Science

Eugene

(61,939 posts) Sun Jan 6, 2019, 04:19 PM Jan 2019

Brain scans show social exclusion creates jihadists, say researchers

Source: The Observer

Brain scans show social exclusion creates jihadists, say researchers

International studies of young Muslim men show that radicalisation follows a sense of isolation from society

Mark Townsend
Sun 6 Jan 2019 10.06 GMT

For years western policymakers have tried to establish what causes individuals to be radicalised. Now a pioneering study has used medical science to gain fresh insight into the process – in the brains of potential jihadists.

University College London (UCL) researchers were part of an international team that used neuroimaging techniques to map how the brains of radicalised individuals respond to being socially marginalised. The findings, they claim, confirm that exclusion is a leading factor in creating violent jihadists.

The research challenges the prevailing belief among western policymakers that other variables, such as poverty, religious conservatism and even psychosis, are dominant drivers of jihadism. “This finally dispels such wrongheaded ideas,” said the study’s co-lead author, Nafees Hamid of UCL. “The first ever neuroimaging study on a radicalised population shows extreme pro-group behaviour seems to intensify after social exclusion.”

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Using ethnographic fieldwork and psychological surveys, researchers identified 535 young Muslim men in and around Barcelona, the Spanish city where in 2017 Isis supporters killed 13 and wounded about 100 people in the Las Ramblas district.

Of those identified, 38 second-generation Moroccan-origin men, who had “expressed a willingness to engage in or facilitate violence associated with jihadist causes”, agreed to have their brains scanned. The results showed a striking effect when they were socially excluded by Spaniards while playing a virtual simulation called Cyberball, a ball toss game with three other players who abruptly stopped throwing them the ball.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/06/social-exclusion-radicalisation-brain-scans

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Related: Neural and Behavioral Correlates of Sacred Values and Vulnerability to Violent Extremism (Frontiers in Psychology)

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Brain scans show social exclusion creates jihadists, say researchers (Original Post) Eugene Jan 2019 OP

I'd say that's not a great control. Igel Jan 2019 #1

Igel

(35,350 posts)

1. I'd say that's not a great control.

Reply to Eugene (Original post)

Sun Jan 6, 2019, 07:11 PM

Jan 2019

They picked a boundary already in place to exacerbate.

At the same time, this accounts for a lot of activities--in the same way, mind you--that we see.

Whether it's identity-based housing, incels on the attack, or the KKK. You feel excluded, you tend to act a certain way.

What's left is why when some people are excluded they kill a lot of kids or self-explode in public places while others decide to curl up with a good book or a bottle of gin. Is the reaction to social marginalization socially determined by their peer groups or pre-existing views, and perhaps that's where the problem is? In other words, we're all "radicalized" but for some it means casting votes and for others it means casting bomb? (In which case I'd argue that the real argument is over what we call "radicalization"--not the impetus to find a way to express grievance but finding a certain way of expressing grievance.)

Does this even help predict what "social exclusion" consists of?

Moreover, this didn't say "only A --> B" so that "B --> A": only social exclusion produces radicalization, so all radicalization is due to social exclusion; therefore, to stop radicalization stop social exclusion. The study suggests A --> B, but that doesn't make B --> A valid.

It also says nothing about relative frequency. If the Moroccans had excluded the Spaniards, would that have made them more likely to engage in crusades? Does the already partially marginalized status of Moroccans in Spain matter, or perhaps their sense of history? Would it work the same for, say, 2nd generation immigrants from Greece?

Makes me suspect they think we're to say, "Ah, we've met the enemy and he is us" when actually it hasn't even identified the enemy or how we divide "us" from "them" or what the enemy is doing that's so bad.

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