BRIEF REPORT The Spiral of Conflict: Naïve Realism and the Black Sheep Effect in Attributions of Knowledge and Ignorance Gordon Sammut and Frank Bezzina University of Malta Mohammad Sartawi Kuwait University Naïve realism research has demonstrated the fact that individuals deprecate alternative perspectives to preserve their own. With reference to an outgroup, this bias may be compounded by ethnocentrism. We present an operationalized measure of naïve real- ism in terms of attributions of knowledge and ignorance. We hypothesized that respondents would make higher attributions of knowledge to those who agree with them than those who disagree with them (naïve realism). We further hypothesized that respondents would attribute more knowledge to their ingroup than to an outgroup (ethnocentrism). Findings confirmed our hypotheses except for a black sheep effect marking higher attributions of knowledge to the outgroup with whom respondents disagreed relative to the ingroup. These findings demonstrate that social cognition is biased toward being more divisive and exclusive than open and inclusive. We suggest that overcoming the epistemic challenge may thus need to be the first step in conflict resolution attempts that successfully avoid the spiral of conflict. Keywords: spiral of conflict, naive realism, black sheep effect, attribution of ignorance, ethnocentrism According to the theory of naïve realism (Ross & Ward, 1996), individuals tend to as- sume that other social actors share their own perspectives and subjective experiences of so- cial events. This is due to the fact that individ- uals also tend to assume that their own percep- tions and experiences are not idiosyncratic but “natural” and “objective,” in other words as they “really are.” Consequently, in encounter- ing different perspectives, social actors tend to assume that these reflect some underlying and inherent bias that stands in the way of the other agreeing with our own views. On this basis, human subjects proceed to refute undesirable evidence if they can (Kunda, 1990), and to deprecate others’ discrepant views in the pro- cess (Smithson, 1985). Research suggests that people are inclined to view others with whom they disagree as moti- vated by self-interest, personal affections, polit- ical partisanship and unwavering ideology (Kennedy & Pronin, 2008). The perception of adversaries as biased leads to competitive, as opposed to cooperative, conflict-resolution strategies (Kennedy & Pronin, 2008). This pre- cipitates a conflict spiral where both parties perceive the other as biased and proceed to respond in competitive ways to the reactions of the other (Kennedy & Pronin, 2008). In fact, GORDON SAMMUT holds a PhD in social psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a lecturer in social psychology at the University of Malta. His work investigates social representations and the psycho- logical study of points of view. His main interests include intercultural encounters and public opinion, open- mindedness and closed-mindedness, and issues relating to opinion formation and argumentation. FRANK BEZZINA holds a PhD in applied behavioral sci- ence from the University of Malta. He is the head of the Department of Management and Deputy Dean of the Fac- ulty of Economics, Management and Accountancy, Univer- sity of Malta. He is interested in conflict resolution, perfor- mance management, risk management, and evidence-based management. MOHAMMAD SARTAWI received his PhD in social psychol- ogy from the London School of Economics. He is currently a teaching fellow at Kuwait University. His areas of interest include social identity, intergroup relations, prejudice and conflict, religion, and culture. CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING THIS ARTICLE should be addressed to Gordon Sammut, Department of Psychology, University of Malta. E-mail: gordon.sammut@um.edu.mt This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology © 2015 American Psychological Association 2015, Vol. 21, No. 2, 289 –294 1078-1919/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pac0000098 289