Politically-targeted intergroup interventions promote social equality and engagement.

Abstract

In the field of intergroup conflict reconciliation, the relationship between psychological interventions and diverse political ideologies is often overlooked. The current work presents methodological principles for targeting individuals from different ideological backgrounds with effective interventions to promote social equality in real-world settings. In the first phase, we conducted an intervention tournament among 2288 Jewish Israelis with varying political orientations. We found that conservatives showed the highest support for social equality after a corrective meta-perception intervention, centrists responded best to a social norms intervention, and liberals exhibited the strongest support after a malleability intervention. The second study involved a field experiment using A/B testing on social media to extend and replicate these findings. The results confirmed our hypotheses and demonstrated the potential of combining social psychology principles with contemporary marketing tools to enhance the effectiveness and real-world relevance of socio-psychological interventions.