Gratitude and Peace - BCB #76
Gratitude and Peace - BCB #76
Also: Race is only skin deep in Latin America, and people will pay to avoid news they don't like
Welcome to a special Thanksgiving edition of the Better Conflict Bulletin. Today we start by considering the relationship between gratitude and peace.
Thanksgiving is not uncontroversial in the American culture war: it’s a fine family tradition, but the traditional story elides some uncomfortable history. If the holiday needs a modern renovation, perhaps we should focus on the simple idea of giving thanks.
Gratitude is a powerful emotion. It has close ties to happiness, health, and harmony:
In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.
Could gratitude also reduce conflict at the group level? There’s not much research on this, but what there is suggests that it might.
In one 2021 experiment, researchers provided French students with two different versions of an article on French history. Both versions provided the basic historical facts of successive waves of immigration to France, but one of them also highlighted the economic, cultural, and security contributions of immigrants to French society (for example, immigrants fought in both World Wars).
Those who read about these contributions expressed both higher gratitude toward immigrant groups and less prejudice. These effects were large by social science standards (effect size d=0.75 and d=0.39 respectively). Moreover, statistical analysis suggested that the reduction in prejudice was largely caused by this increase in gratitude.
Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude. It is also, for many, a time where political divisions feel most acute, as we encounter family and friends who hold different views and values. There are many good guides with tips on navigating such conversations (like this and this).
We suggest one more tip: ask yourself if there is anything about the other side that you can be grateful for. This may be a challenge, when thinking about a group of people who may have hurt you in material ways. But it’s okay to smart small.
Latin Americans see race differently
Francisco Toro, a native of Venezuela, explains that in much of Latin America race is only a physical descriptor, not an identity. He notes that racial apartheid broke down long ago in Latin America – “skin color is drained of anything beyond a descriptive significance” — and describes some other key differences with the American conception of race:
Race in America is often seen as binary: white or Black. In Venezuela, it's more chromatic and relative: “‘catire’ (roughly ‘blondie’) is simply what you call the fairest skinned person in a given setting, while ‘negro’ is what you call whomever is darkest skinned.”
Associating race with a culture is considered racist. The idea that someone can tell that a person is Black over the phone is unheard of, though Venezuelans still distinguish by class, and pale skin and higher class does overlap.
Because race doesn’t have implications much beyond describing color, Venezuelans see no reason to censor themselves, or to avoid commenting on it, or walk on eggshells.
The fundamental difference is what race represents; in the U.S. it's an identity.
This is why, in a U.S. context, Black is now routinely capitalized. As a skin tone, black is just a color; but as a descriptor of ethnic-identity, Black fully deserves its capitalization.
Venezuelans generally see their racial categories of white, black, and indigenous as a mix without any set clear boundaries, partly because there have been generations of racial mixing. Following in the footsteps of Latin America, Toro proposes an unorthodox solution for overcoming the American racial divide: “enthusiastic race mixing,” arguing that this could break down the binary that allows racial polarization to exist.
Mixed-race children in the U.S. almost tripled from 5.6% to 15.1% between 2010 and 2020, so the days of racial categorization may already be naturally eroding.
People will literally pay to avoid reading news they don’t like
In a Stanford University study observing how group identity affects belief formation, participants were willing to pay to read news sources that align with their views.
In one experiment, participants were presented with two article titles. The articles, discussing unemployment or public health, included one from an in-group source (Red or Blue, depending on the participant’s politics), and one from a more politically neutral news source, such as Reuters or Nature. Each article had a 50% chance of appearing in full on the next screen.
Participants were paid $3, then given a slider to spend part of this cash to increase the chance of reading one article over another. Each $1 spent increased the probability of seeing their preferred article by 10%, and they could keep the rest of the money. They paid an average of $0.45 to avoid reading the article from a neutral source.
But when the sources of the articles were hidden, leaving only the headlines, participants chose to spend only $0.22 to read their preferred article, suggesting that brand and identity had a lot to do with their decision.
This is similar to a 2011 experiment that showed how news brands influence the perception of bias. In that study, 177 participants were randomly assigned to three groups. One group watched a news clip from Al Jazeera English (AJE) with the original logo, another watched the same clip with CNN International’s logo on it, and a control group watched no clip but was still asked about whether AJE was biased. Participants rated the AJE clip as less biased when the AJE logo was replaced with the CNN logo, while the perceived bias for the clip with the original AJE logo was equal to the control group’s ratings of AJE.
Quote of the Week
It’s not so much that Venezuelans have better racial attitudes than Americans. The issue is more that race, as Americans understand it, isn’t really about race at all. It’s about ethnic conflict.
Image prompt: An artistic mosaic symbolizing racial diversity and harmony in Venezuela, ensuring cohesiveness in the imagery. The mosaic, composed of individual tiles representing different skin tones, forms a harmonious and unified portrait of a human face. Each tile is carefully placed to contribute to the overall image, making the face look natural with correct proportions. The hands in the image are distinctly crafted, each with five fingers, accurately represented. The background features a blend of Venezuelan natural and urban landscapes, emphasizing the theme of racial unity within the diverse fabric of society.