Emotion regulation and attitudes toward conflict in Colombia: effects of reappraisal training on negative emotions and support for conciliatory and aggressive statements

Hurtado Parrado, CamiloSierra Puentes, MyriamEl Hazzouri, MohammedMorales, AlexandraGutiérrez Villamarín, DianaVelásquez, LauraCorrea Chica, Jully AndreaRincón, Juan CarlosHenao, KarenCastañeda, Juan GabrielLópez López, Wilson2020-04-022020-04-022019Hurtado-Parrado C, Sierra-Puentes M, El Hazzouri M, Morales A, Gutiérrez-Villamarín D, Velásquez L, Correa-Chica A, Rincón JC, Henao K, Castañeda JG and López-López W (2019) Emotion Regulation and Attitudes Toward Conflict in Colombia: Effects of Reappraisal Training on Negative Emotions and Support for Conciliatory and Aggressive Statements. Front. Psychol. 10:908. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00908http://hdl.handle.net/10347/21110Control of negative emotions (e.g., anger and fear) by political cues perpetuate intractable conflict by mobilizing public support for aggressive actions. Halperin et al. (2013) found that reappraisal – an adaptive form of emotion regulation – decreased negative emotions triggered by anger-inducing information related to the Israeli– Palestinian conflict, and increased support for conciliatory statements. We tested these effects in the context of the conflict between the Colombian government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP). Reappraisal training reduced negative emotions produced by a presentation that illustrated FARC’s violent actions, and increased support for conciliatory statements (with overall moderate effect magnitudes). We also found that negative emotions mediated the effects of reappraisal on the support for aggressive and conciliatory statements. These findings indicate a high degree of generality of the phenomena, especially considering the differences between the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the Colombian conflict. Our findings also show promise for replicating these effects on other types of intergroup conflicts and guiding effective public policy.engCopyright © 2019 Hurtado-Parrado, Sierra-Puentes, El Hazzouri, Morales, Gutiérrez-Villamarín, Velásquez, Correa-Chica, Rincón, Henao, Castañeda and López-López. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these termshttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Emotion regulationCognitive reappraisalConciliationAggressionPeaceIntractable conflictColombiaFARC-EPEmotion regulation and attitudes toward conflict in Colombia: effects of reappraisal training on negative emotions and support for conciliatory and aggressive statementsjournal article10.3389/fpsyg.2019.009081664-1078open access