Imagine All the People: Negotiating and Mediating Moral Concern through Intergroup Encounters

Abstract

Intergroup encounters can often become difficult conversations in which power relations and disagreements are perpetuated and re-enacted through the interaction and communication between the participating groups. Thus, especially in asymmetric settings, moral inclusion and moral responsibility toward members of other groups are crucial to dialogue, conflict resolution, and reconciliation. Yet it is exactly the circumstances of asymmetry—involving threat and dehumanization—that pose barriers to the elicitation and sustaining of moral concern. Drawing on and integrating two separate research traditions—the psychology of intergroup conflict, dialogue and peace building, and communication research on “mediated suffering”—this article discusses perceptions, representations, and emotions that underlie recognition of and empathy toward the suffering of others with the aim of increasing our understanding of when and how we can be brought—through mediated and unmediated dialogues and encounters—to care about the suffering of others.