Think Again

HYPOTHESIS 2: FEELING FOR OUR FOES
I next turned to the psychology of peace. Years ago the pioneering
psychologist and Holocaust survivor Herb Kelman set out to challenge
some of the stereotypes behind the Israel-Palestine conflict by teaching the
two sides to understand and empathize with one another. He designed
interactive problem-solving workshops in which influential Israeli and
Palestinian leaders talked off the record about paths to peace. For years,
they came together to share their own experiences and perspectives, address
one another’s needs and fears, and explore novel solutions to the conflict.
Over time, the workshops didn’t just shatter stereotypes—some of the
participants ended up forming lifelong friendships.
Humanizing the other side should be much easier in sports, because the
stakes are lower and the playing field is more level. I started with another of
the biggest rivalries in sports: UNC-Duke. I asked Shane Battier, who led
Duke to an NCAA basketball championship in 2001, what it would take for
him to root for UNC. His immediate reply: “If they were playing the
Taliban.” I had no idea so many people fantasized about crushing terrorists
in their favorite sport. I wondered whether humanizing a Duke student
would change UNC students’ stereotypes of the group.
In an experiment with my colleagues Alison Fragale and Karren
Knowlton, we asked UNC students to help improve the job application of a
peer. If we mentioned that he went to Duke rather than UNC, as long as he
was facing significant financial need, participants spent extra time helping

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him. Once they felt empathy for his plight, they saw him as a unique
individual deserving of assistance and liked him more. Yet when we
measured their views of Duke students in general, the UNC students were
just as likely to see them as their rivals, to say that it felt like a personal
compliment if they heard someone criticize Duke, and to take it as a
personal insult if they heard Duke praised. We had succeeded in changing
their attitudes toward the student, but failed in changing their stereotypes of
the group.
Something similar happened when Tim and I tried to humanize a
Yankees fan. We had Red Sox fans read a story written by a baseball buff
who had learned the game as a child with his grandfather and had fond
memories of playing catch with his mom. At the very end of the piece he
mentioned that he was a die-hard supporter of the Yankees. “I think this
person is very authentic and is a rare Yankee fan,” one Red Sox supporter
commented. “This person gets it and is not your typical Yankee fan,” a
second observed. “Ugh, I really liked this text until I got to the part about
them being a Yankees fan,” a third fan lamented, but “I think this particular
person I would have more in common with than the typical, stereotypical
Yankees fan. This person is okay.”
Herb Kelman ran into the same problem with Israelis and Palestinians.
In the problem-solving workshops, they came to trust the individuals across
the table, but they still held on to their stereotypes of the group.
In an ideal world, learning about individual group members will
humanize the group, but often getting to know a person better just
establishes her as different from the rest of her group. When we meet group
members who defy a stereotype, our first instinct isn’t to see them as
exemplars and rethink the stereotype. It’s to see them as exceptions and
cling to our existing beliefs. So that attempt also failed. Back to the drawing
board again.