Daniel Bar-Tal (; born 1946) is an Israeli academic, author and Branco Weiss Professor of Research in Child Development and Education at School of Education, Tel Aviv University.
Biography
Bar-Tal was born in Stalinabad, Tajikistan, USSR in 1946, but lived his childhood in Szczecin, Poland until his immigration to Israel in 1957. In Israel he completed his undergraduate studies at Tel Aviv University.
Bar-Tal has pursued his graduate training in social psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, where he completed his doctoral dissertation in 1974. He stayed at Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center for postdoctoral studies during 1975.
In 1975, Bar-Tal returned to Tel Aviv University. His teaching career has been at Tel Aviv. He served as a Director of the Walter Lebach Research Institute for Jewish-Arab Coexistence through Education from 2002 through 2005. He was a Co-editor in Chief of the Palestine Israel Journal from 2001 through 2005. He also served as the President of the International Society of Political Psychology from 1999 through 2000.
Awards
In 1991, his paper "The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict; A Cognitive Analysis" won the Otto Klineberg Intercultural and International Relations Prize of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). In 2002, his paper, titled, Why does Fear Override Hope, won the second place in the same competition. In 2006, Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflict, received the Alexander George Award of the International Society of Political Psychology for the best book in Political Psychology. In 2006 he also received Peace Scholar Award of the Peace and Justice Studies Association. In 2009, his paper “Reconciliation as a foundation of culture of peace” won again the Otto Klineberg Intercultural and International Relations Prize of SPSSI. In 2011 he received the Lasswell Award of the International Society of Political Psychology for distinguished scientific contribution in the field of political psychology. In 2012 he received the Nevitt Sanford Award of the International Society of Political Psychology for engaging in the practical application of political psychological principles, and creating knowledge that is accessible and used by practitioners to make a positive difference in the way politics is carried out. In 2013 he received an honorary membership of the Polish Society of Social Psychology. In 2014 he received the Morton Deutsch Conflict Resolution Award of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence, Division 48 of American Psychological Association. The prize is given to an individual who has made notable contributions to the integration of theory and practice in the field of conflict resolution.
Work
Since the early 1980s his interest has shifted to political psychology. First, he was interested in shared beliefs in groups and societies, in general studying their formation, function and change. Later he directed most of his attention to the study of the socio-psychological foundations of intractable conflicts and peace building, including reconciliation.
Socio-psychological infrastructure in times of intractable conflict
In the latter area, he studied how socio-psychological infrastructure evolve in times of intractable conflict. This infrastructure was found to consist of shared societal beliefs of the ethos of the conflict, collective memory, and emotional collective orientations. Bar-Tal has examined the contents, acquisition, functions, of societal mechanisms, as well as their contribution to the crystallization of social identity and development of the culture of a society in conflict during the conflict.
Socio-psychological barriers to peacemaking
Bar-Tal has also studied socio-psychological barriers to peacemaking and ways to overcome them. He also examined the required changes in this socio-psychological repertoire for conflict resolution and reconciliation. Specifically, he proposed a conceptual framework allowing for reconciliation, peace education and eventually peace culture to evolve. In addition, in order to understand maintenance of conflicts Bar-Tal studied acquisition of the conflict repertoire of children and adolescents.