1968).

Moral amplification refers to “the motivated separation and exaggeration of good and evil in the explanation of behavior” (Haidt & Algoe, Reference Haidt, Algoe, Greenberg, Koole and Pyszczynski2004, p. 323). This cognitive motivation implies that members of societies involved in violent conflicts tend to view their conflict as a confrontation between good and evil (White, Reference White2004). They maximize the differences between them and the rival group and polarize the entire view of the conflict as a battle of benevolence against malevolence in which their group is the guardian of the goodness and righteousness and the rival represents wickedness and malice.

Correspondence bias is found in cases in which the negative behavior of the rival group is attributed to personal characteristics, while situational factors are disregarded. This bias reflects the tendency of perceivers to draw correspondent depositional inferences from other people's behaviors even when the observed behavior is highly constrained by situational factors (Gawronksi, 2004). This tendency is even more profound because the attribution to the personal characteristics is often made to innate dispositions (Dweck, Reference Dweck1999). This attribution implies that the rival group will not change but will remain evil. This perception precludes making peace with the rival because nobody negotiates with a collective that is evil (Dweck & Ehrlinger, Reference Dweck, Ehrlinger, Deutsch, Coleman and Marcus2006). A study by Hunter, Stringer, and Watson (Reference Hunter, Stringer and Watson1991) demonstrates this misperception. The researchers approached Catholic and Protestant students in Northern Ireland, presented them newsreel footage showing scenes of violence performed by Protestants and Catholics, and asked them to explain why the involved people behaved in the depicted way. The results showed clearly that the violence of the ingroup was attributed to external causes such as “retaliation” or “fear of being attacked,” whereas the violence of the outgroup was attributed to internal dispositions such as being a “psychopath” or having “blood lust.” A study by Bar-Tal, Raviv, Raviv, and Dgani-Hirsch (Reference Bar-Tal, Chernyak-Hai, Schori and Gundar2009) noted earlier found that the attribution of violence to innate dispositions of Arabs is much more prevalent among Jews who adhere the societal belief of the ethos of conflict than among those who do not (see also Taylor & Jaggi, Reference Taylor and Jaggi1974).

Homogenizing the rival is another misperception that leads to intensification of the conflict. It indicates viewing the rival group as being a homogeneous collective entity with uniform goals, values, beliefs, or needs – all united with the intention of carrying on the conflict and harming the ingroup (see Linville, Fischer, & Salavoy, Reference Linville, Fischer and Salavoy1989; Quattrone & Jones, Reference Quattrone and Jones1980). In reality, in many of the cases, groups have at least some disagreements and sometimes even have major differences regarding the how to manage and resolve the conflict. Also, the societies participating in intractable conflict are by their nature heterogeneous with subgroups that differ with regard to many characteristics. The misperceived homogenization not only justifies generalized harm of the rival but also inhibits peacemaking because rival subgroups that potentially can be partners are not detected.

Biased assimilation plays an important role in the conflict situation as it leads society members to evaluate beliefs-consistent information more positively than beliefs-inconsistent information (Greitemeyer, Fischer, Frey, & Schulz-Hardt, Reference Greitemeyer, Fischer, Frey and Schulz-Hardt2009). This bias reinforces adherence to societal beliefs feeding the conflict and prevents their replacement with new beliefs that support peacemaking.

Self-focusis another bias in information processing, which emphasizes one's own needs and goals and disregards empathetic information about the rival. Society members focus on the goals of the conflict and conditions that are functional to their achievement as well as to the survival of the group. They view themselves as victims of the conflict who are unjustly and intentionally harmed. Mack (Reference Mack, Volkan, Julius and Montville1990) observes that a society engulfed by the deep sense of being a victim narrows its perspective to its own needs and goals, focuses on its own fate, and is completely preoccupied with its own suffering, developing what he called an “egoism of victimhood.” A collective in this state is unable to see things from the rival group's perspective, empathize with its suffering, and accept responsibility for harm inflicted by its own group (Čehajić & Brown, Reference Čehajić and Brown2008; Chaitin & Steinberg, Reference Chaitin and Steinberg2008; Staub, Reference Staub2006).

Moral entitlement, defined as a conviction that the society is allowed to use whatever means necessary to ensure its safety, with little regard to moral norms, is another consequence of the way society members involved in intractable conflict process information. This perspective develops in view of the conflict-supporting repertoire that focuses on the justness of conflict goals, collective victimhood, and delegitimization of the rival. It is the combination of these core societal beliefs that indicates to society members that they have just goals, they are the victims, and the opponent is evil and not only is trying to prevent the achievement of just goals but also commits immoral acts of violence. It is thus not surprising that this framing frees the society from the limitations of moral considerations that usually limit its scope of action. It allows some freedom of action because the society believes that it needs to defend itself to prevent immoral and destructive behavior of the rival. Survival is the overriding consideration.

An example of moral entitlement is the memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, which in 1986 argued that “Serbia must not be passive and wait and see what the others will say, as it has done so often in the past.” Similarly, in 1973 Israel's prime minister Golda Meir responded to international criticism by making a statement to “those who are trying to preach to us now.…You didn't come to the help of millions of Jews in the Holocaust…you don't have the right to preach” (Haaretz, April 29, 1973). Recently, Israel justified the harm inflicted on the Palestinians in Gaza by referring to the continuous bombardment with Palestinian rockets. A society may thus use the sense of being the victim in a conflict as a reason for rejecting pressures from the international community and to justify taking unrestrained courses of action. According to Schori-Eyal, Klar, and Roccas (Reference Schori-Eyal, Klar and Roccas2011), the sense of self-perceived collective victimhood is positively associated with the feeling of moral entitlement and negatively associated with group-based guilt over Israel's actions in the occupied territories. It is also related to a willingness to continue military operations and other actions punishing the enemy group.

Moral disengagement frees society members from feelings of guilt and other thoughts and emotions that are usually felt when a group acts immo-rally. Bandura (Reference Bandura1990, Reference Bandura1999) called this reaction moral disengagement because harm and violence against the rival do not activate empathetic reactions that usually make it difficult to mistreat a group without risking personal distress. As with moral entitlement, the core societal beliefs of the conflict-supporting repertoire – justness of one's own goals, perception of self-collective victimhood, and delegitimization of the rival – serve as a buffer against group-based negative thoughts and feelings. In other words, feelings of guilt and shame, moral considerations, or a positive collective self-view as human safeguards of humane conduct fails to operate (see Castano, Reference Castano2008; Wohl & Branscombe, Reference Wohl, Branscombe, Wayment and Bauer2008).

Studies show that delegitimization of a target is related to moral disengagement and increases aggressive behavior (e.g., Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli, & Regalia, Reference Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli and Regalia2001; Bandura, Underwood, & Fromson, Reference Bandura, Underwood and Fromson1975). Castano and Giner-Sorolla (Reference Castano and Giner-Sorolla2006) report that individuals tend to delegitimize even group members who are considered victims as a method to morally disengage and relieve the distress of cognitive confrontation with immoral acts performed by one's own group. Bernard, Ottenberg, and Redl (Reference Bernard, Ottenberg, Redl and Schwebel2003, p. 64) propose that dehumanization should also be seen as a defense mechanism against overwhelming emotions that lead to bad feelings and thus allow maltreatment and even destruction of other groups; then negative and even evil behaviors “may be carried out or acquiesced in with relative freedom for restraints of conscience or feeling of brotherhood.” Grossman (Reference Grossman1995) notes that delegitimization is one of the psychological mechanisms that allows soldiers to kill soldiers of the rival group. It is delegitimization of the rival that provides a moral permit to kill them because they are reduced to social categories that can be exterminated (Bar-Tal & Hammack, Reference Bar-Tal, Hammack and Tropp2012). Similarly, the sense of victimhood also allows moral disengagement to protect the group members’ self-esteem and prevent feelings of guilt for committing harmful acts against the other group, acts that take place regularly in intractable conflict (Bar-Tal, Chernyak-Hai, Schori, & Gundar, Reference Bar-Tal, Chernyak-Hai, Schori and Gundar2009; Branscombe, Reference Branscombe, Branscombe and Doosje2004; Branscombe, Schmitt, & Schiffhauer, Reference Branscombe, Schmitt and Schiffhauer2007; Branscombe, Ellemers, Spears, & Doosje, Reference Branscombe, Ellemers, Spears, Doosje, Ellemers, Spears and Doosje1999). When the ingroup's victimization is made salient, individuals reported less group-based guilt in response to violence perpetrated by their ingroup against the rival.

Čehajić and Brown (Reference Čehajić and Brown2008) argue that through moral disengagement the perception of victimhood serves the function of justifying ingroup negative behavior after it has occurred and as such undermines one's readiness to acknowledge ingroup responsibility for committed misdeeds. Serbian adolescents who believe that their group is the victim (in the 1991–1995 war) and has suffered more than members of the other groups are less willing to acknowledge their group's responsibility for atrocities committed against others. Also, another study conducted in connection with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict indicates a strong association between a sense of victimhood among Israeli Jewish respondents and reduced group-based guilt over Israel's actions against the Palestinians (Schori-Eyal, Klar, & Roccas, Reference Schori-Eyal, Halperin and Bar-Tal2011). Those who had a high sense of victimhood expressed less guilt, less moral accountability, and less willingness to compensate Palestinians for harmful acts by Israel. They also used more exonerating cognitions, or justifications, such as “Under the circumstances, any other state would treat the Palestinians in the same way” and “I believe the Palestinians brought their current situations upon themselves.”Finally, a work of Greenbaum and Elizur (Reference Greenbaum, Elizur, Bar-Tal and Schnell2013) about psychological effects of occupation on the Israeli society reviews studies that show a clear moral disengagement phenomenon. That is, soldiers in the Israeli army who were able to disconnect themselves from moral considerations were the ones who did not experience guilt and therefore were able to carry out immoral acts against the Palestinian civilian population.

Perception of ingroup uniqueness is another consequence of focus on the dominant societal beliefs of the culture of conflict. Society members in intractable conflict tend to believe that their conflict is unique: society members believe that people who are not ingroup members cannot understand the particular conflict context of the ingroup; and it is impossible to learn anything about their own conflict from other conflicts. This view leads them to focus on their own fate and causes them to limit their view of the context. This uniqueness prevents society members from learning about other conflicts, their negative outcomes, and destructive processes, as well as ways to advance peacemaking. Merom (Reference Merom, Bar-Tal, Jacobson and Klieman1998) analyzes this perception by Israeli Jews and noted its negative consequences.

Reactive devaluation is another consequence of the way society members involved in conflict process information. Reactive devaluation suggests that a specific package deal or compromise offer is evaluated in accordance to what side proposed it. When the offer is proposed by one's own side, it is accepted, but when the same offer is proposed by the rival, it is rejected (Maoz, Reference Maoz2006; Ross, Reference Ross, Ward and Zanna1995). Maoz, Ward, Katz, and Ross (Reference Maoz, Ward, Katz and Ross2002) shows that Israeli Jews evaluated an actual Israeli-authored peace plan less favorably when it was presented as being a Palestinian plan. They also showed that the evaluation of the proposal was much more negative among extremist Jews and Arabs (hawks) than among doves from the same sides, implying interaction between enduring political positions and the process of reactive devaluation.

Two additional relevant cognitive biases are optimistic overconfidence (Kahneman & Tversky, Reference Kahneman, Tversky, Arrow, Mnookin, Ross, Tversky and Wilson1995), which means that parties involved in conflicts tend to overestimate the chances of prevailing in the absence of a negotiated settlement; and loss aversion (Kahneman & Tversky, Reference Kahneman and Tversky1984), whereby parties tend to reject resolution proposals because they attach greater weight to prospective losses than to prospective gains.

At present, there is a relative lack of systematic empirical research that examines comprehensively various societal beliefs of the repertoire of conflict, their rigidity, and their functioning in real-life contexts. But there are numerous references to beliefs and emotions, as well as to deficient information processing, that fuel continuation of the conflict and prevent its peaceful resolution (see, e.g., Chirot & Seligman, Reference Chirot and Seligman2001; Frank, Reference Frank1967; Heradstveit, Reference Heradstveit1981; Kriesberg, Reference Kriesberg2007; Lake & Rothchild, Reference Lake and Rothchild1998; Petersen, Reference Petersen2002; Sandole, Reference Sandole1999; Vertzberger, Reference Vertzberger1991; Volkan, Reference Volkan1997; White, Reference White1970, Reference White1984). For example, Jervis (Reference Jervis1976) provides numerous case studies that demonstrate the selective, biased, and distortive information in the realm of international relations, including many conflict situations.

In sum, this description of the psychological functioning of the socio-psychological barriers suggests that the handling of the information by society members involved in intractable conflict is characterized by top-down processing. This process is affected more by information that fits the contents of the conflict-supporting beliefs and less by information that contradicts these beliefs. That is to say, in harsh conflicts socio-psychological barriers that tend to “close minds” and facilitate tunnel vision evolve, precluding the contemplation of incongruent information and alternative approaches to the conflict. They often prevent even an entertainment of ideas that may initiate a peacemaking process.

To conclude this discussion, I present some additional socio-psychological processes of closure – the phenomena of conformity, obedience, and self-censorship.

Socio-Psychological Processes of Closure

Implications

On a macrosocietal level, when the culture of conflict evolves to be hegemonic, then its societal beliefs are held centrally by society members and shared by them. These beliefs are then chronically accessible, which allows functional structure and organization of reality. The result of these tendencies is freezing, closure, resistance to new ideas, and fixation on the societal beliefs of the culture of conflict. Eventually the societal beliefs of the culture of conflict become lenses though which society members view the reality of the conflict.

On a general psychological level, this processing leads to selective collection of information, as group members tend to search for and absorb information that is in line with the repertoire and omit contradictory information, which is viewed as invalid. But even when ambiguous or contradictory information is absorbed, it is encoded and cognitively processed in accordance with the held repertoire through bias, addition, and distortion. Bias leads to a focus on the consistent part of the absorbed information that disregards the inconsistent part, or to interpretation of ambiguous information in line with the held repertoire. Addition occurs when society members go beyond the acquired information and supplement it to be consistent with the repertoire. Distortion indicates a change of the absorbed information, even when it is unambiguous, to adapt it to the contents of the held repertoire. It is thus not surprising that information processing can lead to such phenomena as double standards, reactive evaluation, perception of self-uniqueness, self-focus, false consensus, and disregard of empathy for the rival. The information processing construes the conflict situation in black-and-white terms as threatening, dangerous, explosive, and menacing. The rival group is perceived in delegitimizing terms. In general, this view of reality results in complete self-focus, self-positive image, and concentration on one's own needs in coping successfully with the conflict situation. The dominant view of reality disregards any sensitivity, consideration, or empathy to the needs of the rival. Even meeting the rival's basic needs is considered as opposing the supreme goal of containing the enemy.

Thus, it is not surprising that the hegemonic culture of conflict feeds the continuation of the conflict and at the same time is its consequence. A vicious cycle is formed. This is the socio-psychological essence of the intractable conflicts, as both sides evolve opposing socio-psychological infrastructures – opposing worldviews, opposing narratives – which consist of collective memories and societal beliefs, so that both sides view the same events very differently. They also view each other negatively in a mirror image. These views underlie the decision to carry out more violence, which in turn serves as evidence to the other group for the validity of its view, and thus the experiences strengthen the view of the conflict.

This view of the conflict is held not only by individual society members but also by societies, which make an effort to maintain it as a repertoire of society members. To achieve this goal they often employ various societal mechanisms to assure that the hegemonic narrative will remain, to impart it to the new generations, and to repeatedly use it in various societal socialization practices such as ceremonies and speeches. In such a climate, society members themselves not only spread the message of the conflict but also, being aware of the consequences of bringing alternative ideas, exercise psychological methods to avoid doing so.

From a more microlevel perspective, one can look on the elaborated barriers as characterizing different society members. That is, the list of different obstacles to peacemaking elucidated here is not intended to suggest that all of them function in one individual. The list outlines salient obstacles, and we can infer that they operate differently in different society members. Thus, for example, while some can be greatly affected by the dogmatic adherence to the ethos of conflict and especially by the societal beliefs of collective victimhood, others may be affected by perceptions of threat, which causes fear and insecurity, and still others may be motivated by profiting in various ways from the continuation of the conflict. Clearly, those socio-psychological obstacles are not mutually exclusive, and some society members may be blocked in their freezing by a number of them. This conception suggests that society members have different underlying foundations to their rigid and dogmatic view of the conflict and to their objection to its peaceful settlement. Some can be guided more by an ideological motivational vector, others by an emotional vector, still others by a utilitarian one. Thus, although these society members who object to peaceful resolution of the conflict are united in their view, their needs and motivations to this position are different. This observation has important implications for attempts to change the view of society members in order to persuade them to support a peacemaking process.

The questions thus that can always be raised are to what extent the repertoire supporting the conflict is hegemonic and held by a great majority of society members. What is its psychological basis? How strongly do they adhere to it? What layers of a society support it firmly? What are the alternative views in a society? How prevalent are alternative views? Who is holding them, and how much influence do they have? What factors that facilitate development of alternative views about the conflict support its peaceful resolution with the necessary compromises? These questions come to examine the extent, intensity, and dominance of views that feed the continuation of the conflict.

I realize that this macroanalysis is a pessimistic view of intractable conflicts. But it is necessary to realize that these conflicts last many decades, at least partially because of the described socio-psychological dynamics, which over many years play an important role in their continuation. Obviously, they do not characterize all society members in all the intractable conflicts. Conflicts differ with the dominance of these processes. But when we take into account the durability of these conflicts at their peaks, these dynamics are dominant and characterize the leaders involved. Nevertheless, some societies develop openness and also examine their conflict-supporting beliefs, and some may even move toward peaceful resolution of the intractable conflict. The crucial question, then, is how to break the cycles of violence of intractable conflict and launch a peacemaking process that will bring about a compromising settlement that satisfies the basic, justified needs of both rival societies. The next chapter begins to tell the story of peace building, which is most often a long and complex process.

Figure 2. Socializing Society Members: Activation of Societal Barriers

Figure 3. Individual Socio-Psychological Barriers to Peaceful Conflict Resolution