Conflict in Poland : example of empathic failure?

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Conflict in Poland: example of empathic failure?

Author: Dominika Bulska

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Supervisor: Dr. Anja van Heelsum Second reader: Dr. Małgorzata Gocłowska Program: Conflict Resolution and Governance

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Abstract

In recent years Polish society has been torn by conflict. Although initially this was a problem of political nature, lately it started to affect lives of average individuals. Month by month the socio-political situation in Poland continues to escalate, yet almost no research has been done on the reasons underlying this increasing polarization. This thesis aims to change that by answering the following research questions: is the current conflict in Poland an example of an intergroup failure of empathy? And, if so, what social and psychological factors contribute to these failures of empathy in Poland? Two studies – media analysis and internet experiment (N=231) – were conducted. Results of these studies show that the socio-political conflict in Poland can, at least to some degree, be understood as an example of intergroup failure of empathy and that this empathic failure is related to how people understand morality. Implications for practitioners are discussed.

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Courtesy of Michał Wolski, 2016

1. Introduction

In March of 2017 one of the Polish left-wing opinion weeklies published a letter from the reader on their internet portal. The author of this letter, Mrs. Sylwia, “an average Polish woman,” complained about her life in Poland. She described her situation with bitter words, talking about juggling three jobs at a time whilst having three loans, an old car and no access to child care. And although she portrayed herself as a feminist and a person with left-wing political attitudes, at the same time she put a lot of blame for her situation on recently introduced social program “500+” which provides families with two or more children with monthly financial stipends. As she put it: “almost one third of my income goes to pensions for people who voted for this terrible government that supports Polish families and 500+ for mothers, who pick their nose with fake nails attached to the fingers of their right hand” (“Samochód na kredyt…”, 2017). A lot of her frustration came from the fact that she does not qualify for the governmental help whereas those women who do, according to her, are lazy and spend most of their money on alcohol.

The article was met with a lot of criticism. The following day the same weekly

published a response to the mentioned letter, written by another reader (“Klasowa pogarda nie jest lewicowa”, 2017). In her counter-letter the author points out that interclass contempt is not a very “left-wing” attitude. As she says, the anger of Mrs Sylwia, as understandable as it is, is also unfairly directed towards various women who also have children, but can not afford private kindergarten, birth control, or apartment loans. According to the author of the

response, instead of being angry at the government or employers, who by their actions contribute to the unjust structure, Mrs Sylwia creates a contemptuous image of lower class, suggesting that it is their own, conscious choice (and not the circumstances they find themselves in) to drink beer instead of going to work.

This situation is one of the many examples of the lack of understanding and

compassion that can be observed in Poland today. In recent years Polish society has been torn by conflict. For many years the conflict was of a political nature and did not affect the life of an average individual dramatically, especially if this person was not politically active. Two main political actors – Platforma Obywatelska (PO) and Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) – had a strong batch of supporters, yet a fairly big part of society, due to the lack of political engagement or different political attitudes, did not play an active part in this political play. Some scholars go even as far as to suggest that the conflict between PO and PiS was in fact a planned and rationally implemented strategy to gain supporters and get media attention

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(Marzęcki, 2012). However, the situation changed dramatically after the most recent federal elections in October 2015.

1.1. Short timeline of current conflict in Poland

On 25 October 2015 the political scene in Poland changed completely. Prawo i Sprawiedliwość won the elections, gaining almost 40% of votes (“Wybory parlamentarne 2015. PKW podała…”, 2015). For the first time in the history of Third Polish Republic, formed in 1989, a party won an absolute majority in the Sejm, thus being able to govern autonomously (“Wybory parlamentarne 2015: PiS ma większość…”, 2015). In the following months the government made a series of decisions that alarmed their opponents. As a result of that, one of the most prominent social activists from the communist era, Krzysztof Łoziński, wrote an opinionated article urging the public to create “a committee for the defense of democracy.” He suggested that such a committee should resemble the Workers Defense Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników, KOR), formed in 1976 (Łoziński, 2016). His words resonated. A day after the article was published another social activist, Mateusz

Kijowski, formed a Facebook group called “Komitet Obrony Demokracji” (Committee for the defense of democracy, KOD) (“Powstał społeczny ruch…”, 2016). A couple of days later an internet portal was established. According to the published manifesto, everyone, for whom democratic values are important, was (and still is) welcome to join, no matter their opinions or faith.

In the following months several important events took place, sparking a heated discussion in Polish society. In November and December 2015 a crisis regarding

Constitutional Tribunal outburst, leading to several domestic protests and counter-protests. The laws, adopted in the aftermath of the crisis, were criticized by the European Union representatives as threatening the rule of law and the human rights of Polish citizens

(“Bruxelles lance une enquête préliminaire…”, 2015). In February 2016 500+ was introduced (“Rząd przyjął program…”, 2016). In March a bill introducing very strict abortion law was proposed, yet again leading to several protests and counter-protests (“Nie dla torturowania kobiet…”, 2016). Although the bill was not passed, in September a similar situation happened again. This time, on 3 October, thousands of Polish women went on strike, showing their lack of consent to proposed changes (“Czarny poniedziałek…”, 2016). Another important event

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response to proposed censorship of the media (Orłowski, 2016). This time the events escalated, leading to acts of violence in front of Sejm (Woźnicki, 2016).

Undoubtedly the opposition in Poland is to some degree fragmented. KOD and its supporters are only one of the political forces opposing current government and in a number of occasions other institutions, such as left-wing political party RAZEM, organized their own protests, regardless of actions of KOD. However, in the context of this thesis this

fragmentation is irrelevant, as all of the opposition holds similar views about the events that will be analyzed in the presented research, although their form of expression or political stands on various issues might differ.

1.2. Research question

If things continue to escalate as they did in the past few months, it might be so that soon there will be no space for conversation in Polish society and, in a worst case scenario, direct violence will take place more often. For this reason, it is important to look closely at the factors underlying increasing polarization in Polish society. As it was already mentioned in the introduction, this state of affairs might be related to a lack of compassion and perspective taking – or, more generally, lack of empathy – between those standing on two sides of the barricade. For this reason, a so-called “failure of empathy” is the main concept used in this thesis in order to explain the present situation in Poland.

Current research aims to answer the following research questions: is the current

conflict in Poland an example of an intergroup failure of empathy? And, if so, what social and psychological factors contribute to these failures of empathy in Poland?

The thesis is structured as follows. In the next chapter the theoretical framework is described, with sub-chapters for the role of empathy in conflict resolution, the phenomena of intergroup empathic failure, the phenomena of relative deprivation, and Moral Foundations Theory. The third chapter is dedicated to methods used in the research. The fourth chapter presents results of the research. The fifth chapter concludes.

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2. Theoretical framework

In this chapter the theoretical framework of this thesis is presented, with a special emphasis on the three most important theoretical concepts: intergroup failure of empathy, Moral Foundations Theory, and relative deprivation, and their relationship to the socio-political conflict in Poland.

2.1. Definition of empathy

Although empathy has been studied for hundreds of years by scholars from different scientific domains – from philosophy and theology, through psychology and ethology to neuroscience – it remains a concept that lacks consensus regarding the nature of the

phenomenon (Preston & de Waal, 2001). As the main goal of this thesis is not to describe the complexity of the concept of empathy, but to look closer into failures of empathy in the context of intergroup conflict, for the purpose of the paper the following assumptions are adopted. Firstly, empathy is a basic process that occurs in situations of perceived distress of another human being (Preston & de Waal, 2001). Secondly, it can be an automatic response, but it might also be developed over a period of time (Preston & de Waal, 2001). It has both emotional and cognitive components. Although the nature of the relationship between those two components is still debated, in general the emotional process is said to be more

automatic, whereas the cognitive process, known also by the name “perspective-taking,” is said to be more controlled (Stephan & Finlay, 1999). Neuroscience research suggests that emotional and cognitive empathic processes are to some degree distinct, as they are linked to different brain regions (Lamm, Batson & Decety, 2007). Empathy is widely studied mainly due to the fact that it plays a crucial role in many social interactions, e.g. is related to other-related pro-social behavior or inhibition of aggression and antisocial behavior (Eidenbeg, Eggum & Di Giunta, 2010).

2.2. Empathy and conflict resolution

Most importantly, empathy is a crucial process in conflict resolution efforts, which is continuously shown by both scholars and practitioners. Firstly, research shows that

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2010). As the authors of one study argue, empathy-oriented interventions can not only lead to more forgiveness, but also “the changes experienced are (…) likely to be more lasting” (Sandage & Worthington, 2010). Thirdly, empathy helps to overcome one of the most dangerous phenomena that often occur in conflict situations – dehumanization.

Dehumanization is a process of denying human qualities to others and is a form of radical out-group derogation (Haslam, 2006). It is also a process that stands in the way of conflict

transformation. According to Ervin Staub (2006), for reconciliation to happen members of hostile groups need to stop seeing the past as something that defines the future. They need to see the humanity of one another in order to see the possibility of a constructive relationship (Gubler, Halperin & Hirschberger, 2015). In other words, the process of rehumanization has to occur. According to Susan Fiske “considering another person as fully human requires appreciating the other’s mind (intents, thoughts, feelings)” (2009, pp. 32). According to Jodi Halpern and Harvey M. Weinstein (2004), the basic process underlying rehumanization is empathy. As Halpern and Weinstein state: “empathy serves as a normative ideal for a rehumanized view of the other” (2004, pp. 583). They emphasize that adopting the perspective of the other over time forms the basis of genuine social cooperation. It should therefore not be a surprise that many intervention programs are built around empathy and that many practitioners, such as mediators and facilitators, address it in their everyday work. However, those actions and interventions, although created with the best intentions, at times fail to work (Zaki & Cikara, 2015, Moses & Shishmanyan, 2009).

2.3. Failure of empathy

Failures of empathy or empathic failures represent “cases in which an individual could conceivably feel empathy but does not because of salient social and psychological factors,” (Zaki & Cikara, 2015, pp. 1). Those empathic failures might be related to individual traits or factors (such as beliefs about the nature of empathy) or they might occur in intergroup contexts and be related to issues of identity. In this thesis the individual factors are only briefly described, as the main goal of this research is to look at instances when empathy fails to develop and/or lead to positive outcomes in intergroup context. Importantly, as mentioned before, empathy is not a holistic construct – although it is sometimes treated as such – but rather a combination of at least two different (but interrelated) processes: emotional and cognitive. Empathic failures may therefore reflect the absence of one or more of those distinct

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processes and the knowledge of which one of those is missing can be very insightful for conflict resolution practitioners.

2.3.1. Individual factors contributing to empathic failures

According to the researchers of empathic failures, there are at least three individual factors contributing to failures of empathy in conflict situations (Zaki & Cikara, 2015). The first factor, emotions prior to encounters, refers to preexisting negative emotions (such as anger or suspicion) toward another person or group, that motivate empathy avoidance (Bar-Tal & Halperin, 2011). The second factor, beliefs about empathy, refers to a common (and false) assumption that empathy is uncontrollable – that this is an automatic process that happens or not to perceivers when they encounter others in distress and it is not an ability that can be worked on (Zaki, 2014). Those who share this assumption might attribute their

difficulties with empathizing with other people to their empathic ability in general. In turn, this “fixed” mindset might cause people to avoid situations that challenge their empathic abilities (Schumann, Zaki & Dweck, 2014). The third factor, norms, is partly related to intergroup context. It refers to those situations when individuals believe that members of their in-group hold hostile attitudes toward an out-group and are therefore more likely to express and tolerate antisocial attitudes and behaviors towards the latter (Stangor, Sechrist & Jost, 2001).

2.3.2. Social identity theory and empathic failures

But why, when talking about empathic failures, does being a member of a particular group matter? This question is impossible to answer without looking into Social Identity Theory (SIT), proposed by social psychologists Henri Tajfel and Jonathan Turner in 1979, according to which “social groups (…) provide their members with an identification of themselves in social sense” (Tajfel & Turner, 2004). Several important assumptions can be drawn from SIT. Firstly, individuals strive to achieve positive social identity, which is usually based on favorable comparison made between the in-group and relevant out-group. Secondly, if social identity is not satisfying – in other words, if group membership is not a source of pride or positive self-esteem – individuals either strive to leave their existing group and/or try to make their group more positively distinct. The decision of who is an in-group member and who is an out-group member is usually contextual and can be very automatic. Importantly,

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empathize less with out-group members relative to in-group members, and to feel pleasure in response to the pain of out-group members (Cikara, Bruneau, Bavel & Saxe, 2014).

This phenomenon becomes even more severe when intergroup conflict occurs. For instance, in the context of protracted intergroup conflict, acknowledging out-group suffering means accepting in-group blame, which may generate “dissonance from the desire to view one’s group in a positive light and the acknowledgment of wrongdoings committed by the group” (Gubler, Halpein & Hirschberger, 2015, pp. 37). In that situation, attempts to humanize the other, initiated by practitioners, may actually backfire and lead to undesirable outcomes, such as no empathy and increased motivation to justify out-group suffering (Glasford, Pratto & Dovidio, 2008). Even if interventions are successful, they often change attitudes of certain individuals, but not necessarily of a group as a whole. As a study conducted by Nadler and Liviatan shows, empathy induced forgiveness and willingness to reciprocate empathy to Palestinian suffering caused by Israelis only among those participants, who previously had high levels of trust to Palestinians (Nadler & Liviatan, 2008).

Additionally, research suggests that limitations of intergroup empathy are particularly stark when groups differ in power or status (Zaki & Cikara, 2015). For instance, one of the studies proved that perspective taking improves high-power group members’ (such as Israelis) feelings about low-power groups, but it does not work the other way around (Bruneau & Saxe, 2012).

2.4. Conflict in Poland as a case of intergroup failure of empathy

There are several reasons why conflict in Poland can be considered an example of empathic failure.

First and foremost, groups of voters supporting the ruling party and opposing it form groups with strong identity. For instance, opponents of the ruling party regularly organize marches to protest political decisions made by the government or fight for important social issues, such as woman’s rights (Grochal, 2016; Sawka, 2016). Similarly, supporters of the ruling party often organize counter-protests (Wroński, 2016a). Importantly, those opponents who organize marches of protest are often called by the politicians in power by names such as “stupid” or even belonging to the “worse sort of Poles” (Wroński, 2015), which suggests that the ruling party does not understand the perspective of its opponents and tends to dehumanize them.

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Secondly, there is a lot of anger and resentment between members of those two groups. For instance, the Polish Prejudice Survey, conducted by the Center for Research and Prejudice in 2013 showed that opponents of the now-ruling party are highly prejudiced to those supporters of PiS, who believe in so-called “Smoleńsk conspiracy”, which is a a theory stating that the crash of Polish plane in Smoleńsk in 2010 was in fact an assassination

organized by the Russian president (Soral & Grzesiak-Feldman, 2015).

Negative emotions and lack of understanding can also be observed in one-on-one conversations and encounters, sometimes leading to direct violence. For example, during the protests organized by opponents of the ruling party in March this year, many of attendees had their coats cut by knife by an unknown perpetrator (“Po atakach na przeciwników…”, 2017). Situations when direct violence occurs suggest that the scale of the problem in Poland is severe and looking closely into social and psychological factors contributing to it seems essential.

2.5. Potential explanations of empathic failure in Poland

If the Polish conflict is indeed an example of empathic failure, the already mentioned explanations such as negative emotions and differences in status might not be sufficient. Firstly, the differences in status between supporters and opponents or the ruling party are not as big as they are in such cases as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Secondly, so far the Polish conflict is of a rather abstract nature. There are not many tangible examples of harm caused by the members of either of the groups and it is rather impossible to say that there are “perpetrators” and “victims.” Failure of empathy might therefore be related to different factors, not studied so far in the context of intergroup conflict. In this thesis two potential explanations, namely relative deprivation and differences in moral foundations, are presented.

2.5.1. Relative deprivation

Although the role of unequal status and power for occurrences of empathic failure has already been proven in series of studies, interestingly, so far there has been no research conducted on how failure of empathy might occur in the presence of perceived differences in status – in other words, in situations, when in-group members feel relatively deprived of specific goods or access to power in comparison to out-group members.

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Relative deprivation (RD) is a term introduced by Samuel Stouffer and now accepted by a spectrum of social sciences, from criminology and economics through psychology to political science (Brown, 2004). This concept “postulates a subjective state that shapes emotions, cognitions and behavior” (Pettigrew et al., 2008, pp. 386). According to Faye Crosby, there are two preconditions for relative deprivation to occur: one has to want

something they do not have and one has to feel they deserve whatever it is one wants but does not have (Crosby, 1976). RD can be either egoistic – an individual can feel personally

deprived of certain goods; fraternal – an individual can feel that his or her social group to which they belong is deprived; or both (Pettigrew et al., 2008). As data from Germany

suggests, both individual and fraternal RD are the strongest among lower-status respondents – poorer, less educated. Moreover, both types of RD correlate with a sense of political

inefficacy (Pettrigrew et al., 2008). Importantly, research shows that feelings of fraternal relative deprivation directly promotes political protest and prejudice (Pettigrew, 1967; Walker & Mann, 1987). However, it needs to be stressed that feeling deprived can invoke intergroup prejudice only if one feels deprived on behalf of a relevant reference group – in other words, while individual RD does not directly relate to intergroup prejudice, group RD correlates positively with a variety of prejudice indicators (Pettigrew et al, 2004; Bilewicz & Krzeminski, 2010).

Why could RD contribute to the failure of empathy in Poland? To answer this question one has to consider the last 50 years of history of Polish society. During the communist era Polish society was relatively equal (Sadowski, 2006). In general, there were no significant differences in socio-economic status or access to powerful position between average

individuals. Political transformation brought rapidly progressing social stratification. Social promotion of some Poles was faster and more significant than that of others, which led to frustration and feelings of relative deprivation of the latter (even if their objective situation improved). That mechanism was especially present amongst those who had big hopes for improvement of their situation in the beginning of 1990s (Sadowski, 2006).

Although there are no studies directly showing that voters of one or another party are also those who after the transformation felt (and still feel) relatively deprived of goods or power, closer examination of the profile of average PiS voter suggests that this might be the case. The average PiS voter is in fact an older person who lives in a village or a small city and is rather poorly educated. Furthermore, although the economic status of such a person is objectively good or average, the economic status of the voters for the two biggest opposition parties (.Nowoczesna and PO) is relatively higher (“CBOS:

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społeczno-demograficzne…”,2015). Therefore, it might be so that supporters of the ruling party, who often remember the communist times and relative social equality, now feel relatively deprived of goods and power in comparison to the voters of other parties, which is why they are less likely to be empathetic towards them.

Unfortunately, RD is not a sufficient explanation for potential failure of empathy in Polish context – mostly due to the fact that not every Pole feels relatively deprived.

2.5.2. Moral Foundations Theory

Another possible explanation might have to do with differences in moral foundations (Graham et al., 2012). Why is that so? According to Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), moral intuitions derive from innate psychological mechanisms that coevolved with cultural

institutions and practices. Those mechanisms “provide parents and other socializing agents the moral >>foundations<< to build on as they teach children their local virtues, vices, and moral practices” (Graham, Haidt & Nosek, 2009, pp. 1030). In the series of studies, the authors of the theory identified five foundations:

• Fairness/reciprocity, referring to human obsession with justice • Harm/care, referring to human concern for caring and protecting; • Ingroup/loyalty, describing the virtues of self-sacrifice for the group; • Authority/respect, referring to the virtues of obedience;

• Purity/sanctity, describing virtues of sanctity and playing a big role in religious laws.

The authors of the theory refer to the first two foundations as the individualizing foundations, suggesting that they are the source of the intuitions that create liberal

philosophical traditions and to the remaining three foundations as the binding foundations, suggesting that they are the source of the intuitions that make plenty of conservative and religious moralities (Graham, Haidt & Nosek, 2009). In general, according to the authors of MFT, those five moral foundations provide a taxonomy for the basis of moral judgments, intuitions and concerns. In other words, based on that foundations people decide on what is morally “right” and what is morally “wrong.”

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conservatives and liberals) are indeed partly motivated by moral convictions (Graham, Haidt & Nosek, 2009). In another study researchers proved that people who describe themselves as “libertarian” have a unique pattern of moral foundations – they show stronger endorsement of individual liberty as their foremost guiding principle and weaker endorsement of other

principles (Iyer, Koleva, Graham, Ditto & Haidt, 2010). Moreover, the influence of moral foundations seems to go beyond how one positions themselves on political scale. In a study published in 2012 the authors of the theory showed that people’s moral institutions may underlie, motivate and unite ideological positions across a variety of issues, such as abortion, immigration or same-sex marriage, and that endorsement of five moral foundations predicts judgments about these issues more precisely than ideology, age, gender, religious attendance and interest in politics.

Additionally, findings of other studies suggest that disagreement on moral intuitions are especially likely to lead to increased intergroup aggression and conflict (Motyl &

Pyszczynski, 2009; Pyszczynski, Motyl, & Abdollahi, 2009, Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski & Lyon, 1998). „As the moral issues at the core of these conflicts are rooted in different intuitions, people on opposing sides of these conflicts simply do not understand how anyone can hold different moral intuitions” (Graham et al, 2012, pp. 27). Furthermore, this empathy gap can make intergroup violence more likely, as actors are more likely to view one another as less deserving moral rights (Waytz, Gray, Epley &Wegner, 2010).

There are several reasons why moral foundations can contribute to empathic failures in Poland. Firstly, the topic of morality is generally present in the public debate in Poland. For instance, Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the ruling party, in July 2007 referred to his

opposition by calling them morally and intellectually mediocre (“Premier: nasi przeciwnicy to mali ludzie”, 2007). Additionally, Jarosław Kaczyński is known have said that without a “moral revolution,” Poland will not transform the way it should (Kondzińska & Wroński, 2012). Those two quotes suggest that PiS supporters and opponents might indeed differ on the moral foundations.

Secondly, it is worth looking at religious behaviors of the voters. An average supporter of PiS is a religious person, attending the church more often than a regular Pole. On the other hand, an average supporter of two biggest opposition parties (.Nowoczesna and PO) more often than an average Pole declares that he/she does not attend any religious practices (“CBOS: społeczno-demograficzne…”,2015). As one of the foundations (purity/sanctity) in MFT plays a big role in forming religious laws, it might be so that the supporters of ruling party differ on this foundation from those supporting the opposition.

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Lastly, we should consider the substance of MFT itself. According to MFT, the

“Care/harm” foundation is related to mechanisms that “made it easy and automatic to connect perceptions of suffering with motivations to care, nurture, and protect” (Graham et al., 2012, pp. 12). For this reason, it seems intuitive that those Poles who find caring about other human beings an important moral virtue, regardless of their political stands, will also be more

empathetic towards out-group members. The questions, however, arises, whether

“Care/harm” foundation is the only one that matters in regards to the ability to be empathetic towards “the enemy,” or do the other moral virtues play a role, too.

2.6. Potential model of empathic failures in Poland

Based on the theories presented above, a potential model (Figure 1) explaining intergroup failure of empathy in Poland might be constructed.

Figure 1. Model of empathic failures in Poland

As the model suggests, intergroup failure of empathy in Poland might be influenced both by how people think about morality and how they perceive their economic status in relation to other people. Therefore, from presented model following research sub-questions arise:

• How do moral foundations contribute to failure of empathy in Poland? • How does relative deprivation contribute to failure of empathy in Poland? • What is the nature of empathic failure in Poland – cognitive or emotional? Moral foundations

Relative deprivation

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3. Methods

The overall goal of this research is to look closely into mechanisms of conflict escalation in Poland, focusing especially on three theories: empathic failures, moral

foundations theory and relative deprivation. The goal of presented research design is to look for cues of empathic failures, differences in moral foundations and feelings of relative deprivation on two levels: societal, represented in media and individual, represented in one-to-one communication. In order to do so, the research was done in two phases and with two methods: media analysis and internet experiment.

3.1. Media analysis

In the first part of this research, media analysis was conducted. Research shows that the way media presents issues greatly affects public attitudes and accurate media reporting can help generate empathy (Staub, 2006). It is therefore important to look at media coverage of certain pivotal events of Polish conflict, as it can give proof for failures of empathy in Poland as well as help understand factors underlying those. The goal of media analysis was therefore not only to look for cues suggesting that supporters and opponents of the

government can not take the perspective of the other side and are not compassionate towards them, but also to look for cues suggesting that this conflict has a moral dimension and might be related to perceived differences in status between two groups.

Media coverage of three political events was analyzed. Those specific three events were chosen for several reasons. Firstly, all three of them sparked a heated discussion in Polish society. Secondly, they represent different levels of escalation of the conflict. Thirdly, two out of those three events were chosen as the most important events of 2016 (Klauziński, 2016). Lastly, all of them might be perceived as having a moral dimension.

3.1.2. Description of analyzed events

The first event took place in November 2015 and was focused around the exchange of the judges of the Constitutional Tribunal, which lead to the verdict of the same Tribunal stating that this action, undertook by the government, was illegal. Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, although required by law to do so, did not publish the verdict in Dziennik Ustaw (Journal of Laws). Her action lead to social protests (Jasnorzewski, 2015).

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The second event was a social protest known under the name “Black Protest,” which happened from September to October 2016. During that time Polish women organized street protests and a strike, objecting very strict abortion law that was about to be adopted by the government.

The third event, occupation of the parliament, happened in December 2016 to January 2017. This was the first event in the timeline of this conflict that lead to direct violence and is therefore a good example of progressing conflict escalation.

3.1.3. Operationalization

Eighty media articles regarding three mentioned events, written from various view points, were analyzed (See: Appendix 1). Thirty of articles described the first event, 34 were related the second event and 16 to the third event. A list of analyzed media is presented below. A plus after the name of the paper indicates that this medium generally supports the government, a minus suggests that this medium opposes it. Those mediums were chosen due to the fact that they are comparable in their outreach at the same time representing different political views.

List of analyzed media: Weekly opinion magazines:

• Polityka (-) • Newsweek (-) • Wsieci (+) • Do Rzeczy(+)

Internet version of daily papers • Wyborcza.pl (-)

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The chosen articles were coded using codes presented in a table below. Table 1. The codes used in media analysis

General codes Codes for

empathy Codes for morality

Codes for relative deprivation Main actors Is this article compassionate to the actors described? References to morality References to economic situation of the in-group Author (Government supporter vs opponent)

Is the author of the article trying to understand the actions of the actors?

Use of such words as “wrong” and “right”

References to economic situation of the out-group

The tone of the article – positive vs negative

Is the tone of the article

condescending?

References to tradition Words such as “unjust”, “inequitable’

Is the article trying to

stay objective? References to equality Is the author using a

lot of intensifiers, repetitions, pronouns (as a proxy of affective speech)? References to patriotism

Is the author focusing on themselves and his/her group rather than outgroup?

References to respect for authority

References to purity (in biological and metaphorical sense)

References to justice

References to betrayal Words such as

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Words such as “disgust”

References to God

To conduct a quantitative analysis, an excel file was created with articles treated as cases and codes for every issue in the table. In most cases a “1” was given for “yes” or “present” and a “-1” was given for “no” or “absent.” In some cases, a “0” was given, for example if there was no way to decide whether the given code is present or absent.

3.2. Study II – Internet experiment

The goal of Study II was to see whether Poles feel less compassion and are less able to take perspective of the people “standing on the other side of the barricade.” Moreover, the study was intended to give an answer to the research sub-questions about factors influencing potential intergroup failure of empathy in Poland.

3.2.1. Participants

Participants of the study were recruited via Facebook groups and internet forums. Five hundred responses were recorded – which means 500 people clicked on a link and answered at least one question. However, due to many incomplete answers, the final sample totaled 231 respondents, aged 16 to 78 (Mage = 32.9, SD =). One hundred and forty-eight participants were female, 79 were male and 4 indicated “other” gender. Almost half of the participants (113) lived in a city with more than 500 000 000 inhabitants. Lastly, 180 out of all participants indicated that they oppose currently ruling government, whereas 51 declared their support for the government. Although this number is clearly unequal, it should not affect the statistical analysis. However, it does show that recruiting supporters of the government to a study such as this is more difficult.

3.2.2. Procedure

The internet experiment was conducted in a 2 (supporters vs opponents of the

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“firmly” or “rather” oppose it were labeled “opponents.” Secondly, participants were asked to read a short announcement supposedly found on one of the social media platforms (See: Appendix 2). The goal of this story was to induce empathy towards the actor of the

announcement. To check the manipulation, a short pilot (N=35) was conducted prior to the study. Results of the pilot showed that the manipulation works – participants declared compassion to the actor, but there was a variance between their answers.

In the main study, half of the members of each group was randomly presented with the story of the in-group member, whereas the other half read a story about the out-group

member. Then, participants were asked to indicate the level of compassion towards and the ability to take perspective of the actor of the story. The number of participants answering questions regarding their in-group member was equal to the number of respondents filling out the survey related to out-group members. After that, participants were asked to answer

questions about relative deprivation, Moral Foundation Questionnaire and lastly, questionnaire of trait-empathy (compassion and perspective taking).

3.2.3. Measures

Correlations between Study II measures, their reliability and frequencies are presented in Table 3.

Ability to feel compassion was measured by 5 questions that were a modification of Davis’s

scale of Empathic Concern from Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1983). Participants were asked to indicate how much do they agree with each statement on a scale from 1 – I fully

don’t agree to 5 – I fully agree.

Ability to take perspective of the actor of the story was measured by 4 questions that were a

modification of Davis’s scale of Perspective Taking from Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1983). Participants were asked to indicate how much do they agree with each statement on a scale from 1 – I fully don’t agree to 5 – I fully agree. Originally the scale contained of 5 statements, yet one of them severely lowered the reliability of the scale, so it was deleted from the final analysis.

Relative deprivation was measured by 3 questions. Firstly, participants were asked to indicate

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the participants were asked to declare how did their economical situation change in the past 12 months in comparison to the situation of other Poles on a scale from 1 – Got much worse to 5 – Got much better. This was a measure of individualistic relative deprivation. Lastly, as a measure of fraternal RD, participants were asked to declare how their situation and of other people supporting/opposing the government changed in the last 12 months in comparison to the situation of other Poles. The scale was the same as in the previous question.

Moral foundations were measured by the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, adapted to Polish

conditions (Jarmakowski & Jarmakowska-Kostrzanowska, 2016). Firstly, participants were presented with 15 types of behavior and asked to indicate how much each behavior is important to them on a scale from 1 – Definitely not important to 6 – Definitely important. Then, participants were presented with 15 general statements and asked to indicate how much do they agree with them on a scale from 1 – I fully disagree to 6 – I fully agree.

Empathy was measured by the Empathic Concern scale from Davis’s Interpersonal Reactivity

Index (Davis 1983), adapted to Polish conditions (Kaźmierczak, Plopa & Retowski, 2007). Participants were asked to indicate how much do they agree with each of 7 statements on a scale from 1 – I fully don’t agree to 5 – I fully agree.

Perspective-taking was measured by the Perspective Taking scale from Davis’s Interpersonal

Reactivity Index (Davis 1983), adapted to Polish conditions (Kaźmierczak, Plopa &

Retowski, 2007). Participants were asked to indicate how much do they agree with each of 7 statements on a scale from 1 – I fully don’t agree to 5 – I fully agree.

3.2.4. Hypothesis

In Study II, several hypotheses, listed below, were tested.

Hypothesis 1. Participants of the study will be less compassionate towards out-group members than in-group members.

Hypothesis 2. Participants of the study will be less likely to take perspective of out-group members than in-group members.

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Hypothesis 4. Moral foundations will play a role in ability to be compassionate towards out-group members.

Hypothesis 5. Moral foundations will play a role in ability to take perspective of out-group members.

Hypothesis 6. Fraternal relative deprivation will influence the ability to feel compassion towards out-group members.

Hypothesis 7. Fraternal relative deprivation will influence the ability to take perspective of out-group members.

4. Results

In this chapter, the results of conducted studies will be presented. Firstly, the results of the media analysis will be shown, after which the results of internet experiment will follow. The research is presented in this particular order mostly due to the fact that the results of the media analysis, as insightful as they are, are also less clear and straightforward than the results of internet experiment. In other words, Study I provides a broader social context, whereas Study II helps to understand the mechanisms of conflict occurrence and escalation in Poland on more individual level.

4.1. Results of Study I

The goal of Study I was to look for occurrences of empathic failure in the Polish media as well as references to the moral domain and relative deprivation. The results of conducted analysis are presented below.

4.1.2. Overview of analyzed articles

Before we look into the results of the media analysis more in depth, it is worth to grasp an overview of articles chosen for the research. In this study, 80 media articles were analyzed. Forty-one of the articles were published in mediums considered as rather right-wing and supporting the government, whereas 39 articles were published in mediums considered as opposing the ruling party. Complete list of analyzed articles is attached in Appendix 1. As the Graph 1 shows, the main actors in the analyzed articles were diverse, with most of the articles having more than one main actor.

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Graph 1. Main actors in the analyzed articles

In order to explore the general tone of the analyzed articles, frequencies for this code were calculated. Results of this analysis are presented in Graph 2.

Graph 2. General tone of the analyzed articles

10% 29% 4% 17% 1% 4% 35% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% Government and it's supporters Opposition Constitutional Tribunal Women Pro-life movement

Men More than one actor

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As Graph 2 shows, analyzed articles had a rather negative undertone. Interestingly, only 11% of the coded stories had a generally positive tone. This shows that media coverage of an on-going conflict in Poland is rather tense and focused on negative aspects of current situation in the country.

4.1.3. Failures of empathy in Polish media

To explore the presence of failures of empathy in Polish media, frequencies of the designated codes were calculated. Results of this analysis are presented in Graph 3. Graph 3. Frequency of empathy indicators

60% 29% 11% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Negative Neutral Positive

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As the graph above shows, failure of emotional empathy in analyzed media materials is generally present, but it is not overwhelming. Most of analyzed materials were either neutral – there were no signs of lack of compassion, but also no signs of compassion – or compassionate. However, more than one third of the articles had some indicators suggesting that their authors, whether supporters or opponents of the government, do not make an effort to connect on emotional level with actors presented in their materials. For instance, one of the authors of a right-wing weekly suggested that “much of the [government] opponents are (…) emotionally disturbed people, beyond the limits of hysteria” (Skwieciński, 2015). Similarly, one of the authors of a rather left-wing daily paper stated that “decisions of the authorities might be dependent on more or less paranoid visions fueled by the active propagandists. And they care about telling what the leader wants to hear. Therefore, the authorities will be inclined to use in their policies measures inadequate to reality, but adequate to their own imagination” (Wroński, 2016b). Those kind of statements show that disregard for emotional states of supporters and opponents of the government is present in the Polish media.

Moreover, this disregard can be observed both in the substance presented in the articles as well as the language used by journalists.

35% 48,80% _47,50% _47,50% 63,70% 17,50% 41,30% 52,50% 31,30% 36,30% 47,50% 10% 21,30% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Compassion Understanding Condesending tone Objectivity Repetition

FREQUENCIES OF EMPATHY

INDICATORS

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The situation becomes more severe when it comes to failure of cognitive empathy. In almost half of the analyzed articles there were signs suggesting that authors of those texts have troubles with taking perspective of those with whom they do not agree. Many of the authors addressed the alleged intelligence of either supporters or opponents of the

government, suggesting that their actions are motivated by supposed stupidity and therefore are impossible to understand. For instance, one of the authors in a right-wing weekly stated that organizers of Black Protests exaggerated the meaning of the proposed anti-abortion bill. As he put it, their reactions were “either extremely contrived over interpretations of the proposed policies, or absolute fabrications or even deceitful distortions of actual records” (Ziemkiewicz, 2016). Similarly, the same author suggested that “it is the common sense that seems to be an enemy most persistently destroyed in opposition’s discourse” (Ziemkiewicz, 2017). On the other hand, one of the authors writing for medium opposing the government stated that “wrong intentions and impure conscience of both Kaczyński and the president are exposed especially by nightly escapades” (Ostrowski, 2015), very strongly attributing wrong motives to the ruling party and the president of the country. Those kind of statements are clear indicators that on many occasions Polish journalists do not try to understand the perspective of every party involved in the conflict, but rather tend to stick to their point of view.

Furthermore, failure of cognitive empathy manifests itself in the tone of the analyzed materials, which, in case of more than half of the articles was labeled as “condescending”. Those patronizing attitudes suggest that Polish journalists do not tend to give any credit to those about whom they write and tend to look down on them.

Not surprisingly, almost 50% of the analyzed articles were rather subjective. Interestingly, as the graph below presents, it is not necessarily because the authors of the articles generally focus only on their own group, but rather because they concentrate on actions of out-group members.

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4.1.4. Failures of empathy on both sides of the conflict

To see whether failures of empathy are a domain of either party involved in the conflict, the Phi coefficient, which is a measure of association between two binary variables, was calculated. The results of this analysis are presented in Table 2. In order to make the results clear, those articles that were coded as neutral in regards to compassion and understanding, as well as those that focused on both groups, were excluded from each analysis. 46,30% 31,30% 22,50% 0,00% 5,00% 10,00% 15,00% 20,00% 25,00% 30,00% 35,00% 40,00% 45,00% 50,00%

Out-group Neutral In-group

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Table 2. Cross tabs for author with codes for compassion, perspective taking, tone, objectivity, focus and intensity. Supporters Opposition Φ Compassion No compassion 17 11 .44** Compassion 2 12 Understanding No understanding 27 12 .42** Understanding 9 24 Condescending Neutral 14 24 -.27** Condescending 27 15 Objectivity Subjective 24 14 .19 Objective 11 14 Focus Out-group 24 13 .45** In-group 3 15 Intensity/repetition Present 17 12 -.11 Not present 24 27 **p=0.01; *p<0.05

As the table above shows, failures of empathy, both emotional and cognitive, occurred significantly more frequently in the articles written by supporters of the government. This suggests that whereas journalist of media opposing the government try to show compassion and make an effort to understand the perspective of those with whom they do not agree,

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journalists of media supporting the government do not tend to do so. This effect seems even stronger when we take into consideration that it is mostly right-wing media authors that use a condescending tone in their articles, treating their opponents with arrogance. This result goes in line with the fact that supporters of the government significantly more often than opponents focused on the out-group in their articles.

It should not come as a surprise that those articles, that concentrated on the out-group rather than the in-group (or both groups) were significantly less compassionate (Φ = .59, p = .00) and had significantly less signs of perspective-taking (Φ = .68, p = .00). However, interestingly, when it comes to objectivity (understood as presenting more than one

perspective and showing actions of more than one actor) there was no statistically significant difference, which means that both supporters and opponents of the government do write articles that try to objectively present facts and events.

4.1.5. Moral domain in Polish media

In order to explore the characteristics of the moral domain in Polish media,

frequencies of the twelve designated indicators (listed in Table 1 on page 16) were calculated. The results of this analysis is presented in Graph 5.

Graph 5. Frequencies of the twelve indicators for the moral domain.

0,00% 10,00% 20,00% 30,00% 40,00% 50,00% 60,00% 70,00% 80,00% 90,00% 100,00%

Indicators of morality

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As Graph 5 shows, most indicators used to investigate the moral domain were

generally present in the analyzed articles. Almost 60% of the stories were labeled as generally referring to morality and as containing judgment about moral dimension of actions undertaken by the actors described in them. According to the results, “respect/authority” is the moral foundation occurring most frequently in Polish media that write about political conflict in the country. Factors such as justice, loyalty, tradition also seem to play a big part in the coverage of the conflict. Furthermore, many articles referred to God and religion, which should not come as a surprise, considering that the Church is one of the most important political actors in Poland. This can even be seen in the substance of the analyzed articles. One of the right-wing authors writing about the Black Protest stated that: “there are many references to religion in the protest (such as mockery of the cross or the rosary), even though the Episcopate has already made a clear critical statement on the punishment of women for abortion”

(Szułdrzyński, 2016). Interestingly, although phenomena such as justice and loyalty were very present in the analyzed articles, not a lot of authors referred to such ideas as equality and betrayal. Additionally, purity and disgust were the least present phenomena in analyzed stories. Generally, we can conclude that conservative values, such as respect, loyalty, God, dominate in Polish media, no matter whether the article is published in a rather left-wing or a rather right-wing paper.

4.1.6. Relative deprivation in Polish media

To explore the presence of relative deprivation in Polish media, the frequencies for designated indicators (listed in the table 1 on page 16) were calculated. The results of this analysis are presented in graph 6.

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Graph 6. Relative deprivation in Polish media.

As the graph above shows, references to the economic situation of supporters and opponents of the government rarely occur in Polish media. Only 22% of analyzed articles mentioned the economic status of out-group members and a bit over 15% articles brought up economic status of in-group members. There were also almost no indicators of alleged inequality between two groups. Generally, it seems that journalists writing for the Polish media do not refer to relative deprivation in their stories.

4.1.7. Summary of Study I results

The primary goal of this chapter was to explore the occurrence of compassion and understanding in Polish media coverage of the on-going political conflict. The results show that, relying solely on media analysis, it is hard to argue that the conflict in Poland is surely an example of empathic failure, at least not when it comes to emotional empathy. Although in many of the analyzed articles lack of compassion was present, generally most of them were either neutral or compassionate. However, we might argue that the Polish conflict is an example of failure of cognitive empathy, at least to some degree. Almost half of the analyzed articles lacked perspective taking, which suggests that in half of the cases Polish journalists do not make an effort to understand multiple perspectives. This result might not be too surprising if we consider the existence of a so-called “ideology media bias” (Mullainathan,

0,00% 25,00% 50,00% 75,00% 100,00%

Status in-group Status out-group Inequality

Indicators of relative deprivation

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coverage that, due to confirmation bias (Nickerson, 1998), makes parts of society reading particular papers even more entrenched in their initial positions, which further escalates the conflict.

It is worth noting that only 10% of the analyzed articles were labeled as ‘neutral’ in regards to understanding, in comparison to 47% articles that were labeled as ‘neutral’ in regards to compassion. This might mean that generally it is easier for the reader to decide whether the author of a given article makes an effort to understand multiple perspectives or not rather than decide whether the article is compassionate or not. On the other hand, it might also mean that journalists more often show cognitive empathy (or lack of it) rather than emotional empathy. This might come from the fact that the tone of most analyzed articles was not emotional – which is manifested in absence of intensifiers and repetitions.

Importantly, it seems that it is rather the supporters of the government that are responsible for occurrence of empathic failures, at least on this particular level of analysis. Signs of lack of compassion and lack of perspective taking were significantly more often present in the right-wing medias and the tone of the articles written by right-right-wing authors was more often condescending than the tone of stories written by the authors opposing the government. It is hard to disagree that the Polish conflict has a moral dimension. In more than half of the analyzed articles references to moral domain and signs of moral judgment were present. Importantly, if we were to rely solely on the media analysis, “authority/respect” foundation would be understood as the most important moral foundation in the Polish conflict, as it occurred in 60% of the analyzed articles. This might be related to the fact that the ruling party is run by a very charismatic leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, who seems to be the main actor of the conflict, having most of the cards in his hands, even though officially he does not hold any strategic political position in the country. He is often said to be a person of absolute authority in the ruling party as well as someone to whom both president and prime minister of the country go to for advice on what shall be done.

On the other hand, it seems that “purity/sanctity” foundation has the least to do with Polish conflict. The relative absence of ideas such as betrayal and equality is somewhat of a puzzle, considering that such phenomena as justice and loyalty were very much present in analyzed medias. This, however, might be related to the way Polish journalist frame certain issues. For instance, it is easier to state that certain politicians are loyal to their leader, as is it generally a positive frame, than accuse someone of betraying their party, as it requires concrete evidence.

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Lastly, based on the media analysis, it is hard to state that the Polish conflict is perceived as related to the concept of relative deprivation. In most of the articles the topic of economic status of either in-group or out-group members did not occur and there were almost no references to inequality or injustice between two main groups involved in the conflict. However, as relative deprivation is a rather individual phenomenon, this topic will be further explored in Study II.

4.2. Results of Study II

The main goal of Study II was to test the hypotheses listed in the third chapter. In order to do so, a series of statistical analysis was conducted.

4.2.1. Frequencies of measures

To get an overview of gathered data, frequencies, reliabilities and correlations between each scale were calculated. Results of this analysis are shown in Table 3.

Table 3. Frequencies, reliability and correlations of measurements.

**p>0.01, *p<0.05

As the table above shows, most of the scales used had satisfying or good reliability, which means that they are a stable measure of certain concepts and can be used for more

M SD α 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

1. Felt compassion 4.06 .82 .83

2. Perspective taking 3.04 .91 .68 .46**

3. Individual relative deprivation 3.05 .78 - -.03 -.09

4. Fraternal relative deprivation 3.04 .66 - .02 -.07 .51**

5. Assessment of the situation 3.72 .97 - .01 -.05 .40** .15**

6. Care 4.88 .85 .77 .34** .21** -,11 -.03 .05

7. Justice 4.79 .80 .72 .19** .15* -.08 -.10 .02 .72**

8. Respect 3.07 1.01 .74 .18** .14* .18** .29** .07 .13* .10

9. Loyalty 3.31 .94 .76 .13* .13* .19** .35** .06 .01 -.01 .72**

10. Purity 3.43 1.13 .78 .15* .14* .11 .31** -.01 .19** .12 .61** .67**

11. Trait perspective taking 3.46 .78 .76 .24** .25** -.12 .11 -.07 .20** .10 .12 .07 .15*

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value for ability to take perspective of the actor presented in the story. This means that participants of the study generally felt compassion after reading the story, which also shows that manipulation used in the study worked properly. However, as the main goal of this study was to explore the ability to be empathetic towards members of the out-group, those overall means do not tell us a lot, which is why more advanced statistical analysis had to be

conducted.

When it comes to correlations between the measurements, it seems that scales from Moral Foundation Questionnaire are generally related to general ability to feel compassion and take perspective of the actor presented in the story. However, to see how those moral foundations actually work, regression analysis needs to be conducted. Additionally, the table of correlations shows that none of the indicators of relative deprivation are related to general ability to be empathetic towards the actor of the story. Interestingly, although there is a positive significant correlation between compassion felt towards the actor of the story and compassion understood as a personality trait, as well as between taking the perspective of the actor of the story and trait-perspective taking, this relation is not very strong, which suggests that personal ability to be empathetic does not have a very big influence on the ability to be compassionate and understanding towards the actor of the presented story. Moreover, it is worth to look at the correlations between specific moral foundations, as they very much go in line with Moral Foundations Theory. And so, “care” foundation is highly correlated with “justice” foundation, whereas “justice,” “respect,” and “purity” foundations are highly related to one another. At the same time correlations between the foundations from the first and the second group are rather low or even statistically insignificant, which suggests that those two groups of moral foundations are rather independent from one another.

4.2.2. Main effect of the experiment

To test the occurrence of intergroup bias of emotional and cognitive empathy, an independent T-test was conducted to compare the level of felt compassion towards and ability to take perspective of members of the out-group and members of the in-group. There was a significant difference between compassion felt towards member of the in-group (M=4.22, SD=.75) and members of the out-group (M=3.96, SD=.94; t (233.78) = -2.45, p=0.02) as well as a significant difference between the ability to take perspective of member of the in-group (M=3.18, SD=.90) in comparison to member of the outgroup (M=2.89, SD=.93; t (244) = -2.47, p=0.01). Those results suggest that generally participants of the study were less likely to

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feel empathy (both emotional and cognitive) towards the main actor of presented story if he did not share their political views. This means that Hypothesis 1 (stating that participants of the study will feel less compassion towards member of the out-group in comparison to the member of the in-group) and Hypothesis 2 (stating that participants of the study will have less ability to take perspective of member of the out-group in comparison to the member of the in-group) were supported. In other words, the study shows that intergroup empathy bias between supporters and opponents of the government does occur in Poland.

4.2.3. Differences in moral foundations

Due to the fact that there was a significant difference in the size of the groups

(supporters vs opponents of the government), in order to measure differences in importance of moral foundations between members of those two groups, a series of non-parametrical U-Mann Whitney tests were conducted. Results of those tests showed that supporters and opponents of the government in Poland differ on each of the five moral foundations. The Mann-Whitney test indicated that the“care” foundation was more important for opponents of the government than for the supporters (U = 4215; p = 0.05). Similarly, the “justice”

foundation was also of a bigger importance to opponents of the government (U = 4204, p= 0.47). On the other hand, the “purity” seemed to matter more for supporters of the

government than for the opponents (U = 1781.5, p = 0.00). A similar effect was observed for the “respect/authority” (U = 1622, p=0.00) as well as for the “loyalty” (U = 2052.5, p =0.00) foundations. Those results support the third hypothesis – supporters and opponents of the government think about morality differently. Whereas for supporters of the government loyalty, respect/authority and purity are more important foundations, for opponents of the government “care” and “justice” foundations are of bigger importance.

4.2.4. Influence of moral foundations

To test hypotheses four and five, which were related to the influence of moral foundations on the ability to feel compassion and take the perspective of member of the out-group, a series of regression analysis was conducted, with “felt compassion for out-group members” and “ability to take perspective of out-group members” treated as dependent variables and all five moral foundations treated as independent variables. Results of the

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Table 4. Influence of moral foundations on felt compassion and perspective-taking in relation to out-group members

Compassion out-group Perspective taking out-group

Care .54** .37** Justice -.06 -.11 Loyalty .13 -.04 Respect .08 .11 Purity -.07 .03 R2 .27 .11 F 8.53** 2.78* *=p>00; *=p<0.5

According to the results, the only foundation that seems to matter when it comes to the ability to feel compassion towards out-group members is the foundation of care. Those

participants of the study, who believe that caring about others, regardless of their political views or ethnicity, is essential moral value are more likely to be able to be compassionate towards members of an out-group. Similarly, they are also more likely to take the perspective of out-group members. These results support hypotheses five and six. Interestingly, the R-square of model for felt compassion is relatively high, especially for social science studies, meaning that it explains relatively big part of the variance.

4.2.5. Influence of relative deprivation

To test the sixth and seventh hypotheses, a series of regression analysis was conducted with “felt compassion for out-group members” and “ability to take perspective of out-group members” treated as dependent variables. Table below shows the results of those analysis.

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Table 5. Influence of relative deprivation on felt compassion and perspective-taking in relation to out-group members

Compassion out-group Perspective taking out-group

Assesement of situation .06 0.02 Individualistic Relative Deprivation .-23* -.22* Fraternal Relative Deprivation .15 0.07 R2 .05 .04 F 2.12 1.67 *=p>00; *=p<0.5

First and foremost, it is important to state that the F statistics of the whole model is not statistically significant, which means that the whole model does not provide a better fit than the intercept-only model. In other words, it means that that constructed model does not fit gathered data too well. However, it does not mean that conclusions about particular predictors should not be drawn. And so, according to the results, it seems that individual relative

deprivation is related both to the ability to feel compassion towards and to take perspective of the out-group member, whereas the general evaluation of one’s situation and fraternal relative deprivation do not have any effect on neither of those. In other words, those participants who feel like their situation changed for worse in the last twelve months were more likely to be empathetic towards out-group members. Those results do not support the sixth and seventh hypotheses. It is worth noting, however, that R-square of presented regression models is very low, which means the effect of individual relative deprivation for felt empathy, even though it is statistically significant, does not really explain any variance between participants.

4.2.6. In-group membership vs trait-empathy

To check whether presented concepts, namely relative deprivation, moral foundations and in-group membership, explain more variance of general ability to feel empathy towards the main actor of the story than individual ability to feel empathy, a series of regression

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actor of the story were treated as dependent variables. Results of those analysis are presented in the tables below.

Table 5. Influence of moral foundations, trait-empathy, relative deprivation and group membership on ability to feel compassion Compassion Step 1 Step 2 Gender -.09 -.05 Empathy .21** .14* Care .33** Justice -.02 Loyalty .20* Respect .11 Purity -.07

Individualistic Rel Dep -.01

Fraternal Rel Dep -.00

Assesement of situation -.03

Condition (out-group vs in-group) .19**

R2 .06 .26

F 7.11** 6.23**

∆R2 0.20

∆F 5.74**

Conflict in Poland : example of empathic failure?