Correlates of Readiness for

Interethnic Relations of Israeli Jews

and Arabs

SALOMI SIMON
JM40516 (MCCOM)
UNIVERSITI PUTRA MALAYSIA

Main idea of the journal article

Introduction
Problem only measures the prejudice (distancing)
held by members of the majority group toward
members of one or more minority groups.

Current Research
Index of prejudice - Bogardus Scale of Social
Distance.

Solution - modified the Scale to emphasize

personal readiness for entering into increasingly
intimate social relations with members of the
out-group, rather than distancing oneself from
these relations.

Interethnic prejudice
Other problems with index
Western democratic societies are less likely to say
racist things although they may think them (laws
against racism);
Social distance may have different meanings for
ethnic groups engaged in ethno-national conflicts
(e.g., Kurds in Turkey, French separatists in
Canada);
Responses regarding readiness for social relations
with the out-group changes with the situation.

First Goal: Psychosocial and Ideological

Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic
Relations of the modified Bogardus Scale
The psycho-social variables used:
1. Frequency and importance of social contact
2. Personal and Expected Readiness for
Interethnic Relations
3. Ethno-cultural Empathy

First Goal: Psychosocial and Ideological

Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic
Relations
The psycho-social variables
1. Frequency and importance of social contact
Contact importance is defined as the subjective
appraisal of a valuable interpersonal relationship that
is functional for the individuals goals
In other words how important is the individual
relationship?

First Goal: Psychosocial and Ideological

Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic
Relations
This study tested this by assessing in a
majority and a minority group context and
comparing the frequency of interethnic
contact versus the importance attributed by
each group to relations with the other.

First Goal: Psychosocial and Ideological

Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic
Relations
Historically the immigration of Jews into the
country, the wars, and the emigration of local
Arabs out of the country created a Jewish
majority in numbers (nearly six million, or
80%) in Israel, and yet at the same time they
are a minuscule minority (2%) in a region
peopled by nearly 300 million Arabs.

First Goal: Psychosocial and Ideological

Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic
Relations
The researchers expected: If Jews behave as a
typical majority and Arabs as a typical
minority group, we would expect the Jews to
be less ready than the Arabs for interethnic
relations.

First Goal: Psychosocial and Ideological

Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic
Relations
The psycho-social variables
1. Frequency and importance of social contact
This study tested this by assessing in a majority
and a minority group context and comparing the
frequency of interethnic contact versus the
importance attributed by each group to
relations with the other.

First Goal: Psychosocial and Ideological Correlates

of Readiness for Interethnic Relations

The psycho-social variables

2. Personal and Expected Readiness for
Interethnic Relations

Personal and Expected Readiness for

Interethnic Relations
Current research focuses on affect-laden
variables influencing intentions and judgments
of intentions eg., stereotype threat; interethnic
anxiety; and intergroup anxiety.
The problem is they are not equivalent to
judgments of the intentions of others.

Personal and Expected Readiness for

Interethnic Relations
The solution is to obtain from members of each
ethnic group their judgment as to the readiness
of the other group to accept them and to compare
within each group their personal readiness for
these relations and their anticipation or
expectation that the other group is equally ready.

Examples of Scales for Personal and Expected

Readiness for Interethnic Relations
Each of these scales consisted of five social interactions arranged in order of
increasingly intimate association:
1. ready to work along side members of the other group,
2. ready to invite them as guests in my home or have them as friends,
3. ready to have them as neighbours residing in my community,
4. ready in the future for my children to be friends with their children,
5. ready in the future for one of my children or the children of family members to
marry a member of the other group.

Participants were instructed to indicate what they perceived to be

the intentions of members of the other group taken as a whole,
and not the intentions of any particular person.
Each scale had five items and a six-point response scale from
strong disagreement (1) to strong agreement (6).

First Goal: Psychosocial and Ideological

Correlates of Readiness for Interethnic
Relations
The psycho-social variables
1. Ethno-cultural Empathy

Ethno-cultural Empathy
Problem: Most of the research on intergroup
relations has been restricted to assessing the
majority groups readiness for establishing these
relations. It was assumed that the minority group
will reciprocate the overtures made by the
majority group.
Solution: Test the bilateral reciprocity of personal
readiness of members of either group to accept
members of the other group in increasingly intimate
relationships versus their expectation that the other
group is ready for intimate social relations with them.

Ethno-cultural Empathy
Measured
four categories:
How: Researchers
constructed ethnic-specific
Affective empathy (9 items): I am moved when I see films or read about the
scales
for Jewish and Arab students to assess
discrimination against Arabs and the suffering it causes them. [Jewish Scale]
aspects
ofabout
empathy
toward
theduring
manifestations
I am moved when I see
films or read
the suffering
of the Jews
the Second World War. [Arab Scale]
other
group.
2. Cognitive empathy (7 items): I dont understand why Arabs maintain their
ethnic customs rather than become part of the culture of the modern world
(reversed) [Jewish Scale]
I dont understand why Jews maintain their ethnic customs rather than
become integrated within the major (cultural) trends in the Middle East.
(Reversed) [Arab Scale]
3. Inter-ethnic discomfort (2 items): I get nervous when I find that
everybody around me is speaking Arabic/Hebrew. (Reversed) [Both Scales]
4. Participation (6 items): I speak up in public about my concern about
discrimination against Arabs [Jewish Scale]

First Goal: Ideological Correlates of Readiness for

Interethnic Relations

The Effect of Ideology on Interethnic Relations

(a) a general non-specific measure of a liberal
versus a conservative orientation; and
A liberal orientation emphasizes social tolerance, positive
attitudes toward minorities, and a professed intention to
right the wrongs done to disadvantaged and exploited
minorities more than a conservative orientation.

Eg: At times there is no alternative to the use of force to resolve

First
Goal: Ideological
Correlates
of Readiness for
hostile
confrontations
between countries
(conservative)
Relations
The government mustInterethnic
grant citizenship
to all who reside within its
borders without regard for their beliefs, religion, or ethnicity (liberal)

The problem with general non-specific measure of a

liberal versus a conservative orientation it makes no
reference, however, to the ongoing conflict between Jews
and Arabs
Solution needed a context-specific ideological measure that
makes explicit reference to the Arab-Israeli conflict and its
ramifications.
Argued that it is more strongly associated with readiness for
social relations with the other group than the general ideological
measure.

Examples: A context-specific measure of

ideologically based attitudes about resolution
of the Israeli-Palestinian/Arab conflict
I am ashamed about the way my government treats
the Palestinian people who are fighting for their own
independence (Jewish scale - liberal)
The Jewish people are accustomed for centuries to
live in many different countries and they have no
right to establish a Jewish State here at our expense
(Arab scale, conservative)

Second Goal:
The Social Contract Underlying
Readiness for Interethnic Relations
One way to conceptualize current and future
states of social interaction between groups is
in terms of contracts. Two used:
A relational contract;
A transactional contract.
The second goal of the research was to identify in Jews and Arabs
the type of contract underlying the professed readiness for
increasingly intimate social relations.

A relational contract
A relational contract is defined as a mutually
gratifying relationship that provides emotional
as well as material benefits such that it survives
changes in the circumstancescultural,
educational, economic, political, or ideological
of one or both parties to the contract.
Relational contracts exist at the family, group,
or international levels.

Transactional contracts
Persist only until circumstances permit either party to
cancel the contract and to behave in a different manner.
Transactional contracts are common and are commonly
broken. The relationship of management, union leaders, and
workers changes in times of economic prosperity and of
economic depression.
Conflicts at the international level erupt when ethnic
majorities or minorities become able and willing to
subjugate, expel, or exterminate the other group, such as the
conflicts in Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia in the former
Yugoslavia.

Hypothesis 1
People are more ready to engage in increasingly intimate
relations with members of the other group when certain
conditions exist. They:
consider relations with other group are important,
anticipate reciprocal readiness from members of the other
group,
understand the culture and perspectives of the other group,
and are affectively sensitive to their grievances.
espouse a general liberal ideology and a specific contextrelevant liberal position on resolution of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.

Hypothesis 2
(with assumptions)

If the psychosocial and ideological correlates are

relatively permanent and not easily subject to
change, and that the people profess a readiness
for relations with the other group, it is
hypothesised that the level of professed
readiness for intergroup relations is probably
genuine, stable and consistent with a relational
contract.

Methodology
Participants in the first study, conducted in January
February of 2005, were 60 Muslim Arab citizens and 65
Jewish citizens, half men and half women. [Goal One]
Participants in the second study, conducted in April
June of 2005, were 60 Muslim Arabs and 60 Jews.
[Goal Two]
Christian Arab students were not included in this study
because they are a small minority (4%) who suffer
varying degrees of discrimination at the hands of
Muslim Arabs (16%) and Jews (80%).

Methodology
A mixed multiple analysis of variance was
conducted.

First Goal Findings General Personal

and Expected Readiness
The analysis of readiness interaction showed that Arabs
were higher in personal than in expected readiness while
Jews were at the same level of readiness for personal and
expected readiness.
These findings are consistent with the Arabs adopting a
minority perspective about their own intentions as
compared with those they attribute to the nominal majority.
By contrast, the Jews do not appear to be adopting a
majority perspective in this analysis: they declare they are
as ready for interethnic relations as they expect the Arabs to
be.

First Goal
Findings Personal
Readiness
Personal
readiness
Personal readiness:
for interethnic relations was correlated with cultural empathy, ideology
measures, and frequency and importance of contact in both groups.
more strongly correlated with contact importance than with contact
frequency for Jews, but no difference for Arabs.
more strongly correlated with context-specific measure of ideology
(conflict resolution) than with a general measure of ideology for Jews
but no significant difference for Arabs.
was correlated with peaceful conflict resolution and importance of
social contact but lower for Arabs than for Jews
was correlated with expected readiness for interethnic relations very
highly for Jews but not for Arabs.

Implications of First Goal Findings:

Psychosocial and Ideological Correlates of
Readiness for Interethnic Relations
1. If members of one group are exposed to the
perspectives, concerns and experiences of the other,
cultural empathy with the out-group will be enhanced
and with it, greater readiness for positive relations with
the out-group.
2. If we accept the findings at face value, we conclude that
absence of a relationship between personal readiness for
interethnic relations today and personal readiness for
expulsion tomorrow is possible only if there are more
sub-groups among Arabs than among Jews

Second Goal Findings:

The Social Contract Underlying Readiness for
Interethnic Relations
For Jews, personal readiness for relations with
Arabs was highly correlated in a negative
direction with personal readiness to expel the
Arabs from Israel, findings consistent with a
relational contract.
For Arabs, the absence of a significant relation
between personal readiness for relations and
personal readiness to expel the Jews is
consistent with a transactional contract.

Implications of Second Goal Findings:

The Social Contract Underlying Readiness for
Interethnic Relations

When people are ready to make contact with the

other group and believe the other group will
reciprocate, they are party to perceived bilateral
reciprocity and to a relational contract. They are
ready to do what they perceive the out-group to be
ready to do.
This finding also cuts in the opposite direction:
Those who reject relations with the out-group
expect the out-group to reject relations with them.

Conclusion
We recommend that psychosocial research on ethnonational conflicts include designs and measures that
assess the long-term stability of intergroup intentions
professed by parties to the conflict.
(How: By constructing specific scales that include
the specific conflict)