Social problems such as intergroup conflicts, prejudice, and discrimination have a significant effect on the world’s population. Often, to facilitate constructive solutions to these problems, fundamental attitude change is needed. However, changing the beliefs and attitudes to which people strongly adhere has proven to be difficult, as these individuals resist change. In this article, we offer a new and unconventional approach, termed paradoxical thinking, to promote the change of attitudes relevant to social realities. Paradoxical thinking refers to a process of exposing individuals to amplified, exaggerated, or even absurd messages that are still congruent with their held societal beliefs. In our research program, we focused on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and found that paradoxical thinking interventions led to attitude moderation among those who were the most adamant in their held attitudes and beliefs, even in the challenging context of a harsh and prolonged intergroup conflict. We then discuss how paradoxical thinking can be utilized to facilitate attitude change in this context and provide two brief examples as preliminary evidence that this approach might work in other important societal contexts, (i.e., attitudes toward refugees and asylum seekers, and gender-based discrimination), and conclude with policy recommendations.

中文翻译：

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悖论性思维干预：社会变革的范式

群体间冲突，偏见和歧视等社会问题对世界人口产生重大影响。通常，为了促进对这些问题的建设性解决方案，需要根本的态度改变。然而，事实证明，改变人们坚决拥护的信念和态度是困难的，因为这些人抵制变革。在本文中，我们提供了一种新的非常规方法，称为悖论思维，以促进与社会现实相关的态度的转变。悖论性思维是指使个人暴露于仍然与他们所持有的社会信念相一致的放大，夸张甚至荒谬的信息的过程。在我们的研究计划中，我们着眼于以巴冲突，发现自相矛盾的思想干预导致即使在严峻而长期的群体间冲突的挑战性环境中，最坚持自己的态度和信念的人也能保持态度缓和。然后，我们讨论如何在这种情况下使用悖论思维来促进态度的改变，并提供两个简短的例子，作为该方法可能在其他重要的社会背景下起作用的初步证据（即，对难民和寻求庇护者的态度以及基于性别的歧视） ），并提出政策建议。