Conflict Resolution: Moving Beyond Boundaries

Date

Jan 28, 2021

Time

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Speaker

Olga Klimecki

Affiliation

Eleonore-Trefftz Guest Professor at TU Dresden, Chair of Clinical Psychology and Behavioural Neuroscience

Series

TUD NIC Kolloquium

Language

en

Main Topic

Psychologie

Host

NIC

Description

Although we live in a global multicultural society, intergroup conflicts are radicalizing in many countries, Germany included. Previous research has identified that intergroup relations can be improved by intergroup contact or meditation training. The proposed project aims at testing the causal, specific, and additive impact of these interventions on intergroup behavior between Germans and immigrants (Objective 1). This will be achieved in a preregistered, randomized controlled longitudinal superiority trial with a six month follow-up. Objective 2 of the study is to test psychological (i.e., anxiety and empathy) and biological (i.e., cortisol response and brain activations) mechanisms through which the trainings impact intergroup behavior. To measure brain activations related to social emotions, I plan to collect fMRI data before and after the training using the SoVT-Rest paradigm (Beaz-Lugo et al., 2021). I hypothesize that the trainings will increase brain activations in regions previously associated with compassion, such as striatum and orbitofrontal cortex and decrease functional connectivity between posterior cingulate cortex and amygdala in resting state periods after social emotions, as this connectivity has previously been linked to anxiety (Baez-Lugo et al., 2021). The overall aim is to contribute to evidence-based policy making for deradicalizing conflicts related to immigration. Reference: Baez-Lugo, S., Deza-Araujo, Y., Collette, F., Vuilleumier, P., & Klimecki, O. and the Medit-Ageing Group (2021). Exposure to negative socio-emotional events induces sustained alteration of resting-state brain networks in the elderly. Under consideration, Nature Ageing. https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-91196/v2

Links

Last modified: Jan 22, 2021, 10:42:42 AM