The Processing Mechanisms Of Interethnic Conflict Information

Based on reviewing the societal factors and psychological variables in interethnic conflicts, from the catastrophe model of in complex system theory perscpective, the present study puts forward a theoretical processing model of ethnic conflict information, which suggests that an interethnic conflict event is an outcome of the synergy among the physiological, cognitive and behavioral factors. Thus in order to validate these basic views and assumptions, the research centred respectively on three primary domains of physiological response model, social cognition and behavioral dynamics, applying various methods to examine their roles in the interethnic conflict behaviors with the scientifically experimental procedures, then using a reliable regression analyses and structural equation modeling to further screen out some crucial predictors. Furthermore a multicriteria decision-making approach of complex system based on the catastrophe theory and fuzzy set was utilized to construct a warning model of interethnic conflict information processing with these selected core predictive indicators, while confirming its effectiveness. Finally, this research mainly draws the following conclusions:(1) In terms of physiological response patterns, in the processing of interethnic conflict information, people‘s specific physical arousal reactions were associated with their trait aggression and trait impulsiveness, which showed that the stimulating effect of interethnic conflict information can change an individual‘s physical arousal state, then easily activating the impulsive and aggressive behavior patterns.(2) From socio-cognitive model perspective, the social representation model of interethnic conflicts was decomposed into three subnetworks: a 4 ? core central nucleus, a 3 ? core peripheral system and a 2 ? core marginal system, which is constituted the central- peripheral- marginal hierarchical model. The model organized its entire structure and central core around the concept of war(contradiction and harmony), with its overall meaning generated from five shared key elements of war, fight, peace, contradictions and conflicts. Furthermore, in the process of social representations, different ethnic groups had no the same representation model of interethnic conflict.Secondly, compared with the stimulating effect of the interpersonal conflict information, people showed attentional bias toward interethnic conflict-related stimuli. Such attentional bias had two sources, one from unconscious attention or preattention, and another from strategic control processing. This distributional bias of attentional resources easily made people interpret the related social environment as dangerous, and then enhance the sensitivity to rewards and punishments of the behaviors, while activating the proactive and reactive aggression behavior patterns.In addition, the cognitive processing of interethnic conflict clues was composed of two stages of stimulus perception, conflict evaluation. The con?ict monitoring process of interethnic conflict informations could evoke obvious ERP components of N1, P1 N2, and P300, but only P300 may serve as a neurocognitive marker of the conflict monitoring for interethnic informations. The detection process of interethnic conflict informations can be decomposed into 4 coherent information processing phase: early attentional orientation, conflict stimulation assessment, behavioral response regulation and cognitive source allocation. Furthermore, some of electrophysiological indices elicited by interethnic conflict monitoring were related with the reinforcement sensitivity of behavioral dynamics. That is, during the monitoring process of the interethnic arousal conflict and aggressive cues, the latencies of N1 and P300 components distributed in central ? parietal regions could enhance the sensitivity of the behavioral inhibition system(BIS), while in the detection of the interethnic non-conflict, aggressive, and action conflict cues, some electrophysiological features distributed in the middle and posterior scalps(electrode CP4, P3, P4, and O1) could heighten the sensitivity of behavior activation system.(3) In regarding to the behavioral dynamics mode, security dilemma and intergroup bias were two important psychosocial variables impacting interethnic behaviors. Under the security dilemma conditions, as dealing with interethnic affairs, in general, people prefered more to use supportive behaviors rather than rejective behaiors, and rarely use defensive behaviors. Moreover, this behavioral response mode existed in ethnic group differences, and was affected by the interethnic familiarity, decision-making consistents, and rational choice variables in the security dilemma. Thses important factors could increase or decrease the response differences in the supportive, rejective and defensive behaviors, and play the promotive or inhibiting effects under a certain degree or condition.In interethnic bias situations, while copying with interethnic events, people obviously prefered to use attack behaviors more than acceptant behaviors, which existed in interethnic bias differences. Furthermore, this behavioral dynamics in interethnic bias conditions was mediated by gain feedbacks, reward sensitivity and punishment sensitivity of personality. Specifically, gain feedbacks could positively regulate the response differences between the acceptant and attack behaviors under a certain degree or condition, promoting interethnic behavioral differentiation. In contrast, the reward and punishment sensitivities of personality could negatively adjust one’s behavioral response patterns, inhibiting behavioral differentiation between ethnic groups.In conclusion, after employing the multicriteria decision-making method of complex system based on catastrophe theory and fuzzy set, this research indicated that the theoretical processing model of interethnic conflict information was a complex system consisted of physiological response patterns, social cognition mode, behavioral dynamics, interethnic aggressive behaviors, which comprised the following critical domains: physical arousal response, attentional bias effect, conflict detection sensitivity, conflict monitoring effect, behavioral dynamic mode, interethnic behavioral phenotypes. They formed the central elements of the conflict information processing model, and interacted with each other in the dynamic, nonlinear way, forming a response loop, with the dynamic characteristics and evolution process of the catastrophe configuration.