Barbara Ley Toffler, Ph.D.
Organizational Behavior and Social Psychology, Yale University
At the January 9th Council meeting, two FDU professors, Dr. Ben Freer and Dr. Steve Dranoff, from the Center for Empathy presented their Empathy Training Program as a way for Teaneck to ease the increasing hostilities between and among the different religious, racial, and ethnic groups who live as neighbors in this town. In my opinion, the answer to the question: Is more empathy enough to heal this town? Is NO.
When I was in graduate school, one of the biggest debates within the various psychology and sociology disciplines and interdisciplinary programs – most of which addressed Intergroup Relations --was focused on changing people’s minds and building bridges between disparate communities. How to do it?
One Professor, Leonard Doob an expert in propaganda and conflict resolution, had earlier led his team to conduct interventions in Northern Ireland, Somalia and Ethiopia, and Cyprus. To encapsulate the outcomes: Huge success during the programs, return to conflict when day-to-day life resumed. Why?
There are two primary reasons:
ONE: You Can Only Change What You Can See: Behavior. The major debate about changing minds – i.e. changing beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions – and ultimately changing the way people acted toward and with each other -- was the question:
Should you change attitudes to change behavior, or should you change behavior to change attitudes?
After 40 years of teaching and working with for-profit, non-profit, and governmental organizations, I have learned that the ONLY way to change how people feel is to change behaviors. BEHAVIOR CHANGES ATTITUDES.
First of all, none of us will ever really know what another’s ATTITUDE is. All we will know about their attitude is what we attribute to them from their BEHAVIORS we can observe. When we say, “I don’t like your attitude,” what we are really saying is, “I don’t like what you are saying, and I’m assuming I know what your attitude is from what you are saying.” Second of all, most of us simply want the other to stop saying and doing what they are saying and doing since we have no way of really knowing what anyone else’s attitude is.
Empathy Training is aimed at changing attitudes. It guides individuals to understanding intellectually and feeling emotionally what “the other” is thinking and feeling, being in touch with their own thoughts and feelings, and working to help each other understand those internal processes themselves and each other.
But is that what we need? The members of the different religious, racial, and ethnic groups seem to have a pretty accurate idea of what the others believe, perceive, and feel. And nobody disputes the facts. Different groups interpret them differently.
Everybody knows what horror Hamas wreaked on October 7, 2023; everybody knows what the resolution passed by Council on October 17th says; everybody knows approximately how many Gazan civilians have died. NOBODY AGREES ON WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THOSE DEATHS AND THEREFORE WHAT SHOULD BE DONE, AND NO AMOUNT OF EMPATHY TRAINING WILL EVER BRING MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING OR AGREEMENT.
TWO: Institutional/Subcommunity Values Will Overwhelm Individual Change. There is another critical variable in the mix, learned from the Doob interventions. That is the impact of the institutional/subcommunity values and culture. Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland attended retreats where they were guided to listen to each other, share their views, understand each other, agree that they differed but would respect each other’s attitudes, return to their communities and, within a short time, returned to the basic hostilities that their communities had always felt about each other. While one or two individuals may actually change their “attitudes” longer term, most will not. The explicit and implicit pressures on those who have truly changed will be painful and, likely, untenable to bear for any period of time.
SO WHAT CAN WE DO?
One of the most significant pieces of research conducted on Intergroup Conflict and Intergroup Relations was that done by Muzafer Sherif and Carolyn W. Sherif who published their findings in 1965:
The findings summarized by Muzafer Sherif and Carolyn W. Sherif, "Research on intergroup relations." Pp.153-177 in Otto Klineberg and Richard Christie (Eds.), Perspectives in Social Psychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1965 are as follows:
“1. Contact between the groups involving close proximity in activities enjoyed by members of each group does not necessarily produce a decrease in the existing intergroup hostility. These findings may necessitate some revision of the assumption that mere contacts between groups—without regard to the conditions of contact—through exchange of persons and social get-togethers will by themselves reduce unfavorable intergroup attitudes.
2. Conflict between groups and the products of that conflict were reduced through the introduction of superordinate goals. We define superordinate goals as goals which are compelling for members of two or more groups and cannot be ignored, but which cannot be achieved by the efforts and resources of one group alone. They require the coordinated efforts and resources of all of the groups involved. They are superordinate, rather than merely common goals, in the sense that they must override some of the goals of both groups which are incompatible with them. When groups in conflict come into contact under conditions embodying such goals, they tend to cooperate toward them, as we found in the research.
But conflict and its products were not reduced in one episode. Here too the time dimension has to be brought in as a major variable.
3. Various superordinate goals over a period of time were necessary to sustain cooperation between groups, to permit procedures acceptable to both to be established and then transferred from one situation to the next. In the process, friction between groups and unfavorable stereotypes were reduced. The resulting changes in intergroup behavior were dramatic.
In concluding these generalizations, we venture to state some things that we have learned about the reduction of intergroup conflict. It is true that lines of communication between groups must be opened and contacts established before prevailing conflicts can be reduced. But contact and communication without superordinate goals may serve as occasions for recrimination, for accusations and endless reference to the problem of "Who's to blame?"
When contact and communication involve cooperative efforts toward superordinate goals, they are utilized in the direction of reducing conflict in order to attain the goals. The information about the out-group, which was ignored or rejected when the groups were in conflict, is seen in a new light and the probability of its effectiveness is enormously increased.”
Does Teaneck Have Superordinate Goals That Our Disparate Communities Can Work On Together Over Time? YES!
THE LONG-DELAYED 2024 MASTER PLAN
In Fall 2023, the development of the new Master Plan (MP), (which should have been written in 2017, 10 years after the previous one), was kicked off in superb fashion with two community meetings. The meetings included breakout groups that reported on their discussions, and excitement was high at the apparent agreement on goals that was evident.
Reminder: The Master Plan is essentially a contract between the town and its residents about “local development decisions affect your quality of life in many ways, including: a healthy environment, clean and plentiful water, safe roadways, compatible land uses, adequate public facilities, and impacts to property values and taxes. A Master Plan is the blueprint for a municipality that depicts current land uses and guides decisions for both growth and conservation in your community. A Master Plan can provide a cohesive focus by outlining development goals and objectives for a community. It can identify suitable districts for commercial or housing developments; … open space, recreational areas, and environmental resources; historic and cultural resources; and transportation corridors and utilities.” From: Citizen’s Guide to New Jersey Municipal Master Plans
Unfortunately, town planner, Keenan Hughes, who was leading the effort left and that led to a months-long delay in progress. By default, the MP development has been picked up by other planners in Mr. Hughes’ office.
SO – The Teaneck Planning Board – the body responsible for the town’s Master Plan -- should organize a “Let’s Write Our Master Plan Project” (they can appoint a task force to oversee the project) which would involve volunteers or recruitment from the diverse groups in town. Groups composed of representatives of the several sub-communities in Teaneck would each be assigned a land-use area to research and draft that portion of the new MP.
- It will bring members of diverse communities into CONTACT with each other.
- It will provide a common SUPERORDINATE GOAL.
- It will continue over TIME, because of the nature of the project.
Teaneck’s 2004 “Pathways for the Future” can offer a model for the process of the greater Teaneck Community building its 2024 Master Plan.
No, Empathy Training won’t heal Teaneck. But a Townwide Master Plan Project just might be the true beginning of a resolution of our painful intergroup conflicts.
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