Alternative Narratives for Preventing the Radicalization of Muslim Youth (original) (raw)
After 9/11 and a series of terror wars, the Islamic extremist recruitment in the US is becoming increasingly Internet-led with the exponential growth of the online extremist messages, converting many an individual born and raised in the US to home-grown Islamic extremists. Research shows that online censorship and removal of the radical contents are ineffective, and the current counter-narrative needs to be strategically re-addressed. Under the above framework, the primary purpose of this paper is to determine that visual communication can play a supportive role to curb the online radicalization of the home-grown Islamic extremists by referencing the Islamic doctrines as an effective counter-narrative. This paper is carried out by examining the literature on the different stages of the radicalization progress supported by a theoretic radicalization model, as well as the extremist ideology and the propaganda thereof to determine a strategic counter-narrative. The demographic data analyzed in this paper are collected from documentary evidence for the analysis of the educational background, sex, age, and socio-economical status of the home-grown extremists. The results of this paper demonstrate that both of the social ties and the extremist indoctrination have played pivotal roles in the progress of radicalization, social ties are supportive of the extremist ideology and make the individuals obedient for the radical messages. On the other hand, this paper reveals that it is useful to prevent the radicalization at an early stage by means of visual communication to illustrate a moderate notion of “jihad” which has been abrogated by the extremist propaganda.
Using Social Psychology to Counter Terrorism
Our current adhoc counter terrorism efforts are failing because we do not fully understand the dynamics of Muslim social identity beliefs and their relationship with their perception of the West. If we want to be successful in our efforts we have to adopt a scientifically informed approach. This paper offers a social identity theoretic analysis of Western-Muslim relations and suggests that a positive alternative to the Jihadist narrative is possible.
Cognition in Context: New Approaches to New Islamist Movements in the Middle East
2011
In the past two decades cognitive anthropology has offered a radically new framework for the study of social movements and complex ideologies. Besides creating a scientific foundation for the study of religion and culture, its empirical basis offers a less biased approach to controversial subjects such as new religious movements and religious violence that traditional anthropological approaches have struggled to maintain. This paper argues that new religious movements can be analysed using the tools of cognitive science, specifically new Islamist movements in the Middle East affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Such an approach yields an objective lens to analyse the claims that their ideologies make them violent. By presenting a brief analysis of movements inspired from the Sunni tradition in the 20th century this paper intends to show that the causal factors of religious violence are largely the product of the dynamic mental mechanisms interacting with a physical and social environment.
The ‘Average Person’ Thinking About Radicalization: A Mind Genomics Cartography
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 2022
A group of 227 respondents, about half Muslims, half non-Muslims, evaluated different sets of 24 vignettes about beliefs, intending to 'predict' whether the person described in each vignette would be or not radicalized. The respondent also selected the likely emotion to be felt. The results suggest a low basic belief in the radicalizability of the described person according to non-Muslim respondents and a firmer fundamental belief in radicalizability by the Muslim respondent. The non-Muslim respondent differentiated strongly among the different elements in terms of prospective radicalization indications and linked three emotions to the vignettes (belong, identify, master). The Muslim respondents did not differentiate among the different elements of perspective signals to radicalization and linked only one emotion to the vignettes (secure). Unlike the emergent mindsets from other Mind Genomics studies, there do not appear to be mindsets concerning radicalizability, only a degree of differentiation rather than pattern.
Why so Radical: The Psychology of Process of Radicalization
The 7th Annual INTERPA Conference, 2018
The examination of studies on radicalization reveals that international major events have shaped the related research and studies. For instance, prior to September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, terrorism studies had been rather marginal area of study in various disciplines such as sociology, social psychology, and political science but after the 9-11, terrorism researchers and experts became celebrities overnight (Maskaliunaite, 2015). London bombings in July 2005 is another example, after which “radicalization” became a new buzz word as officials and public were wondering how four seemingly ordinary British citizens turned into suicide bombers and targeted civilians. Given that there are many attacks around the World, it is not surprising that after each attack policy makers and security services have been turning to researchers and experts to understand why such events are taking place in order to explore the ways to prevent future incidents from happening. Public also seeking answer to the question of “why do they hate us?”. Terrorist attacks are mainly carried out by radical individuals and that many of these individuals act in terrorist groups, but there are some questions still remain unanswered such as “whether all radicals are terrorists?” and “how to deal with different type of radicalization?”. I argue that psychological perspective on process of radicalization may assist the policy makers and public answer some of the above questions. The objective of this paper is threefold. Firstly, examining the concept of radicalization, in order to provide operational definition of radicalization. Secondly, summarizing process of radicalization based on individual variables and group-level decision making strategies along with the wider political and social context in which radicalization occurs. Thirdly, reviewing the two pyramids model (McCauley & Moskalenko, 2017) in order to provide a practical framework for the examination of political radicalization. Keywords: psychology of radicalization, relative deprivation, terrorism, two pyramids model of political radicalization, terror management theory, social identity theory
Resisting hostility generated by terror: An agent-based study
PLOS ONE
We propose an agent-based model of cultural dynamics inspired from the social psychological theories. An agent has a cultural identity made of most acceptable positions about each of the different cultural worldviews corresponding to the main cultural groups of the considered society and a margin of acceptance around each of these most acceptable positions. An agent forms an attitude about another agent depending on the similarity between their cultural identities. When a terrorist attack is perpetrated in the name of an extreme cultural identity, the agents which are perceived negatively from this extreme cultural identity modify their margins of acceptance in order to differentiate themselves more from the threatening cultural identity. We initialized agents' cultural identities with data given by a survey on groups' attitudes among a large sample representative of the population of France, and then simulated these agents facing a threat. While in most cases, agents' attitude become more negative toward the agents belonging to the same group as the terrorists, we notice that when the population shows some cultural properties, the opposite takes place: the average attitude of the population for the cultural group to which the terrorists argued to belong becomes less negative. These properties are identified and explained. They especially permit to non-terrorists agents assimilated to terrorists to differentiate from them, and to other agents to perceive this change.
Agent-Cultural Model of radicalization of immigrants milieus in the West
The project deals with exploration of the heuristic utility of the Agent-Cultural sociological model of radicalization of migrant social milieus in the West (ACSMR). The interpretation of radicalization is based on the research finding by M. Sageman concerning the four phases in critical changing in individual beliefs, feelings and behaviors. The radicalization is conceptualized as a non-linear networked social process of self-organization in large-scale social milieus on the bases of critical transition in beliefs and attitudes, which lead to a formation of radical social networks. The ACSMR was developed by the authors to monitor and predict the development over time of social milieus of the religious-concerned immigrants towards support of political violence. It is a statistical model based on the analysis of correlation-covariation of variables. For a reduction of the complexity of the dynamic structural properties of radicalised groups (including terroristic ones), the authors define compactly factors (which support the radicalization) and the critical conditions for transition of the social milieu to the radical state.
The role of Muslim identity in predicting violent behavioural intentions to defend Muslims
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 2020
A sense of shared Muslim suffering seems to play a key role in uniting Muslims around the world. Therefore, in the current paper we hypothesized that the social psychological underpinnings of Islamist extremism would be similar for Muslims living in the West and Muslims living in countries with prolonged and ongoing exposure to Western-led military interventions. Across 4 studies among Muslims in Pakistan and Afghanistan (Ns = 425, 402, and 127) and Muslims living in 20 Western countries (N = 366), we examined a path model in which group-based anger mediated the link between Muslim identification, perceived injustice of Western military and foreign policy, and violent behaviour intentions. Our results indicate that regardless of whether Muslims live in places with prolonged and ongoing experience of Western military interventions or not, the social psychological factors predicting violent Islamist extremism appear to be similar. We discuss implications for future theory and research.
Radicalization from a societal perspective
Frontiers in Psychology, 2023
Studies on radicalization tend to focus on the dynamics of extremist groups and how they exploit grievances of vulnerable individuals. It is imperative, however, to also understand the societal factors that lead to such vulnerabilities and grievances. Our social environment plays a key role in how we view the world and shape our beliefs. By understanding the social dynamics, we can gain insight into the motivations that drive people to extremism. Throughout this paper, we examine the societal factors and processes such as discriminative institutional structures and social norms/practices that can make an individual vulnerable and serve as a driving force for them to join a radical group. To do that, we use the process-oriented psychology of Arnold Mindell and the phenomenology of whiteness of Sara Ahmed as our theoretical framework. These frameworks help us map out the societal dynamics causing individuals to carve social niches out of their current social group and into an extremist group. We use interviews with exmilitants of the radical group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, to show how certain societal dynamics, such as social injustice, misuse of power, marginalization and discrimination, served as key factors that led these individuals to identify and sympathize with radical ideology. The aim of this paper is to emphasize that, to develop effective preventative measures against recruitment into extremist groups, it is imperative to have a profound understanding of the social dynamics that make an individual susceptible to radicalization in the first place.
2016
The neurological and psychological characteristics of adolescence make adolescents particularly vulnerable to recruitment tactics employed by fringe and antisocial groups. ISIL is not the first group to take advantage of adolescents’ vulnerabilities, but the group has become particularly adept at doing so. Undermining their influence among potential recruits in this age range requires an understanding of the adolescents’ state of mind and brain; counter-messages that are intuitively appealing to older adults may be ineffective, or even counter-productive among this audience. In particular, messages directed to adolescents should (1) focus on emotionally impactful messages instead of logical arguments, (2) avoid emphasizing the risks associated with joining ISIL, and (3) undermine ISIL’s claims to provide belongingness and peer affiliation and provide alternate means for social acceptance. Introduction On February 23, 2016 the government of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region repor...
Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 2016
The current study investigates the role of individual and intergroup factors in predicting Muslims' tendency to attribute domestic terrorism in Indonesia to an external cause (i.e., The West) or an internal cause (i.e., radical Islamist groups). The results (N = 308) showed that intergroup factors of symbolic threat and realistic threat directly increased the external attribution and conversely decreased the internal attribution. Within the context of the current research, symbolic threat refers to Muslims' perception that the norms and values of the West undermine Islamic identity. Realistic threat denotes Muslims' perception that the economy and technology of the West undermine Islamic power. The individual factor of Islamic fundamentalism, which has to do with Muslims' belief in the literal interpretation of and strict guidelines to Islamic doctrines, indirectly predicted both external attribution and internal attribution of terrorism as hypothesized, via the extent to which Muslims perceived the West as posing a symbolic threat, but not a realistic threat to Islamic existence. Uncertainty avoidance, a cultural dimension that describes the extent to which people view clear instructions as a pivotal source of concern to deal with societal problems, also significantly increased perceived symbolic threat and realistic threat, and this cultural dimension mediated the effect of Islamic fundamentalism on each of the intergroup threats. Finally, we found that the level of Islamic fundamentalism was dependent upon cognitive response, but not emotional response to mortality salience. The cognitive response to mortality salience denotes what Muslims are thinking about in coping with their own death whereas the emotional response denotes what Muslims are feeling about such issue. In particular, we found the cognitive response, but not the emotional response to mortality salience significantly gave rise to Muslims' Islamic fundamentalism. These findings shed light on the importance of combining individual factors and group factors in explicating the dynamics of Muslims' tendency to make attributions of causes of domestic terrorism. We discuss theoretical implications and study limitations, as well as practical actions policy makers could conduct to deal with Muslims' Islamic fundamentalism and reduce the extent to which this particular group perceives the West as threatening their existence.
Frontiers in Psychology
Extremist acts and the process of radicalizations got into researchers' attention worldwide since 2001. The aim of this paper is to offer a broad image on radicalization and extremist acts and to bring a new perspective for the conceptualization of radicalization. Radicalization is a process of developing extremist beliefs, emotions, and behaviors. The extremist beliefs are profound convictions opposesd to the fundamental values of society, the laws of democracy and the universal human rights, advocating the supremacy of a certain group (racial, religious, political, economic, social etc.). The extremist emotions and behaviors may be expressed both in non-violent pressure and coercion and in actions that deviate from the norm and show contempt for life, freedom, and human rights. A complete inroad to psychological mechanism involved in the process of radicalization is offered in order to have a broad image regarding current research in the field. Starting from this point, a rational emotive and behavioral conceptualization on radicalization has been developed, bringing together all the concepts and knowledge in the field. A complete and clear conceptualization is crucial for developing prevention/intervention programs and good practices in dealing with this process which has been spreading in the past years. The final part deals with directions regarding prevention/intervention programs from a rational emotive and behavioral perspective, and also from the perspective of European policies.
A Moderate Role for Cognitive Models in Agent-Based Modeling of Cultural Change
Complex Adaptive Systems Modeling
Purpose: Agent-based models are typically "simple-agent" models, in which agents behave according to simple rules, or "complex-agent" models which incorporate complex models of cognitive processes. I argue that there is also an important role for agent-based computer models in which agents incorporate cognitive models of moderate complexity. In particular, I argue that such models have the potential to bring insights from the humanistic study of culture into population-level modeling of cultural change. Methods: I motivate my proposal in part by describing an agent-based modeling framework, POPCO, in which agents' communication of their simulated beliefs depends on a model of analogy processing implemented by artificial neural networks within each agent. I use POPCO to model a hypothesis about causal relations between cultural patterns proposed by Peggy Sanday. Results: In model 1, empirical patterns like those reported by Sanday emerge from the influence of analogies on agents' communication with each other. Model 2 extends model 1 by allowing the components of a new analogy to diffuse through the population for reasons unrelated to later effects of the analogy. This illustrates a process by which novel cultural features might arise. Conclusions: The inclusion of relatively simple cognitive models in agents allows modeling population-level effects of inferential and cultural coherence relations, including symbolic cultural relationships. I argue that such models of moderate complexity can illuminate various causal relationships involving cultural patterns and cognitive processes.
Socio-Cultural Modeling through Decision-Theoretic Agents with Theory of Mind
PsychSim is an agent-based social simulation framework that captures a wide range of the individual and cultural differences exhibited in complex social scenarios. PsychSim takes a decision-theoretic approach to modeling Theory of Mind, giving its agents a rich space of beliefs and preferences. PsychSim also uses a unique piecewise linear representation language that allows it to reason backward from observed behavior to infer consistent parameter settings. We first applied PsychSim to the exploratory simulation of influence campaigns in the face of a heterogeneous socio-cultural arena of operations. More recently, we have used PsychSim in a range of simulation-based training systems designed to teach skills such as the correct use of language, gestures, and social norms of a foreign culture, cross-cultural negotiation, avoidance of risky behavior, and urban stabilization operations. Agent-based social simulations often seek to model socio-cultural behavior using simple models of individuals connected in large networks. However, human social and cultural behavior is also driven by complex, interrelated beliefs, attitudes and goals within individuals. A central factor in social interaction is the beliefs we have about each other, a Theory of Mind [14]. Our choice of action is influenced by how we believe others will feel and react. Whether we believe what we are told depends not only on the content of the communication but also on our model of the communicator. The central goal of this investigation is to bring such Theory of Mind capacities to the design of cross-cultural models of social interaction. Unfortunately, traditional artificial intelligence techniques are ill-suited for model-ing Theory of Mind. Representations using first-order logic are often insensitive to the distinctions among conflicting goals that people must balance in a social interaction. Resolving the ambiguity among equally possible, but unequally plausible or preferred,