Outgroup helping, collective action, and political activism toward ethnic minorities in a setting of protracted conflict

• In Event: Is altruism born of suffering? Prosocial development in the wake of adverse life experiences

Abstract

This paper examines the motivational role of affective empathy, i.e. understanding and responding appropriately to the emotions of others, on the helping and collective action intentions of youth growing up in Northern Ireland, a setting of protracted conflict. Expanding on past work, the paper not only examines traditional intergroup dynamics (Protestant and Catholic), but also how affective empathy may underlie prosocial acts toward novel outgroups (i.e., ethnic minorities and refugees). In Study 1, building on Altruism Born of Suffering (Staub & Vollhardt, 2008), bootstrapped mediation analyses of a cross-sectional experimental study using Facebook post vignettes found that empathy for the victim of harm mediated the link from perceived harm to helping intentions (N = 465, 50% male, 50% female; 14-15 years old). However, helping intentions were lower for a novel ethnic minority victim, compared to an ingroup or a traditional outgroup member victim. The findings from Study 1 suggest that although the mechanism was the same, the overall levels of helping varied based on the identity of the victim (Figure 1). Study 2 tested Batson’s (1997) Empathy-Attitudes-Action model, including both behavioral intentions and behaviors toward a novel outgroup, in this case, refugees. Across two waves (N = 383, 52% male, 48% female; 15-16 years old), overall affective empathy at Time 1 predicted more positive attitudes toward ethnic minorities at Time 2, which in turn was positively related to three outcomes: self-reported scales of helping behavior intentions and realistic helping toward a (fictitious) refugee who would be coming their school next week, collective action to support refugees in general, and signing a United Nations #WithRefugees petition. Consistent with the Developmental Peacebuilding Model (Taylor, 2020), the findings from Study 2 suggest that youth not only volunteer to help an individual in need, but also support broader causes that will help those they may never meet (Figure 2). Implications for policy and practice, in terms of potential interventions to promote intergroup helping through empathy and attitudes, for host communities and youth in conflict settings, are discussed.

Authors

• Laura K. Taylor, University College Dublin (UCD)
  Presenting Author

• Shelley McKeown Jones, University of Bristol
  Non-Presenting Author