Abstract
The Round Table Cinema Activity (RTCA) is an intervention designed to promote improved multicultural understanding by having different social identity groups watch a carefully-selected film and take part in repeated dialogic exchanges. Here, we examined the efficacy of the RTCA paradigm at improving inter-ethnic understanding and empathy among members of different social identity groups from the same country (i.e., Malaysian Malays and Chinese). A total of 87 participants completed a measure of ethnocultural empathy before and after the RTCA paradigm, which involved watching the film Sepet, taking part in group discussions, and answering open-ended question about their experiences. Analyses of written responses suggested that the RTCA was successful at promoting intergroup dialogue and exchange of ideas. Analyses of quantitative data suggested significant and large improvements in ethnocultural empathy at post-intervention. Our findings suggest that the RTCA paradigm may be a useful tool for promoting inter-ethnic harmony in the Malaysian context.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Al Ramiah, A., & Hewstone, M. (2012). “Rallying around the flag”: Can an intergroup contact intervention promote national unity? British Journal of Social Psychology, 51, 239–256. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.2011.02041.x.
Al Ramiah, A., Hewstone, M., Little, T. D., & Lang, K. (2014). The influence of status on the relationship between intergroup contact, threat, and prejudice in the context of a nation-building intervention in Malaysia. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 58, 1202–1229. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002713492634.
Ali, S. H. (2008). Ethnic relations in Malaysia: Harmony and conflict. Petaling Jaya: SIRD.
Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading: Addison-Wesley.
Ang, S. W. (2007). Racial hopes/dreams/fantasies: Negotiating race, class, and the nation in Sepet. Asian Cinema, 18, 22–40. https://doi.org/10.1386/ac.18.2.22_1.
Bar-Tal, D. (2007). Sociopsychological foundations of intractable conflicts. American Behavioral Scientist, 50, 1430–1453. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764207302462.
Bar-Tal, D. (2013). Intractable conflicts: Socio-psychological foundations and dynamics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bar-Tal, D., & Halperin, E. (2011). Socio-psychological barriers to conflict resolution. In D. Bar-Tal (Ed.), Intergroup conflicts and their resolution: A social psychological perspective (pp. 217–240). New York: Psychology Press.
Bar-Tal, D., Oren, N., & Nets-Zehngut, R. (2014). Sociopsychological analysis of conflict-supporting narratives: A general framework. Journal of Peace Research, 51, 662–675. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343314533984.
Buttny, R., & Hashim, A. (2015). Dialogue on “1 Malaysia”: The uses of metadiscourse in ethnopolitical accounting. Discourse and Society, 26, 147–164. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926514556033.
Buttny, R., Hashim, A., & Kaur, K. (2006). “The good old days” and multicultural relations in Malaysia: Narratives, criticism, and accounts across ethnopolitical lines. In Paper presented at the 13thconference of the International Association for Dialogue Analysis. Mainz: France.
Christie, D. J., & Noor, N. M. (2012). Sustaining peace through psychologically informed policies: The geohistorical context of Malaysia. In P. Coleman (Ed.), Psychological components of sustainable peace (pp. 153–175). New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3555-6_8.
Christie, D. J., & Noor, N. M. (2017). Humasing and dehumanising the other: Ethnic conflict in Malaysia. In M. Seedat, S. Suffla, & D. J. Christie (Eds.), Enlarging the scope of peace psychology (pp. 109–157). New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45289-0_7.
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Coleman, P. T. (2014). Intractable conflict. In P. T. Coleman, M. Deutsch, E. C. Marcus, P. T. Coleman, M. Deutsch, & E. C. Marcus (Eds.), The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and practice (3rd ed., pp. 708–744). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Cook, S. W. (1985). Experimenting on social issues: The case of school desegregation. American Psychologist, 40, 452–460. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.40.4.452.
Dovidio, J. F., & Gaertner, S. L. (2010). Intergroup bias. In S. T. Fiske, D. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (Vol. 2, 5th ed., pp. 1084–1121). New York: Wiley.
Dovidio, J. F., Love, A., Schellhaas, F. M. H., & Hewstone, M. (2017). Reducing intergroup bias through intergroup conflict: Twenty years of progress and future directions. Group Processes and Intergroup Conflict, 20, 606–620. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430217712052.
Fernandez, E. F., & Coyle, A. (2018). Sensitive issues, complex categories, and sharing festivals: Malay Muslim students’ perspectives on interfaith engagement in Malaysia. Political Psychology, 40, 37–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12501.
Gaertner, S. L., Dovidio, J. F., Guerra, R., Hehman, E., & Saguy, T. (2016). A common ingroup identity: A categorization-based approach for reducing intergroup bias. In T. Nelson (Ed.), Handbook of prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping (2nd ed., pp. 433–454). New York: Psychology Press.
Gómez, A., Tropp, L. R., & Fernández, S. (2011). When extended contact opens the door to future contact: Testing the effects of extended contact on attitudes and intergroup expectancies in majority and minority groups. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 14, 161–173. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430210391119.
Holst, F. (2012). Ethnicization and identity construction in Malaysia. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203121955.
Ito, T., & Yamamoto, T. (Eds.). (2011). Entaku shinema ga tsumugidasu atarashi taiwa no sekai 2: Nikkan kizutsuita kankei no shufuku [new dialogical world born from the round table cinema 2: Repairing the wounded Japan-South Korea relations]. Kyoto: Kitaohji Press.
Janssens, H., Verkuten, M., & Khan, A. (2015). Perceived social structural relations and group stereotypes: A test of the stereotype content model in Malaysia. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 18, 52–61. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12077.
Jensen, S. Q. (2011). Othering, identity formation, and agency. Qualitative Studies, 2, 63–78. https://doi.org/10.7146/qs.v2i2.5510.
Jomo, K. S. (2004). The new economic policy and interethnic relations in Malaysia. New York: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.
Kassim, R., Shukri, E. (Producers), & Ahmad, Y. (Director). (2004). Sepet [motion picture]. Malaysia: MHz Film.
Krippendorff, K. (1980). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Leidner, B., Tropp, L. R., & Lickel, B. (2013). Bringing science to bear – On peace, not war: Elaborating on psychology’s potential to promote peace. American Psychologist, 68, 514–526. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032846.
Miller, N., Brewer, M. B., & Edwards, K. (1985). Cooperative interaction in desegregated settings: A laboratory analog. Journal of Social Issues, 41, 63–75. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1985.tb01129.x.
Mustafa, H., & Poh, S. K. C. (2019). Increasing intercultural contact in cyberspace: How does it affect the level of prejudice among Malaysians? Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 27, 601–620.
Mustapha, R. (2009). Social integration among multi-ethnic students at selected Malaysian universities in peninsular Malaysia: A survey of campus social climate. ASEAN Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 1, 35–44.
Neuendorf, K. A. (2002). The content analysis guidebook. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Noor, N. M., & Leong, C.-H. (2013). Multiculturalism in Malaysia and Singapore: Contesting models. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 37, 714–726. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2013.09.009.
Oh, S. (2016). When cultural difference appears and overcomes. In N. Takahashi & T. Yamamoto (Eds.), Money as a cultural tool for east Asian children: Cultural developmental psychology of “pocket money” (pp. 213–240). Tokyo: Tokyo University Press.
Oh, S. (2017). Dialogical exchange class using movies for mutual understanding between a Korean and a Japanese university. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 51, 379–390. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-017-9393-8.
Oh, S., Choi, S., & Yamamoto, T. (2014). Group intercultural understanding (1): Through the “round-table cinema” classes between Japanese and Korean universities. Maebashi Kyoai Gakuen, 14, 127–143.
Omar, N. (2011). Sexing Islam: religion and contemporary Malaysian cinema. In A. N. Weintraub (Ed.), Islam and popular culture in Indonesia and Malaysia (pp. 158–198). New York: Routledge.
Pettigrew, T. F. (2016). In pursuit of three theories: Authoritarianism, relative deprivation, and inter-group contact. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033327.
Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 751–783. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.5.751.
Raman, S. R., & Tan, Y. S. (2010). Ethnic segregation in Malaysia’s education system: Enrolment choices, preferential policies, and desegregation. Pedagogica Historica, 46, 117–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230903528496.
Schuman, H., & Presser, S. (1996). Questions and answers in attitude surveys: Experiments on question form, wording, and context. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Sim, G. (2009). Yasmin Ahmad’s “Orked” trilogy. Film Quarterly, 62, 48–53. https://doi.org/10.1525/FQ.2009.62.3.48.
Stephan, W. G., & Stephan, C. W. (1984). The role of ignorance in intergroup relations. In N. Miller & M. B. Brewer (Eds.), Groups in contact: The psychology of desegregation (pp. 229–257). Orlando: Academic Press.
Tamam, E. (2009). Influence of interethnic contact on interethnic attitudes of Malay and Chinese-Malaysian university students in Malaysia. Human Communication, 12, 53–66.
Tamam, E., & Strauss, S. E. (2017). Ethnic-related diversity engagement differences in intercultural sensitivity among Malaysian undergraduate students. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 22, 137–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2014.881295.
Verkuyten, M., & Khan, A. (2012). Interethnic relations in Malaysia: Group identifications, indispensability, and inclusive nationhood. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 15, 132–139. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-839X.2012.01374.x.
Wan Norhasinah, W. (2011). An analysis of ethnic relations between the Malay and Chinese communities in Malaysia from civilization perspective: Language and education’s experiences. International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 19, 225–235.
Wang, Y.-W., Davidson, M. M., Yakushko, O. F., Savoy, H. B., Tan, J. A., & Bleier, J. K. (2003). The Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy: Development, validation, and reliability. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 50, 221–234. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.50.2.221w
Ward, C., & Hewstone, M. (1985). Ethnicity, language, and intergroup relations in Malaysia and Singapore: A social psychological analysis. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Developments, 6, 271–296. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.1985.9994207.
Yamamoto, T. (2017). Cultural psychology of difference and EMS: A new theoretical framework for understanding and reconstructing culture. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 51, 345–358. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-017-9388-4.
Yamamoto, T., & Ito, T. (Eds.). (2011). Entaku shinema ga tsumugidasu atarashi taiwa no sekai: Ajia eiga wo ajia no hitobito to tanoshimu [new dialogical world born from the round table cinema 2: Enjoying Asian movies with Asian people]. Kyoto: Kitaohji Press.
Zainal, K., & Mohamad Salleh, N. (2010). Ethnic relation among the youth in Malaysia: Toward fulfilling the concept of one Malaysia. Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 9, 855–868. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.12.248.
Funding
This research was funded by the POSCO TJ Park Foundation 2018 Research Grant for Asian Studies (Grant Number: 13750TT18600269).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of Perdana University’s Institutional Review Board and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed Consent
Written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Swami, V., Zahari, H.S., Mohd. Khatib, N.A. et al. Promoting Inter-Ethnic Understanding and Empathy Using a Round Table Cinema Activity with Malaysian Malay and Chinese Students. Integr. psych. behav. 54, 416–437 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-020-09514-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-020-09514-7