Psychology Department

Nations mired in prolonged conflict develop and disseminate societal beliefs to address society's needs. These beliefs are also used to garner support in the international arena.

Two key beliefs commonly voiced to the international community by leaders of rival parties concern the threats posed to their nation and their nation's aspiration for peace. Not accounting for power differences, so common in international conflicts, current literature asserts that both parties in conflict express these beliefs. However, we suggest that the extent these beliefs are voiced depends on the nations' relative power. Namely, we hypothesize that because of inferior capabilities, low-power nations are likely to mention the threats posed to their security and their eagerness for peace more frequently than high-power nations.

To test our hypothesis, we analyzed the entire corpus of speeches made by Israeli and Palestinian representatives speaking at the United Nations General Debate between 1998 and 2020. We found that although representatives from both parties spoke about the threats posed to their security and their eagerness for peace, both beliefs were voiced more frequently by speakers from the low-power party (in this case, Palestinians) than the high-power party (Israelis). Implications for psychological research of nations in conflict are discussed.

See full article here

For receiving the best doctoral award in developmental psychology from the APA organization!
Noam's doctorate deals with the understanding of children's differential sensitivity to the effects of the environment on their development. The work's contribution to developmental psychology is very significant, both in theoretical thought and methodological approaches.
Well done Noam!
Noam PhD supervisor, Prof. Ariel Knafo-Noam, has also won the award in the past

Intergroup prejudice is pervasive in many contexts worldwide, leading to discrimination and conflict. Existing research suggests that prejudice is acquired at an early age and that durably improving intergroup relations is extremely challenging, often requiring intense interventions. Building on existing research in social psychology and inspired by the Israeli TV series “You Can’t Ask That,” which depicts charismatic children from minority groups broaching sensitive topics at the core of intergroup relations, we develop a month-long diversity education program. Our program exposed students to the TV series and facilitated follow-up classroom discussions in which students constructively addressed various sensitive topics at the core of intergroup relations and learned about intergroup similarities, intragroup heterogeneity, and the value of taking others’ perspectives. Through two field experiments implemented in Israeli schools, we show that integrating our intervention into school curricula improved Jewish students’ attitudes toward minorities and increased some pro-diversity behavior up to 13 wk posttreatment. We further provide suggestive evidence that the intervention was effective by encouraging students to take their outgroups’ perspectives and address an element of scalability by delegating implementation responsibilities to classroom teachers in our second study. Our findings suggest that theoretically informed intensive education programs are a promising route to reducing prejudice at a young age.

See Full Article here

An article by PhD candidate Irit Aviv, supervised by Dr. Tammy Pilowsky Peleg and Prof. Hillel Aviezer was selected as the winner of the Eighth Annual TCN/AACN student Project Competition, from among 15 eligible manuscripts

Acute stress following mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) is highly prevalent and associated with Persistent Post-Concussion symptoms (PPCS). However, the mechanism mediating this relationship is understudied.

To examine whether parental accommodation (i.e. parents’ attempts to adjust the environment to the child’s difficulties) and child’s coping strategies mediate the association between acute stress and PPCS in children following mTBI.

Participants were 58 children aged 8–16 who sustained a mTBI and their parents. Children’s acute stress (one-week post-injury) and coping strategies (three weeks post-injury), and parental accommodation (three weeks and four months post-injury) were assessed. Outcome measures included PPCS (four months post-injury) and neuropsychological tests of cognitive functioning (attention and memory). A baseline for PPCS was obtained by a retrospective report of pre-injury symptoms immediately after the injury.

Children’s acute stress and negative coping strategies (escape-oriented coping strategies) and four-months parental accommodation were significantly related to PPCS. Acute stress predicted PPCS and attention and memory performance. Parental accommodation significantly mediated the association between acute stress and PPCS.

Stress plays an important role in children’s recovery from mTBI and PPCS. Parental accommodation mediates this relationship, and thus, clinical attention to parental reactions during recovery is needed.

See full article here