Lecture 7: radicalisation and dehumanisation

Question 1

Radicalisation

Answer 1

A process whereby attitudes become more extreme into a specific direction. Often these attitudes and beliefs are counter to societal norms (like anti-democratic and supportive of violence). This makes violence a means of making the change you want to see in the world.

Question 2

Radicalisation in groups

Answer 2

Groups tend to be more radical than the individuals within the group.
–> Groups encourage radicalisation in individuals.
–> Groups as a whole can radicalise towards collective violence.

Question 3

2 fundamental processes that underly radicalisation

Answer 3

1. Attitude polarisation: individual attitudes becoming more extreme.
2. Attitude convergence: attitude growing towards the same opinion.

This combined with polarisation caused the attitudes to become more extreme and shift towards radicalisation.

Question 4

2 reasons for attitude convergence, polarisation and radicalisation in a group

Answer 4

The group’s beliefs can be very different than the group member’s individual opinions. These beliefs are driven towards extremity. The link with violence is a consequence of this processes, NOT an inherent feature of this. This can be explained by:

1. Information models
2. Social influence models

Question 5

(1) Information models

Answer 5

Not all arguments are equally persuasive. Some have more informational content, some are more salient). Groups create more arguments –> more persuasive. People spend more cognitive effort in understanding them, which makes extreme arguments being remembered better.

Some issues are also more important than other, like issues that are very central to the group’s ideology. These issues are discussed more often, which has a self-reinforcing effect. This can lead to a-symmetrical information sharing: the arguments that are already moving towards the group’s opinion are much more often shared than opposing arguments.

Question 6

(2) Social influence theories

Answer 6

People tailor their attitudes to what (they think) the group expects from them (social influence). The believes and grievances that people have are also often discussed with like-minded others. This makes people attached to these arguments. This is NOT based on information content, but on social considerations.

Some members (like leaders) also have way more influence on the members of the group. Leaders are often representing the group, which makes it possible that the opinion that they are conveying isn’t even their own.

Question 7

Radicalisation and violence (Barlett & Miller, 2012)

Answer 7

Radicalisation does not necessarily lead to violence. This paper differentiates people who were radicalised but non-violent and people who were terrorists and violent. They found evidence that the link between radicalisation is amplified when radicalisation occurs in group context. In an individual case, radicalisation does not necessarily lead to violence.

–> Groups strengthen the link between radicalisation and violence.

Question 8

Dehumanisation

Answer 8

Perceiving a person or a group as lacking humanness

Question 9

2 dimensions of dehumanisation

Answer 9

• Denying human uniqueness: human vs. animals.
• Denying human nature: human vs. object (like a robot).

Question 10

3 mechanisms for dehumanisation

Answer 10

1. Denying people the criteria for being human (thinking, feeling etc.)
2. Relational: they are so far away from us, they are not human.
3. Mind perception: they don’t have a human mind.

Question 11

Dehumanisation and violence

Answer 11

If ‘they’ are not fully human, we can justify treating them worse, because of:
- Moral exclusion
- Reduced pro-sociality
- Reduced empathy
- Perception that other don’t have feelings

Question 12

Critique on dehumanisation theories

Answer 12

• We don’t really know how dehumanisation connects to violence. The part of dehumanisation in violence is maybe overstated.
• Isn’t humanisation sometimes needed for people to be able to feel the consequences of their actions?

Question 13

The limited importance of dehumanisation in collective violence (Lang et al., 2020)

Answer 13

• Dehumanisation is vague: are we really perceiving others as non-human or is it more of a metaphor?
  -There are different elements of humanness: dehumanisation operates on denying positive emotion and traits BUT we don’t deny them negative traits. This is not fully dehumanising, because giving them negative traits still makes them human.
• Link to collective violence is often vaguely described, so we can’t be sure what the role of dehumanisation is in collective violence.

Question 14

Moral violence and dehumanisation

Answer 14

Moral violence is violence that a group commits in response to some transgression that was perpetrated against the group. Violence for moral reasons (like revenge). In this sense, the victims had to be human enough to understand why the violence is committed against them.

Question 15

Instrumental violence

Answer 15

Instrumental violence is violence to attain a certain physical goal (get rid of people, exploit their land etc.). If the violence is purely instrumental, then it DOES make sense to dehumanise them, because they don’t have to understand why the violence is committed against them, to make it effective.

Question 16

Study to moral and instrumental violence (Rai et al., 2017)

Answer 16

Rai studied the willingness to harm a stranger as a function of instrumental or moral motive and whether the stranger was described in a humanising or dehumanising language.
- Study 1: acceptability of harming people for instrumental or moral reasons (sweatshop workers vs. enemy soldiers).
- Study 2: approval of drone strike for moral or instrumental reasons.
- Study 3: breaking a strangers thumb for moral or instrumental reasons (breaking thumb of a human trafficker or breaking a thumb to get money).

Results:
- Instrumental violence was justified (in part) by dehumanisation.
- Moral violence → NO role for dehumanisation.