watertank | International justice as a matter of visual perception (Reply)

Procedure. Participants read a brief (one-page) essay outlining the history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict from the perspectives of both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Accompanying the essay was a map of the region “for reference” .
- Half the participants viewed a map of Israel (in light color) and the Palestinian territories (in dark color) alone (Israel-focused map). On this map, Israel took up the large majority of the visual space.

- The other half of the participants received the same map pulled back in perspective to now show Israel (in light color) much smaller in the visual space, surrounded by the countries of the greater Middle East (in dark color; region focused map).

Participants were asked to study the map carefully because they would later be asked to redraw it from memory. This instruction was meant to increase the salience of the picture.

- We predicted that when viewing Israel as large (Israel-focused map), participants would perceive the Palestinians as underdogs; consequently, they would show more sympathy for and support to the Palestinians compared with the Israelis. In contrast, those viewing Israel as small (region-focused map) would perceive the Israelis as underdogs; consequently, they would show more support for and sympathy to them.