Our goal is to increase empathy and compassion in the local population towards refugees of host countries and facilitate the integration of refugees into local communities. This aim fits the overall scope of the Foundation's strategy in that helping others in need, and providing the appropriate circumstances for all people to flourish, is in line with the moral standards of humanity at the global level. We firmly support that Templeton's human flourishing efforts should be directed in helping refugees who find themselves in need of empathy, compassion, and a chance at a better life.With the world divided into countries that host refugees, and countries that, due to a multitude of reasons, create refugees, it is imperative that measures are taken by the former so as to ensure the mutual well-being of the refugee population and the local community side-by-side. By finding ways to build mutual understanding through compassion and empathy toward refugees, we can secure the peaceful co-existence and well-being of both, the host communities and refugees.Here, we propose an innovative method of approach which builds empathy and compassion towards refugees from the host population via examining the effectiveness of cognitive or emotional, or behavioral stimuli.
Stakeholders (government and NGOs) to-date have invested primarily in first response infrastructure, only partially targeting assimilation, rarely involving the local (host) community.Advancements on cognitive/emotional/behavioral-focused studies in empathy and compassion, in relation to music and audiovisual studies, advertising, and gaming interventions provide a more focused and targeted approach on how to educate and mobilize both the local (host) community and refugees via i) interventions which have been proven to have an effect on the human psyche; ii) use of new technologies (eye-tracking, virtual reality games); iii) joint projects which have human interaction between the two groups at their core.
Assistance towards vulnerable populations has acquired political connotations. Multiculturalism, financial constraints, religion are some of the factors identified in the literature that influence the perceptions and attitudes of host communities toward refugees.Refugees often fall prey to opportunistic demagoguery and are mistreated not only by groups with a clear xenophobic agenda but also by populations finding it difficult to deal with an unprecedented situation in addition to facing a global pandemic and economic crisis.The challenge is to create empathy and compassion towards refugees by creating services where both refugees and host communities participate.
In order to overcome the aforementioned Roadblocks, it is essential that a) the local (host) community feels empathy and compassion towards refugees, and b) is actively involved in all efforts of intervention, assistance, and potential flourishing of the refugees residing in their countries.The breakthrough needed requires careful planning, promotion, and implementation of firstly alleviating feelings of fear-based xenophobia through multi-disciplinary interventions and innovative techniques (e.g. eye-tracking) using audio-visual and technology based tools (such as virtual reality games) aimed at increasing empathy, while at the same time carefully assessing the vibe of both groups via psychometric and qualitative evaluations.Secondly, the active engagement of refugees into joint communal projects involving members of the host community can be achieved through private and state educational channels (from primary education to higher education) of participating countries. During this stage, research teams from participating countries should prioritize culture-sensitive interventions, so as to create custom-tailored solutions which will potentially have the full support from both the host population and the refugees, and influence public policy.Teams after assessing and exchanging their results will expand their global collaboration for the benefit of both the refugees and their host communities.
ASSESSMENT
3rd year
5th year - Number of
10th year - Number of
The number of refugees across the globe is at an alarming high and is expected to continue to grow in the future. The increase of refugees as a result of climate change, famine, and most critically, war, has seen a parallel rise of xenophobia across the continents of Europe, America, and Asia, as a well-documented fact. The reason behind this observation is because citizens of host countries see the settlement of refugees amongst their communities as detrimental to their own well-being, and loss of their cultural identity. This, eventually, is detrimental to the host population and the refugees in equal measure, each group becoming more and more alienated from each other. An IPSOS study on immigration and refugees conducted across 22 countries found that overall, close to 40% of respondents agreed somewhat or very much with the closing of their borders to refugees entirely at this time (IPSOS, 2016). In line with these findings, scholars recognize that refugees, and immigrants more generally, can invoke feelings of threat in members of a (potential) host community (McKay, Thomas, & Kneebone, 2011). As a result, finding durable solutions for refugees has become a major challenge worldwide.There are a variety of theoretical approaches applied to the study of threat in the context of immigrants and refugees. For example, the Integrated Threat Theory of Prejudice (TTP) proposes four distinct types of intergroup bases of prejudicial attitudes: realistic threats, symbolic threats, negative stereotypes, and intergroup anxiety (Stephan & Renfro, 2002). The theory of social cohesion (TSC) supports that when people collaborate with each other towards a specific end, they view each other more favorably, regardless of the importance of triviality of the goal. The joint projects that we envision are based on an integration of TTP and TSC. Moreover, in our case, we will incorporate technology to achieve our goal. In what some call the fourth industrial revolution, technology has been a key element in our lives. Data-driven technologies such as artificial intelligence and conversational agents (e.g., virtual reality games and chatbots) could be used to not only uncover the state-of-mind of refugees and their hosts but also, from these learnings, provide insights into behavioral cues which could be causing problematic interactions between refugees and host communities. As a result, technology can act as both an investigative and interactive tool to provide deeper insights into the cognitive and emotional experiences of refugees and their hosts (Sidaoui, Jaakkola, & Burton, 2020).
5 DOIs
Research Collaborators
These research ideas were submitted in response to Templeton World Charity Foundation’s global call for Grand Challenges in Human Flourishing, which ran from September through November 2020.
Opinions expressed on this page, or any media linked to it, do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc. Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc. does not control the content of external links.
