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Sociopsychological Foundations of Intractable Conflicts

Tel Aviv University

The article presents a conceptual framework that concerns the sociopsychological foundation and dynamics of intractable conflict. First, it defines and characterizes the nature of intractable conflict, and then it describes how societies involved in this reality adapt to the conditions of intractable conflict. This adaptation meets three fundamental challenges: satisfying the needs of the society members, coping with stress, and withstanding the rival. In trying to confront them successfully, societies develop appropriate sociopsychological infrastructure, which includes collective memory, ethos of conflict, and collective emotional orientations. This infrastructure fulfills important individual and collective level functions, including the important role of formation, maintenance, and strengthening of a social identity that reflects this conflict. Special attempts are made to disseminate this infrastructure via societal channels of communication and institutionalize it. The evolved sociopsychological infrastructure becomes a prism through which society members construe their reality, collect new information, interpret their experiences, and make decisions about their course of action. This infrastructure becomes hegemonic, rigid, and resistant to change as long as the intractable conflict continues. It ends up serving as a major factor fueling the continuation of the conflict, thus becoming part of a vicious cycle of intractable conflict.

Key Words: sociopsychological dynamics • collective memory • ethos of conflict • collective emotion • social identity

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