Two paths to violence: Individual versus group emotions during conflict escalation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Year: 2024
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Experiencing repression creates intense emotions and raises dilemmas about handling political action to achieve social change. Past studies suggest that mainly group-based emotions are associated with support for violent collective action while the exact influence of individual emotions remains unclear. This research compares the association of individual- versus group-based emotions with violent collective action while examining conflict context as the moderating factor. We propose to distinguish two context aspects—collective versus personal threat—determining the relative impact of individual versus group emotions on support for violence. We conducted two quantitative field studies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories during different types of conflict experience, defined by either prevalent personally experienced threat versus elevated collectively experienced threat (Study 1), or both (Study 2). Results indicate that for mainly collectively experienced threat, group (but not individual) emotions predicted violent collective action, while for personally experienced threat, individual (but not group) emotions predicted violent engagement.
Authors: Oliver Fink, Siwar Hasan Aslih, Eran Halperin
Institutions: Stanford University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4402576236