Paradoxical Thinking Interventions in Intergroup Conflicts

Many political and social issues are characterized by polarized and often strongly held attitudes, which pose a challenge to social cooperation and transformation of intergroup conflict. Exchanging or providing counter-attitudinal information to enhance willingness to compromise and alleviating conflict seem to be unsuccessful when people strongly adhere to an attitude. Paradoxical thinking interventions offer a new path by presenting consistent, but extreme information leading the recipient to reconsider his/her initial attitude. The intervention has been tested in intergroup settings ranging from intergroup hostility (for example in the gender or refugee context) to intractable intergroup conflict (for example the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict). Opportunities for practical implementations can be seen for addressing hate speech on social media in contexts of intergroup hostility or for addressing intergroup conflicts via video interventions in large-scale media campaigns.