Intergroup Leadership: Promoting Positive Relations in Israel

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Intergroup Leadership Promoting Positive
Relations in Israel
Jepson School Summer Institute for Leadership and
the Liberal Arts May 21, 2008

• Stefanie Simon Todd L. Pittinsky

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Intergroup Leadership(Pittinsky Simon, 2007)

• Leadership that seeks to bring groups or
  subgroups together
• Subgroup memberships
• Intergroup relations among followers

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Intergroup Leaders

• Empirical research
• Perceived fairness of intergroup leaders (Duck
  Fielding, 1999)
• Bias for ingroup leaders (Duck Fielding, 2003)
• Current research
• Improving intergroup attitudes in the presence of
  salient group boundaries

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Intergroup Attitudes

• Decreasing negative attitudes (i.e., prejudice)
• Increasing positive attitudes (i.e., allophilia)
• Pittinsky, Rosenthal, Montoya, 2008
• Leaders must decrease prejudice and increase
  allophilia

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Method

• Coexistence in Israel A National
  Study(Pittinsky, Ratcliff, Maruskin, 2008)
• National study examining relations between Jewish
  and Arab citizens in Israel
• Created in English Translated into Hebrew and
  Arabic
• Jewish (n 1,000) and Arab citizens (n 721)
• Telephone and in-person

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Desire for Intergroup Leadership
Israel should appoint a cabinet minister
responsible for advancing Arab-Jewish relations
in Israel
?2 (1, N 775) 20.81, p lt .001
?2 (1, N 488) 321.34, p lt .001
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Prediction 1

• Ingroup bias for nomination of an intergroup
  leader
• Based on Duck Fielding, 1999 2003
• Both groups will show a bias in favor of a leader
  from their own group
• Jewish citizens will prefer a Jewish leader
• Arab citizens will prefer an Arab leader

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Which leader would be the most effective?
?2 (1, N 136) 64.97, p lt .001
?2 (1, N 170) 7.62, p lt .05
?2 (1, N 306) 63.89, p lt .001
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Which leader would best fill the position?
?2 (1, N 139) 26.77, p lt .001
?2 (1, N 169) 13.07, p lt .001

• ?2 (1, N 308) 39.29, p lt .001

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Prediction 2 3

• Ingroup bias in perception of intergroup leader
  behavior moderated by intergroup attitudes
• Lower prejudice ? Less ingroup bias
• Higher allophilia ? Less ingroup bias
• Allophilia will be a stronger predictor than
  prejudice
• Pittinsky et al., 2008 Ratcliff Pittinsky 2008

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Measures

• Prejudice
• Assessed using 4 items
• I do not like Jews (Arabs)
• I have negative attitudes about Jews (Arabs)
• Allophilia
• Assessed using 7 items
• I like Jews (Arabs)
• I feel positively toward Jews (Arabs)

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Leader Fairness

• Participants were asked to imagine an Arab (a
  Jewish) citizen fills a leadership position
  responsible for promoting positive relations
• An Arab (a Jewish) citizen in this role would
  attend to the needs of both Arab and Jewish
  citizens
• Difference score Arab leaders - Jewish leaders
• Bias in favor of Arab leader
• - Bias in favor of Jewish leader
• 0 No bias

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Design

• 2 (Ethnicity Jewish or Arab) X 2 (Prejudice
  High or Low) between-subjects design
• Median split for level of prejudice
• Dependent variable Difference (bias) score

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Mean Scores for Perceptions of Leader Fairness
Prejudice
F(1, 314) 7.96, p .005
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Prejudice Predicts Perceptions of Leader Fairness
Variable B Change R2 Arab
Citizens Prejudice .143 .020 Jewish
Citizens Prejudice -.178 .032 p
lt .10 p lt .05
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Design

• 2 (Ethnicity Jewish or Arab) X 2 (Allophilia
  High or Low) between-subjects design
• Median split for level of allophilia
• Dependent variable Difference (bias) score

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Mean Scores for Perceptions of Leader Fairness
Allophilia
F(1, 302) 22.28, p lt .001
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Allophilia Predicts Perceptions of Leader Fairness
Variable B Change R2 Arab
Citizens Allophilia -.192 .037 Jewish
Citizens Allophilia .332 .110 p lt .01
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Leader Fairness
Variable Simultaneous Regression Arab
Citizens Prejudice -.025 Allophilia
-.248 Jewish Citizens Prejudice
.141 Allophilia .502 p lt
.10 p lt .05 p lt .01
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Findings

• Bias in favor of ingroup leader
• Both reducing negative intergroup attitudes
  (prejudice) and increasing positive intergroup
  attitudes (allophilia) are effective in reducing
  this bias
• Allophilia is a stronger predictor of ingroup
  bias than prejudice when entered simultaneously

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Conclusion

• When looking at leadership in an intergroup
  context, followers demonstrate significant bias
  in favor of leaders from their own group
• Support for a theory of intergroup leadership
  that focuses on both reducing negative intergroup
  attitudes and promoting positive intergroup
  attitudes for leaders seeing to promote positive
  relations

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Contact Information Acknowledgements

• stefanie_simon_at_ksg.harvard.edu
• todd_pittinsky_at_harvard.edu

• Laura Maruskin
• Matt Montoya
• Jennifer Ratcliff
• Seth Rosenthal