Need for closure and competition in intergroup conflicts: experimental evidence for the mitigating effect of accessible conflict-schemas
✍ Scribed by Agnieszka Golec de Zavala; Christopher M. Federico; Aleksandra Cisłak; Jonathan Sigger
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2008
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 225 KB
- Volume
- 38
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0046-2772
- DOI
- 10.1002/ejsp.438
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
Three experimental studies demonstrate that momentarily accessible conflict‐schemas moderate the relationship between need for closure and conflict‐strategy preferences, with the relationship between a high need for closure and increased competitiveness reduced to non‐significance when a cooperative conflict‐schema is made salient but strengthened when a hostile one is activated. Study 1 manipulated the accessibility of competitive versus cooperative conflict‐schemas using different descriptions of a contemporary political conflict, while Studies 2 and 3 manipulated conflict‐schema accessibility using primes embedded in an ostensibly unrelated lexical decision task. Together, the present studies provide a strong pattern of experimental support for the moderating effect of conflict‐schema accessibility suggested by earlier correlational studies. The implications for conflict reduction are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.