Jerusalem, Dome of the Rock. Neufal54 on Pixabay
Muslim Palestinians and Jewish Israelis think that the other’s belief in God encourages generosity and benevolence during interactions between the two groups, according to new research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
The research, conducted between 2019 and 2020, shows that, in experiments, religious Palestinians and Jewish Israelis predict that when an individual from the other group believes in God, that belief motivates them to be more financially generous in intergroup exchanges and place greater value on the others’ lives.
In one experiment, religious Muslim Palestinians and Jewish Israelis correctly (1) predicted that when an individual from the other group thought about their God, they would be more generous when sharing a set amount of money between themselves and an individual from the other group, than when they did not think about God (2).
Jeremy Ginges, Professor in Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and one of the authors of the paper, said: “This finding suggests that both Muslim Palestinians and Jewish Israelis thought that the other group’s belief in God - even though it differed from their own belief - encourages cooperative and trusting economic interactions between members of these ethno-religious groups.”
In another experiment Jewish Israelis were asked to predict how Muslim Palestinians would respond to a moral dilemma in which they had to decide whether a Muslim Palestinian man should sacrifice his life to save children from a life-threatening situation. The children were Muslim Palestinian in one scenario and Jewish Israeli children in another. The participants were asked to make a second prediction regarding what Palestinian Muslims would say about Allah’s preferences in these dilemmas.
Jewish Israelis believed that Muslim Palestinians would think that Allah would prefer them to give higher value to the lives of both Jewish Israeli and Muslim Palestinian children. They predicted that 31 per cent of Muslim Palestinians would say that the man should save the children – both Muslim and Jewish – whereas they thought that 42 per cent of Muslim Palestinians would say that God would want the man to save the children – an 11 percentage point difference.
Professor Ginges said: “We were initially surprised that religious Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims view one another’s God as encouraging benevolence to the other, given that conflict in the region is often framed as being religiously motivated. Our findings have important implications for policymakers’ and the public’s understanding of the role of religious belief in intergroup conflict and cooperation. It’s clear that politics should not be confused with religion.”
Crystal Shackleford, postdoctoral associate in psychology at Yale University and first author of the study said: “The bedrock assumption has been that differences in religion are motivating factors in the hostilities, that the differences are ancient and intractable. What we found is that people in the middle of the conflict do not think that the God of the other is motivating aggression.
“If we understand that Palestinians and Israelis don’t necessarily believe that religion must motivate bias, we can expand our scope to alternative, structural understandings. Instead of seeing Palestinians and Israelis as being doomed in a religious conflict, we can focus on political causes, claims, and potential solutions as a path forward towards peace and justice.”
The paper, ‘A case of positive intergroup meta-perceptions: Palestinians and Israelis believe the other’s God encourages intergroup benevolence’is by: Crystal M. Shackleford (lead author); Michael H. Pasek; Allon Vishkin; and Jeremy Ginges.