Interesting case. From a developmental perspective, it’s the notion of fundamentalism you want to look at here as a researcher. Compare the brains of religious fundamentalists and you will see neurological regression. You see the same thing in a radical fundamental Islamist as a radical fundamental Christian as a white nationalist.
2
I agree with many other commenters, I can read all of the text in the video faster than I can watch the video. Please, NYT, provide a transcription for future media that aren't text based.
1
Transcript please.
Thx.
1
I come to the NYT for print journalism. If the NYT wants to produce a video, fine, but please post a print version of the story for your READERS, too.
12
Yes - enough with the videos/podcasts! If I wanted those, I'd read FB or watch TV. I get a newspaper to READ. It is a somewhat social experience to read and comment on news with my husband/family. A noisy video is anti-social - just plain annoying to peruse in company.
49
@RB - Get headphones. Or watch something together - than talk. Or don’t bother with stories on video. Or read the provided text instead of watching the video. Some of us like consuming news in multi-media ways. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. The choice is a good thing.
4
If you don’t like videos, then simply don’t watch them. I, for one, found the video in this article an informative adjunct to the written content, and I look forward to more of the same. People learn in different ways—written word, spoken word, visual content, etc. You are free to choose what works best for you.
2
@RB I read far faster than I can take in information from a video or podcast. Transcripts always.
4
First of all, males by nature are generally risk takers to begin with, and more easily anger. Then, there is the fact that a lot of males are born with learning issues like ADHD, autism, and just born miswired, in their inability to listen to parents, school teachers, or society in general. Those who have taught for decades, like my sister who was a kindergarten teacher who had 60 kids a day, half in the morning, and half at night, out west in her teaching career of over 20 years, and1200 kids, had several kids that grew up to be murderers, ended up in jail, or dead because of their behavior, etc. My husband was a special education teacher for most of his career. He knew that a lot of bad behavior happened in part, because of the type of parenting going on in the home. Females tend to spoil the males, so they are used to getting by with things in general, then divorce, step parents, etc. thrown into the mix, tends to cause problems in males more often than females. Also, most males want to work with their hands, so if they aren't inclined for the academic track, they tune out by sixth grade, and tend to not do well in junior high, start to act out, and have behavior issues. The idea that all males should be on an academic track, rather than a vocational one, is not only misguided, but dangerous as well to society. Minnesota pushes vocational education, and supports it with taxes.
3
why did it have to be Muslims that are prone to radicalization? why couldn't pick random samples from his backyard, the United States? Why did he have to travel to Barcelona, of all places, and stage a basketball game to pick his subjects? This is pseudo science at its best. Muslims are of course an easy target when millions of them are being murdered and displaced in Myanmar, Syria and lately India, yet they are being associated with terrorism!
Of course this article cannot show what this scientist is really doing, but it comes across as the sort of very soft 'social' science that gives science a bad name. Indeed, all of cognitive neuroscience seems dodgy since it correlates ordinary experiences with brain activity, and then states dogmatically that the brain activity is the cause or reality of the experience. The conclusion about not demonizing whole groups is good; and also about finding moderates within, say Islam, or nationalism; but I think we could and have come up with this without putting jahdists in brain scanners!! How on earth did he recruit them? Excuse me, before you go and blow people up can I slide you into this MRI? Yes, a little unfair, but I think old fashioned political philosophy, a literary and humane sensibility, and research in the sense of going and talking to and listening to radicals, is what is needed. I can't see how MRI's or whatever they're called now will add anything.
2
As a psychiatrist, who constantly reads medical studies with neuroimaging like this, I'm quite concerned that the author is grossly overstating the correlation between the imaging findings and the actual behavioral outcomes and modifications he prescribes. Generally, these things are much more complex than, for example, "not excluding" someone vulnerable to radicalization. To make the kind of real-world assertions this author prescribes would require taking the basic science he's performed, creating a intervention paradigm to modify this event (radicalization) and then testing this on both subjects and controls who receive a placebo intervention. Only after multiple conformational studies as such, could one safely begin to assert the implications he's asserting here.
3
If there is sin we are all to blame. If someone thieves then someone else has already hoarded. All humans have needs but not all humans need what they have. These needs are not always easy or obvious to obtain. Technological upheavals that pit old against new in work, culture and religion while broadcasting these battles via social media help create a mob-like mentality, and foster an echo chamber the "lonely" people join or feel excluded from. I'll take the blame for my above average standard of living interfering with that of someone else as much as I will take the credit for donating to charity and performing any type of community service. But you wouldn't know that unless you ask and then listen and watch for an answer...To know someone is to love someone. Problem solved?
1
I'm quite concerned that Nafees Hamid also shows himself here in this video to be quite telegenically ('videogenically'?) polished in his presentation of himself and in his acting.
We must always bear in mind that this type of polish and this acting are a powerful means of conveying pseudo-science as actual science.
5
i think the key message is that no one likes to feel excluded. It’s well known that extremists tend to be marginalized people who are looking for reaffirmation from other like minded groups. Our bipartisan political structure encourages pitting one group against another. Labeling and blaming a group of people as a whole is a knee jerk reaction. No wonder the nation is so divided. Look at this coronavirus epidemic, when the nation should be working together, our president is still talking about Democrats using this “hoax” to damage his reputation! Not everything should be about politics. It is not just “you” or “I”, it is “we” that’s important. I wish these candidates can talk more about what they can do for us instead of blaming others for everything that is not right.
1
I find it to be naive and disingenuous to blame the comments of anti-gun violence and anti-racism activists for worsening and precipitating terrorist violence. It is a form of blaming the victims for their own deaths, saying that if they had only been more inclusive of semi-radicalized white nationalists, then things would have turned out differently.
Please remember that America is becoming a country where some of the following things happen regularly: people speaking Spanish in public are beaten, harassed, and intimidated (happening right now in Liberal Boston, MA); Sikhs and other non-Muslim Indian-Americans are attacked/murdered for being Muslim based on their skin color or wearing turbans; asylum seekers are arrested at the border, their family units violently separated, with children and adults living in separate concentration camps under lock and key, courtesy of the DHS and the US federal government.
Please tell us again how if only these marginalized immigrants had done a little less to exclude members of the dominant white caste, then they would be welcome with open arms. Please tell us again how we must never hurt the sensitive feelings of Republicans by pointing out how their ill-conceived ideas hurt the bodies and souls of their fellow Americans.
Radicalism is not a consequence, but the end desired state of these people who are filled with hatred of difference, because their lone sacred value is the superiority of white skin.
4
Most people don't know what or why they believe what they profess to believe. Worse, most people don’t actually believe what they say they believe...(Socrates) and the more extreme the belief the less likely they are to be open to examining it since the belief has likely become a psychological prop or need (Freud). When it comes to countering radicalisation we have to turn the idea of so called sacred beliefs on its head.... it’s not beliefs or ideologies that grip people, but people who grip ideologies... more as a gateway or licence than as a genuinely cognitive process... in the end every kind of radicalisation is a botched attempt at healing.
4
It would appear that the golden rule might be one good way to counter radicalism, according to this study. The golden rule presumes an inclusive attitude and it encourages the same.
2
How about replicating these experiments with subjects from in-groups with pacifism as a core "sacred value" (e.g., Quakers, Jains)? (Full disclosure: I'm biased against video form of presentation of scientific claims. It seems to me like a slick sales job).
1
I hope that this solution does not require scanning the brains of 7 billion people, because that will not be possible, no matter how revealing that it may be.
People are not biological robots.
Scientists and psychologists always discount free will and character building.
They also confuse cause and effect.
3
Interesting, but Islamic radicals are following a belief system with attitudes towards acceptable violence towards non-belivers. It is also heavily based upon conformity. We would need to determine if white supremacists have a similar world vie or psychology w (doubtful) for these findings to apply.
2
Part of this I think is mob mentality. Watch the old movie The Ox-Bow Incident with Henry Fonda on how it played out on a lynching. Most people are seem to be followers and will often do the wrong thing if lead by a strong person.
I To Kill a Mockingbird Scout successfully turns a mob simply with talking to one of them.
3
The subhead displays a certain bias. The study is about Islamic terrorists. Yes, there are also a certain number of potential white supremacist terrorists, but the takeaway is probably that any extremist position can be cause for concern when it is combined with isolation, mental illness and an internet or real life group that supplies young, alienated, vulnerable men with support and a place to discuss and grow those views. Look also at Islamic terrorists, “incels,” gang members, bullied kids, fired workers, etc.
3
There are plenty of marginalized people who do not go on spree killings or commit acts of terrorism even though they are excluded and demoralized on a daily basis. Why do you not see Black women blowing people up? Or Hispanic women blowing people up? Surely, they have sacred values and surely they experience oppression.
As a woman, I am tired of terrorism and spree killings being discussed as though just plain old "people" do it. Why do "we" commit terrorism; what's wrong with "us"? Women's contribution towards spree killings and mass killings is utterly insignificant and it's frankly insulting to be spoken to as though "we" ought to be included. And if this study is on only men, the presenter ought to say so, and not act as though this testing represents both sexes.
8
While I'm sure the science at use here is very sound, what about everything else that makes us,us? You have to be human before you can perform inhuman acts. Though there may be gender specific activities somehow the idea that women or men may or not be radicalized by socio-psychological norms just don't fit in this bottle. The Nazi and Stalinist crowd used science to great effect, seemingly reasonable until you realize they are the terrorists.
1
It's called operant conditioning and you don't need an MRI to understand how it works. It's how militaries and other cults exist. Anyone can be conditioned into being a killer. Anyone.
2
We know so little about the workings of the brain that no study like this can be considered informative. At best, and even that is dubious, it provides a new thought.
2
This reminds me of the woman, either a doctor, psychologist, or both (I think) close to Reagan when he was President. She concluded "scientifically" you could predict criminal behavior from the shape of a person's ear. I believe some federal dollars actually went into trying to implement her "knowledge" in fighting crime.
Caveat Emptor !
1
A family member suffers from TBI and as a result, I've learned how little we understand the brain and the cognitive process. The work Hamid is doing is very valuable and needs to continue. And I hope the NYT keeps us informed about such endeavors so WE have a better understanding.
4
I'm a bit perplexed by the suggestion at the end of the video. Would not the amplification of "conservative voices" excluding white nationalists from their movement reinforce the exclusion which these researches speculate is responsible for an increased propensity for violence? It seems like this suggestion relies on the assumption that radicalised white nationalists believe prominent conservative media figures (or "blue checkmarks") are in their peer group, which one needn't research in any great depth to understand as misguided.
This video didn't explore their actual study in the depth necessary for a viewer to draw a meaningful conclusion, or even feel that they've gained anything by watching this. I would suggest spending less time on pre-amble and theatrical animations, and more on actually explaining the research, its methods and conclusions. It reads more as a fanciful and drawn-out way of telling people to retweet Trump supporters who say white nationalists are bad.
1
The attacker in Hanau was not a far-right nationalist, he was a mad conspiracy theorist.
2
Who attacked locations with mostly immigrant customers .... so I say “same”.
Years ago I remember a conversation with a friend of mine, a pacifist, Palestinian advocate about the Israeli policy at the time of destroying the homes of Palestinian suicide bombers. He said something to the effect that, besides its cruelty, it would have no impact on "those kinds of people." I assumed that he meant people so radical, but he explained that the groups behind these attacks actively sought "volunteers" who we would probably consider to have a mental health diagnosis for their operations. That was certainly something I never heard of before. I remember this conversation every time American right-wingers want to dismiss white right-wing terrorists as crazy.
The same research finding can be used to reduce radicalization, but at the same time add to the arsenal of propaganda machines to provoke and fan the flames of hatred. Media is quite aware of the power of spreading bad news and fan further unrest, the bread and butter of ratings.
Look no further than how western media reporting the riots in Hong Kong in the last few months. Just as Nafees Hamid listed on his whiteboard, the ideological slogans used by the western media and the Hong Kong rioters are "human right, freedom of speech, civil right", and the rioters, mostly teens and young people, pervaded for months.
The western propaganda machines incite unrest at the door step of China. Too bad China did not take the bait and send troops into Hong Kong, thus fulfilling western wish of a repeat of Tienanmen.
1
Research has shown that 2 month old infants can discern good from bad and to dislike bad/hurtful/unfair actions. So what happens when adults see bad/hurtful/unfair actions? They have many more resources at their finger tips than just crying to right the injustice.
What injustice are these "terrorists" fighting because they are fighting what they perceive is injustice. I really do not buy the notion that you can tell from an MRI any more than you could tell a person's mind/intent by measuring different features of their heads.
Ignorance begets fear, which starts people on the road to "terrorism". But then we really need to take a cold hard look at the real person. Are they fighting for a cause? Remember Adams, Revere, and the rest who started the Revolutionary War were terrorists fighting for a cause. Imagine how these people would have been portrayed had the British won the war.
We are far more alike than we are different. We need to ask more questions and really listen to the answers. Then we need to stop the forced divisions. There is one race - human. The rest is all noise that manipulates most people.
1
@Sierra Morgan
Of course you're right, and the idea of having scientific clarity in such an area is absurd. What is a terrorist? One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. Mandela was imprisoned for terrorism. How about the French resistance in WWII, were they terrorists? When one's group has been oppressed for generations and is not given basic human rights, is "terrorism" sometimes justified? What about the Americans fighting terrorism who sometimes engage in worse atrocities than the terrorists they're fighting? Why not study the brains of American servicemen who drop bombs on weddings and hospitals throughout the Middle East? This is too complex a phenomenon to be understood by scanning the brains of certain "bad" people.
1
This is interesting and compatible with the understanding that terrorists and other mass slayers (who are overwhelmingly male) are largely motivated by frustrated masculine entitlement, with perpetration of domestic violence or other aggression against women like stalking being a warning sign. The incel terrorist expresses this most directly.
Exclusion is a kind of frustration of entitlement. But maybe reducing the sense of entitlement for all men is as or even more crucial than avoiding exclusion and other kinds of frustration. Also, violence as an expected expression of masculinity and a means for men to solve problems has to be made universally unacceptable.
3
Not wishing to be condescending or to appear frivolous I found this article fascinating and wondered what we might learn from a similar study of the workings of the brains of those who unquestioningly accept the claims made by Donald Trump, even when they seem impossible.
5
@Margo Stone
To me, Trump's greatest "deal" was successfully conning not only his followers but himself as well, into believing that he is their "peer" who shares with them "sacred values" and, vice versa, regardless of legal, ethical or moral standards.
3
@JEL
Yes, it is truly frightening that this could be happening. And rallies continue as the virus spreads, while he calls it a hoax.
2
So, people are sensitive to peer pressure and, if they feel rejected, they can turn hostile. What else is new?
5
I am a Vietnam War veteran disabled 100% for PTSD. I received years of therapy from the VA. I also have been "introspecting" myself for decades, to "see what my PTSD is." What this scientist describes is an accurate description of my own inner thought processes when I am upset by a "stressor." The therapy taught me how to recognize the process and interrupt it.
3
I am sure I am not alone by other colleagues who are saying MRI does NOT show you these things. This report needs a good fact checking by experts. There is a lot of really bad MRI stuff going on right now. I'm not saying this is one, because I have not seen the IRB protocols, but NY Times should get more feedback from experts in this field before putting forward the type of experiment that has been criticized at conferences I have attended by experts in the field. MRI is not yet at the stage where you can say "this is what someone is thinking."
7
I am so thankful for brillant scientist like you Nafees Hamid.
Be careful here. The idea that you could tell criminals from their mindsets was popular in Fascist Italy. Just be careful.
5
I do not want to watch a video to learn the putative answer to the question in the headline. Please. You're the NYT. Put facts & findings in writing.
8
Thanks, but no thanks on this propaganda video. I'll take my science straight in peer review journals. I expect better from the NYT.
5
NYT please provide a transcript below videos. Not all of us can watch them, or prefer to watch them.
Thanks
6
Really really
This again are we going to measure skull size again soon. What is the control group. We don't like peoples beliefs or people so must be something wrong with their brains. I hope the nyt's has a another scientist review these methods
7
The author is a Grad STUDENT who has not yet earned a PhD who has done MRI's on the brains of 70 people. His actual sceintific credentials are unclear. None of this work has been published in peer-reviewed sceintific journals, but he seems to be skilled in getting attention on twitter and in places like the NY review of books and now the NY Times.
I would have expected better from the NY Times.
9
In my small town experience, I don't see America as a place with any tendency of doing too much to help the mentally ill, but too little! I live in a city of 70,000, and it's nearly 200 miles to the nearest secure mental facility. Jails aren't appropriate for the mentally ill any more than releasing critical cases back to homeless camps, or returning them into a home where they may be a risk to themselves or others. When someone clearly can't be held here, we must commit an officer-day to transporting them north.
For far too long, we've treated "the homeless" as disposable people, undeserving of even basic shelter, sustenance and medical care. Almost all of them have longstanding untreated mental or physical conditions. Abusive personalities who are still in homes likewise see no effective care or intervention, because unlike every other advanced nation, we STILL don't have universal care, but profit-taking care for the few.
There's a price to be paid. And we pay it in assaults, rapes and mass shootings, robberies, rapes, murders, not to ignore the lost productivity. Screening for mental health should be a routine part of a physical check-up. Why wait until a person is completely broken down and falling apart before we "deal with them"?
Our Constitution charges us to promote the general welfare.
Many scriptures teach: we SHOULD be our brother's keeper. It's what a reasonable community seeking prosperity would do. We should maximize human potential, not discard it.
2
We can't even get widespread and standardized testing for the coronavirus in the midst of a health crisis and this article is exploring preemptive brain scans for terrorists? Oy vey.
1
Don't we want to prevent every sort of terror attack, regardless of the motive or the actor?
3
@Hugo Furst
You are focused on the wrong thing.
It seems normal and natural to seek to prevent like we should be doing with medicine and climate change. But the fact is with human behavior like in all things the preventative steps necessary to deter one from becoming a terrorist or any kind and anti social person have to take place years before the event might happen. They are the self same things all poor children and the people of any groups that lacks wealth and social standing to get the necessary benefits from government and their wealth need.
There is no rational way to prevent terrorism even if a child has been given all the best in life. So even if we do finally get the Star Trek United Federation world some dream of there will still be people who grow up to be terrorists. A lot fewer but still some.
1
Do we really want a world where "potential threats" can be "neutralized" ex-ante- before any actual action. "He had a guilty brain, your honor." Isn't this the worst of ethics and pseudo-science?
Because of Founders, rebels against a tyrant king, likely had guilty brains too.
Phrenology, but with modern tech.
4
This kind of pseudoscience is highly suspect. It sounds a heck of a lot like the long discredited study of Phrenology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology
This is dangerous and fertile ground for all kinds of abuse.
2
Can’t there be a transcript of this video? It’s worth quoting but hard when I have to get to the point of the presentation to capture the exact statement.
5
Where is the text version? Why do you think people want to waste time and resources on visual presentations?
8
My colleagues and I have studied "extreme" followers for three decades. It is no surprise to us that their "sacred values" are the prime factor in their actions. Knowing that helped us decode their beliefs and behaviors. We had no access to MRI scans, but our conclusions were just as accurate.
Unfortunately, our forward looking research findings were resisted by those with false theories, even to the point of lawsuits. In addition, police and government were disinclined to listen, even when we demonstrated the power of our
understanding in specific situations. Nevertheless, we persisted, and our findings are actually reflected in this video.
You don't need an MRI, although Americans are so beholden to postivism that they respect "hard science," without understanding that qualitative analysis backed by years of study and logical conclusions has furnished us with a focus on what people regard as "sacred" as the basis for their
qualitatively different reactions.
We also were able to know ahead of time that the Iraq war was going to enhance, not depress, terrorism, but, again, our voices were only "academic," and more ignorant voices prevailed. I've been waiting for years for someone to come up with a message that would be heard. With the use of a scanning device and a focus on the sacred, this now appears to be happening.
3
@HLR Do you have a link to your findings? Have they been published in a peer reviewed journal?
WHY does this have to be a video? At least supply the written text as well. I am NOT going to sit there through something painfully slow, or with dopey sound-track music, various imagery -- I buy the paper to READ the paper. and there are fewer and fewer articles and more podcasts, videos, articles where little pictures suddenly pop up and you are obliged to watch a short clip of something to continue READING.
322
@broccoli fractal
If you two have been paying attention the paper has morphed into a machine that controls the discourse far more and better than it could have ever hoped to as a paper. Pay attention to the tone and nature of every opinion of all perspectives. They lead to insights that seem to me to be designed to prove a conclusion started with not unlike this "scientist" in the video, rather than naturally organic.
8
@broccoli fractal AMEN! I
9
@broccoli fractal Any bets on this as an experiment by the Times?
5
This is potentially very interesting but if I may criticise the presentation: The least you could do is tell us what the names of the brain areas that "light up," or don't "light up" are, and the function of those areas or what they are thought to do. I know it may not matter necessarily what their called, in terms of making your point, and that you probably wanted to keep it "short and sweet," but it kind of feels like the video is treating the viewer as being a little dumb - too dumb to care about what anything is actually called or does. and it also reflects back on you the researchers, as if you found "Hey look - if we prime the subject and stick 'em in the MRI, this here part lights up! No idea what it is, but it's real interesting!"
Also (sorry), the expanding circles have a distinct kind of Fox/Network News "fear factor" quality: "They're coming!" Not sure what it really imparts beyond that.
I have the feeling that the same reasearch could be presented in a much more interesting way. One that doesn't make the viewer feel like their intelligence is being taken, maybe, a wee bit for granted.
1
Those that have power and feel entitled to define what is "radical" are the real threat.
1
excellent work
agree
the outcast is also in search of approval
thank you
oscarvaldes.net
Interesting video, but merely showing areas of the brain lighting up or dimming based on what a terrorist has been told about the opinions of others, without any evidence that a single terrorist or extremist has actually been dissuaded from engaging in terrorism as a result of exposure to the opinions of others, proves little about what, if anything, short of extermination or electro-shock therapy, can be done to eliminate terrorism.
1
I know this is high-tech, the product of a lot of thought, and has pretty pictures , but my first thought is that this is the modern face of phrenology.
4
As a mental health professional who has researched cult and extremist groups, the results of the studies coincide with recommendations I have been making for decades but does not go far enough to understand the differences between unethical influence and ethical influence. The keys lie in social psychology and only widespread education is going to help us protect ourselves and others from being radicalized. I was in a cult for over two years before my deprogramming and I sought to take over the world, destroy democracy, in the indoctrinated fantasy that the leader was the messiah. I am frustrated that so many people are not seeing the bigger picture. Networking with those who study brainwashing and mind control and who actually help people out is important.
4
This is all very nice but I fear this will not help victims in a store faced with an active shooter. These so-called sacred values are not new news. Social scientists have known for many years that these are values held by a culture, which may or may not have a religious component, or the values of a sub-culture within a more widely shared culture. Often, members of a sub-culture reinforce certain ideas within the group such as Islamic jihadists or members of the KKK and other so-called hate groups. Many of the things that can be done, such as Bloomberg's stop and frisk policy, will simply not fly in our society for constitutional reasons. There is a price to be paid for constitutional rights and democracy, as contrasted with total autocratic control as practiced in China where human rights, for all intents and purposes, don't exist. Any individual who wants a firearm will always find a way to get one. So, going back to the active shooter scenario, your only real hope is the physical presence of of a police officer or an armed civilian with sufficient expertise to hit what s/he is aiming at.
1
This reminds me of the woman, either a doctor, psychologist, or both (I think) close to Reagan when he was President. She concluded "scientifically" you could predict criminal behavior from the shape of a person's ear. I believe some federal dollars actually went into trying to implement her "knowledge" in fighting crime.
Caveat Emptor !
8
Three issues with this well-intentioned study: The malign influence of religion, especially monotheism, which breeds extremism by dehumanizing non-believers; the fact that the subjects were young males whose propensity for violence is as instinctual as its maternal counterpart in females; and the dubious notion that belonging to a large group is somehow “rewarding” — in fact, it’s just the opposite: the smaller the group, the greater the sense of personal empowerment.
6
As a social scientist myself, I'm always somewhat mystified and dismayed by studies like this. What do we learn from it except that exclusion and opprobrium are more polarizing (indeed, more radicalizing) than inclusion and understanding? The fact that we feel the need to rely on narrow technologies like fMRI imaging paired with poorly-defined notions of "sacred values" in order to validate something that we already know is a sign of moral impoverishment more frightening than anything that could be cooked up by the amygdala.
9
@Michael I would suppose that the fear that you report is, in fact, cooked up by your amygdala. Where else would it come from? And I'm sure there are people who are frightened and dismayed by studies in social science that tell us what we all already know to be true. But if we keep an open mind we may be able to find value in social science and neuroimaging studies both. For problems as dangerous to to society as terrorism, I think we should apply as many research tools as possible.
1
The gist is essentially that ostracizing people leads to extremism, which is something that's been generally known for decades. If you take away mainstream political avenues for addressing grievances people either grow apathetic or desperate depending on their level of political engagement.
The desperate ones are the group that are vulnerable to radicalization. Not all desperate people who feel excluded from mainstream politics are terrorists, or even have the potential to be terrorists, but its from this group that most extremists are cultivated.
The democratic process exists to provide people with peaceful, legitimate avenues for addressing their grievances. When people feel these avenues are denied to them, they become violent.
It is the same reason that many violent communist revolutions occurred around the world over the last 100+ years. People were oppressed economically in old world regimes and felt there was no legitimate, legal way to address their problems, so they turned to violence.
But not all nations suffered violent revolutions. The US didn't, in spite of its robber barons and gilded age, and neither did the UK, where classism was rampant. Commitment to democratic ideals and strategic appeasement plans helped calm the ire of the working classes in liberal societies.
Appeasement of white nationalists goes directly against liberal ideology, however, so we may be at an impasse for how to resolve the issue peacefully.
5
Philip Dick described this as pre-crime in his 1956 short story “Minority Report.” Pre-crime intervenes to punish, disrupt, incapacitate or restrict those deemed to embody future crime threats. Is there any doubt that repressive governments will employ commercialized versions of this technique, much as they have already co-opted the NSO Group’s mobile phone monitoring to suppress dissent?
48
@Tone
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”
4
Add emerging facial recognition tech to this observation.
1
@Tone Is it pre-crime to act on the accumulated knowledge that those who have committed violent acts in the past are the ones who are most likely to commit them in the future?
Do you want to use your pre-crime argument to preserve gun rights for violent felons and DV offenders?
2
The psychological aspects of the protocol are interesting, speculative and preliminary, based on an unrepresentative sample of potential radicals, but plausible. The fMRI "results" were not presented in a meaningful enough way to have any understanding of their significance, there was no mention of a control group, and there was no discussion of the functional anatomy of the parts of the brain that reacted in the protocols. The diagram seemed to show the parieto-occipital region was involved, an area of the brain involved in visuospatial processing rather than emotional responses or other cognitive processing.
40
@MEM If you want to understand the details of a scientific investigation, an opinion piece in the NY Times is unlikely to be your best source of information.
Spending a minute or two doing an internet search I was able to find a relevant peer-reviewed research report: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.181585. That article also contains a link to supplementary material.
8
@MEM I interpreted it as dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Agree about the lack of discussion og fctl anatomy, I think perhaps it was left out due to time constrains.
1
@MEM
Thank you. If there were a transcript, I could decide whether it were worth watching. Alas, I believe the written word will have disappeared before I die.
2
I watched the video only. The video reached conclusions already known to sociologist: the central role reference groups or simply the import of the social has on people. The parts of the brain that light up is interesting ( and susceptible) to manipulation (good and bad). A new window to examine the social.
3
Text? Somewhere among bandwidth, battery and data plan constraints videos funnel information to a select audience.
12
early stanford study of brains of self identified conservatives compared to democrats. amygdala lit up in conservatives in very interesting ways. which leads to the thought...nature vs nurture...brains are plastic, can ideas shape our organs of perception and how we understand the world?
2
So how does Fox News fit into all this? They're preaching exclusiveness every day, and telling their adherents they're persecuted by the rest of us, and that liberals, progressives, LGBT's, immigrants, college professors, and environmentalists are bad, misguided people. Isn't that incitement, or indoctrination? Can we expect more violence from the right upon religious and racial minorities?
At any rate, a good video, and thought provoking.
4
@JP I guess it would help if we invited Fox News watchers into the group and allowed them to absorb acceptance as well as new ideas. Do not preach or lecture anyone with opposite views. It only pushes them away. The We vs Them attitudes have to stop to instead be all inclusive; as an exchange of ideas, or problem solving together. Everyone likes to solve problems when they allowed to.
@JP
It might be better to ask how NYT readers fit in?
The Perception Gap study found that Fox News viewers had a 5% perception gap. NYT readers had a 6% gap.
https://perceptiongap.us/
The more educated the Democrats were, the higher their perception gap - at 30%.
They were only beaten by the lowest educated Republicans who had a gap of 35%.
1
Beliefs. Values. Respect.
Beliefs are curious. They are wisply little configurations of neurons in the brain that represent one's understanding of reality. Personally, I hold my beliefs gently, like daisies. If one wilts in the face of new information, I let it go, and pick another.
Values relate to our identity structures. I am . I am a . I am a . Etc. With each of the elements that comprise one's identity, directly challenging any of those elements can be an existential threat. The response is fear, anger, and entrenchment. Anger can lead to violence.
Disrespect is painful. I love people but I hate drivers. The rudeness of my fellow drivers can make kindly old daoist-buddhist Duane quite angry. Often the rudeness is dangerous too, which is an existential threat.
Respect, on the other hand, is healing. Working with psychiatric patients, for example, I know that responding quickly to basic and easily deferred requests gives evidence of care and respect. Patients respond well to that. I know that being heard, as happens when my partner and I negotiate, feels wonderful and leads to bonding. Dialogue is the hallmark of respect.
One cornerstone is understanding that fellow human beings are inherently worthy of respect. Entertaining the notion that humans have a "spark of divine nature" makes respect easier to grant. Funny thing is, respect helps one's better nature emerge. And it's bidirectional.
10
@Duane S. - Well said sir, I particularly like the image of beliefs as daisies. Respect is also sadly lacking in all areas of modern life, it used to be taught by parents but parenting is a sadly undervalued skill in today's fast paced world.
3
It is incumbent upon all of us to build bridges and tear down walls.
7
We need more information on what makes a person violent. It is so easy to say someone is evil and put them behind bars but that doesn't solve anything. What is behind the evil? Are they really evil or are they damaged/hurt in some way? Can we use therapies to change a person's mind? Can helping a person be happier make them less violent?
2
@Kim Having lived and worked with both adult and juvenile offenders, this is what I believe:
The majority of juveniles are reacting to physical or emotional abuse or neglect. They won't tell you about it and they don't understand it themselves, they are just in a lot of pain and lash out or seek drugs as self medication. Often they have not been taught how or why to make ethical decisions.
With adults, you have those kids grown up, or you have people caught in bad situational events who make bad choices. There are actual evil people--maybe they didn't start that way, but they are beyond redemption. But it is a very small percentage of that population, fortunately for the rest of us.
Our only hope is to pay more attention to the children. To provide them more care and interaction with people who give them love and understanding. More moral teaching in schools would help. I once made a boy earn the money to pay back a woman for stealing and trashing her car. An old beater. He came back from giving her the money horrified that because she had no transportation she was fired and had a four year old she was scrambling to feed. Consequences of his actions had never occurred to him. We need to spend less on prisons and more on schools and enrichment programs for children. There should be no juvenile institutions, only well trained foster parents.
Having a president who everyone knows lies bodes ill for the generation of kids who will think that is "normal".
Children are the key.
2
I went into this thinking one thing and left it thinking another. very worthwhile watch ... and this, coming from a trump supporter
5
Where is the control? You need to have a control group. Or what am I missing here?
4
Languages spoken and written map differently on the brain. It is a memory bank.
1
Rather glib and dubious I think, premised on assumptions hardly commensurate with the conclusions.
How was the sample group of prospective terrorists selected? Just callow youth in Barcelona? Was it a diverse group, say Irish, German, Russian, Chinese, or self-identified Jihadis (who aren't from Marin County)?
Were they middle class, college educated (Unibomber had a Ph.d), abused youths, criminals, gang-members? How many were women? Were they atheists, believers, Buddhists? Baptists? Cultists?
Were they apprised of the cancer risk of multiple MRIs?
Maybe an interesting study but hardly something I would consider hard science. More pop psychology like marketing studies about consumer habits.
Humans are complex and human motivation even less fathomable. But the causes of extremism seem obvious.
It's a sort of blindness or denial to reduce it to some psychological/biological algorithm
Scientists once surmised a person's ear-shape indicated certain criminality. Posters of "criminal ears" were posted at police stations. Now lit up areas of brain scans indicate potential terrorists as well as how to redirect them.
Didn't the CIA spend $180 million on two purported experts to develop best practices for torturing alleged terrorists? Only it didn't work but they kept doing it because the experts said it would?
It was Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing who said sometimes being crazy is a rational response to a crazy world.
Maybe extremism is too.
8
MRIs are all fine. But you have to FIND them first, yes?
Edwin Markham embodied what this experiment shows us in a verse a century or so ago:
“He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him In!”
8
@Jane Hunt - I love this quote but I think you swapped the first two lines of the verse. My high school principal/coach/teacher, Mr. L.R. Holley used to recite poems to the high school general assembly and this was one of his favorites. Another was Robert Frost's, 'The Road Not Taken'.
This is Mr. Holley's version:
"Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout,
He drew a circle that shut me out.
But love and I had the wit to win,
We drew a circle and took him In!”
2
"Terrorism is the War of the Poor, and War is the Terrorism of the Rich." Peter Ustinov
I'm no scientist, however, I wonder about the validity of comparing the brain scans of those who insist on their primacy based solely on the absurdity of skin color, to those of citizens whose countries have been preemptively attacked and invaded on a political ruse.
If "We" would stop attacking and invading their countries, killing their grandmas and babies and taking their stuff, "They" would conduct fewer "terrorist" attacks in their self-defense.
3
This is good. But calling Trump supporters "conservatives" is just plain wrong.
7
What a strange and somehow predictable headline: "How understanding the mind of a radical Islamist can prevent the next white-nationalist attack." Presumably, the research can help us understand all terrorist attacks, not least Islamist ones, which are not consigned to the past. Just last week a woman was arrested in London for poltting to attack St. Paul's Cathedral. That follows Islamist attacks in the UK on 2 February, 9 January, and 29 November.
1
I find this most interesting and the beginning of a scientific understanding. One thing bothers me - sacred values. All sacred values are not created equal. Civil rights, liberties, freedoms, democracy are not the same as tyranny, torture and repression.
I don't see how voting for Trump is anything other than a racist and anti-democracy act.
It says something awful about a country where a large minority will vote for a white racist and a party that seeks to win elections by denying qualified electors the right to vote or by gerrymandering - something which is not to be found in all the other advanced democracies.
Your conclusion about exclusion makes sense, but radical Islamists or white racists or Nazis etc. are in the business of exclusion. Your research does not confront that.
What would we learn if, for objective comparison, we put George Bush Jr in that MRI machine. Would we find out why he lied to the American people to enable him to invade a country that nothing to do with 9/11. Sacred values indeed.
3
I had the strangest reaction to this well meaning video...I laughed, and thought, "shades of the 60's".
Then, we tricked our people into seeing the Vietnamese people as evil "Communists" and so deserving of death and destruction. We drafted our young men by the millions, and put many into jail when they resisted the mind control. Kill or be killed, and many of my high school and college contemporaries died. My brain was manipulated at MCRD, Parris Island S.C. to kill without thought or reason, to respond to orders just as any terrorist would.
Then came the peace movement, and massive national marches which told the "leaders" that American youth no longer would trust them.
Nafees Hamid seems to think he can argue rational science and that will help stop terrorism, but the terrorists are us, we are "shock and awe" and that military-industrial-banking terrorist doesn't want peace, it wants blood on the sand.
So no, we don't have power to prevent the next white-nationalist attack for the most bodies targeted are targeted by us, the US.
Too bad we don't live in a world that treasures the science included in this video.
Hugh
5
Were Arab armies bombing, invading and occupying America, would Americans attacking Arabians in response be considered insane terrorists?
What about those authorized or required to kill by the US imperialist state? What would brain scans of the American operators of drone weapons currently assassinating persons targeted by the US military reveal?
3
Why does this video merit inclusion in the NYTimes? Who funded the research? How has it been validated (i.e. peer reviewed), what is the underlying basis for applying the technology to making the inferences .
In general we should be asking - what value comes from promoting click bait such as "intriguing results from scientific studies" that are premature at best - compared to the steady corrosion of trust in scientific method.
3
Old ideas dressed in new (fMRI) garb. And problematic ones at that. The conclusion at the end doesn’t follow from the findings. Why should folks not condemn Trump and followers who have clearly not done what study #2 claims is required? Also, there’s a tension here between the studies. If a Muslim does commit an act of terror is it because their wider community wasn’t vocal enough against violence? Schanzer, Kurzman & Moosa (2010) show that, in the US context, that’s just not the case. A problem here is that the n is so small, and the author gives no indication of how we determine one’s community. There’s an assumed essentialism here. But, white supremacists often dismiss other whites as normies, dupes, (insert more racist terms here)....
Terrorists do NOT rely on "you and me" [sic] they rely on the very very FEW people who control the media to do as the terrorists have predicted they will based on what they have done before.
Terrorists do not fight and die for what they believe in. They do it to assuage emotions and nonverbal intellectual feelings they do not comprehend but consume vast resources internally and hurt like a grievous wound. I expect that in exactly the same way other damaged people find mind altering substances help to suppress the misery, terrorists find an intellectually derived emotional jolt that relieves the pain and gives a feeling if righteousness. Relief is what they fight for and fighting is comparable to the risk taking of drug addicts. I suppose one could think it was god giving them that relief if one lived in a very religious society.
I think "sacred beliefs" is a false construct. I have never heard the term before and the very idea he speaks of is something normal people teach against.
I know white supremacists from when they first started moving to the PNW. Like all bigots; first they act on the things they think they can get away with safely & still present it to their compatriots as boldness without fear of consequences. As with the Nazi's the ideas of racial purity etc are just tools. They have no real meaning since they are baseless lies to start with. They took seek the same relief from internal emotional and psychological pain they cannot solve in any other way.
2
That also explains religious sects, creationists, heck even Catholics at one time when the word 'catholic' meant iconoclastic thinking.
I hope Nafee Shamid is considered for the Nobel Peace Price because his enlightenment might actually sink into popular culture and lead to effective self control.
An absolutely outstanding piece of rigorous and objective semi-quantitative neuroscience – kudos…
# of comments dissing or denying what the author’s hypothesized was at once expected, and astounding – here’s why…
Neither AI nor human intelligence are as mysterious as humans make them out to be…
Long before Google taxonomized all the available information on the internet, humans had taxonomized all the available information at hand…
By hand…
Whether evolutionary biology before DNA, or chemistry and metallurgy before quantum mechanics, humans understood how to assess information…
Secondarily for scientific understanding – but primarily how to monetize it…
Including intellectual property rights – which is why academia reflexively obsesses on who discovered or invented what first….
Prizes are loose sofa change, compared to the value of some knowledge to some industries…
But here’s the punch line…
Taxonomy is as much about influencing as categorizing…
Humans taxonomize themselves into corporate or academic hierarchies…
And have very consistent rules about how to include, exclude, or – more incrementally – how to promote or demote…
No one likes to be demoted or excluded…
And if they believe it’s been done pre-emptively or prejudicially – that can enrage…
The irony – an enraged group of excludeds…
How a new tribe is born…
A serene group of includeds…
How an old tribe is sustained…
And why two parts of our brain have evolved to work the way they do…
2
Why only Islamists and white extremists?
Why not anyone that has shown pathological anger and violence?
Violence is violence. A person can be damaged and destroy others without 'sacred values'.
The vast majority do in fact.
"When they felt excluded, the list of things they were willing to fight and die for got longer."
Oh my.
Whats next? More "wokeness" because terrorists' feelings are hurt?
1
@David H
He was hoping for engagement like yours to justify more funding for his con.
I think that in addition to brain scans, Hamid should look for telltale bumps on their skulls.
3
"What I Learned From Scanning the Brains of Potential Terrorists..." Nothing relevant to terrorism!
2
@Des Johnson
IDk it may be relevant that they were naive enough to buy his schtick and cooperate with the "study".
So true, I know as a white male I'm constantly profiled by authorities and the general public as a possible danger to society and get blamed for the actions of any WASP … oh wait!
It comes as no surprise that the threat level from violent, homegrown terrorists, specifically white supremacists, is much higher than that from Al Qaeda, ISIS and other jihadist groups.
So far the public has been paying less attention to the threat posed by white nationalist terrorism.
By screening the brain of Islamist terrorists, it helps cognitive scientists, like Nafees Hamid, understand what happens in the brains of jihadists when a concept clicks, triggering their affinity for violence. The findings might help prevent mass shootings committed by white supremacists.
History shows that relationship between the far right, particularly in Europe, and radical Islamists runs deep, with their adherent sharing some important traits - an authoritarian, hierarchical, and ritualised vision of social order and daily life; a belief in racial purity and religious supremacy; the need for closure; and a strong in-group mentality.
Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem from 1921 to 1937, maintained close ties with the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany. Many Nazis found refuge in the Middle East after the war, and some even converted to Islam.
Julius Evola, the reactionary Italian thinker whose work has inspired Europe’s far right, admired openly the concept of jihad and the self-sacrifice it demands.
References to Evola abounded on websites such as Breitbart News, The Daily Stormer, and AltRight well before The NYT noted the Bannon-Evola connection in February 2017.
2
This is a half-baked presentation.
The cognitive scientist has done good methodical scientific work, but he should have named the specific brain areas he was talking about instead of just color-coding them.
Here's the scientist's full academic paper and an excerpt, which refers to the DLPFC; an important function of the DLPFC is the executive functions, such as working memory, cognitive flexibility,planning, inhibition, and abstract reasoning
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.181585
"diminished activity in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), inferior frontal gyrus, and parietal cortex while conveying willingness to fight and die for sacred relative to non-sacred values—regions that have previously been implicated in calculating costs and consequences. An overlapping region of the dlPFC was active when viewing conflicting ratings of sacred values from peers, to the extent participants were sensitive to peer influence, suggesting that it is possible to induce flexibility in the way people defend sacred values."
The more important point is that this scientist's general conclusions generally align with earlier scientific research that concludes that conservative and right-wing minds are animated by overactive amygdalas (the brain's fear, disgust, revulsion center) and liberal minds are more animated by overactive anterior cingulate cortex (the brain's nuance, complexity and diplomacy processor).
Fear and anger are real right-wing brain-based disorders.
60
@Socrates You are right about the research, but it's a problem only at the extremes. There is a place for fear, disgust, revulsion in all of us, part of our survival. The politicians of the right have pandered to these things and have become extreme. They work to increase polarization. For them it's easy and a win.
When liberal politicians do this, it doesn't go over well, because of the nuance, complexity, diplomacy, etc. of many liberals. Just look at Corbyn's huge loss and the party-wide problem with anti-semitism. One factor in that loss. Another was the othering of the long time supporters of the Labour party who were not cool like the college-educated. Not only taken for granted, but "othered."
Probably the best and most effective non-famous environmentalist I've known in my everyday life (and I've been active in that since before the first Earth Day) was a Republican. He was the old style conservative, believing in things like conservation.
Moderation in political views is not incompatible with either right or left. It appears to work somewhat better on the right due to the things you mention. The main message here, I think, is to not feed the polarization.
2
@Kathleen should be extremism It appears to work somewhat better on the right due to the things you mention.
@Socrates
Wait:
"The more important point is that this scientist's general conclusions generally align with earlier scientific research that concludes that conservative and right-wing minds are animated by overactive amygdalas (the brain's fear, disgust, revulsion center) and liberal minds are more animated by overactive anterior cingulate cortex (the brain's nuance, complexity and diplomacy processor)."
What are you, a MORON?
All I know for sure is that a vast majority of ANY kind of radical - whether religious or political or whatever - are males. The mass shooters here in the U.S. are no different than the Jihadists who kill and white nationalists who kill. They may claim to have different driving motivations including divine orders to do so, but the result is the same. Maybe it's time to start giving males around the world annual vaccinations of estrogen and lower their levels of testosterone - the world might be a much more peaceful place! That, or go the route of the legendary Amazons of old who, so a Greek historian once said, killed most of their male children and kept only a select few to mature and mate.
2
This is pseudo-science, pure and simple.
The brain scans add absolutely nothing to the evaluation of these people's attitudes and behaviors, except to confirm that they are reflected in brain activity. DUH!!! How could it be otherwise? Are you advocating lobotomies to deal with terrorism? Do you think brain scans can help identify terrorists? No evidence of that, but even if it were true, how practical is that?
Publicity stunts like this may boost the visibility of their authors, but they do more harm than good beyond that.
1
@Emeritus Bean
he was correlating the images he saw with the assumptions he started with. It is phrenology with magnets.
@magicisnotreal
Exactly. 21st century phrenology is the perfect label for studies like this.
1
@Emeritus Bean
There are multiple academic studies demonstrating neurological anatomical differences in human brains that distinguish 'conservative' (amygdala fear-based) brains vs. 'liberal' (anterior cingulate cortex nuance-complexity-diplomacy-based) brains.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26481-left-or-right-wing-brains-disgust-response-tells-all/
https://bigthink.com/ideafeed/right-wing-brains-are-different
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/
The brain science is in my, friend, and conservative brains tend to be scared, terrified brains.
3
Couldja just write it up, please?
I detest watching videos and I know I’m not the only one.
5
All thumbs up.
A worthwhile presentation re: isolation and inclusion. Please check out David Brooks' book "The Second Mountain".
How about providing a transcript of the video?
3
I was reminded, watching the video, of the " scientists" of the 1930s measuring the cranium of criminals and Jews. The difference is that they used calipers , and today they use brain scans . The goal is the same: reduce human behavior to a physical event. One hundred years ago they protected us from the Jews, today they protect us from " white nationalists" .
2
While the goal may be noble, please stop spreading misinformation. Mental illness can’t be diagnosed through brain scans.
And the Times should practice what they’re preaching!
1
american politics focuses blame for low skilled white male earning weakness on those below them, not those above who shipped away the jobs
2
"The most common form of terrorism in the U.S.A. is that carried on by bulldozers and chain saws."
Edward Abbey
2
The title of this article infers that by scanning the brain, a
site of interacting complex materials and movements, of a range of diverse people "homogenized" into a negative, stigmatized, ascribed Identity of "terrorists," who exist in a more general, global, toxic, infectious WE-THEY culture
which enables, and even fosters violating created, selected,
and targeted "the other(s)," daily, their "minds," a semantic concept, will be better understood, and the "next white-nationalist attack" can be prevented. A run-on sentence which can be corrected grammatically. What will correct this article's misleadingness?
1
I am puzzled by the whole realm of "sacred" beliefs. I believe what can be established objectively, and I readily discard hypotheses that do not pan out. I hypothesize about many things, but I don't believe them without substantiation. I think trying to prove anything to hypothetical deities is silly.
11
@Steve Bolger
The way he defined it exposes a radically different background from anyone born and raised in the US outside radical Christian groups. His definition of sacred values is something all of us after WWII were taught was dead wrong.
One fights for what is right and one knows it is right because one has done the work of working it out properly. Anything else cannot be justified.
1
Your sacred belief is in evidence and objectivity.
Just saying.
5
@Steve Bolger You may not know it, but you have sacred values--things, ideas you live by and would likely die for.
You simply do not recognize them as "sacred."
7
So, were all those whose brains were scanned men?
Is there a difference between how men and women process their sacred values? Are women as likely to violently defend their sacred values?
31
@Jane That is an excellent question. While most violent radicals are men, it would be interesting to see if there is a different reaction between men and women to the same stimuli.
7
@Peter
Like I replied to Jane, people are people and snake oil is snake oil.
Misandry and misogyny are also insidious. Both men and women can be the opposite of what you might think they would be.
@Jane
All people are people.
All snake oil is snake oil.
Interesting piece of the puzzle. Much of this would serve to keep people from becoming more radicalized. Clearly, increasing polarization and "othering" is unhealthy.
Another piece would be research on cults and how they operate to keep people from interfacing with others outside their very narrow groups. As we saw with the mass suicides and sometimes murders by cults and their members in the past, those groups become more and more closed, like Jonestown that started with a very open philosophy, but then became a group with beliefs and practices designed to isolate followers from healthier options.
In the current situation radicalized members of groups are taught to distrust others and not let on about their beliefs/intentions. This is why they are different from mentally ill people who are recognized by family and neighbors before they go on to commit crimes.
It is considered very difficult to peel away cult members from a toxic group once they have been radicalized/indoctrinated.
The work of Robert J Lifton is decades old. Is there more up to date research?
3
Great information. This is important beyond opening the thoughts of those focused on and prone to violence. It is relevant in all situations involving the "true believer" and the cult follower. While this work is early days and more needs to be done the two suggestions are immediately possible actions:
1. Don't exclude anyone no matter how extreme
2. Focus attention on those within the groups who do not support bad behavior
I would like to see the addition of both sociology and neuroscience work on how to develop a group response to not only condemn a specific behavior but to set as a group standard the idea that identifying an alternative positive behavior is a required responsibility of leadership. I would also like to see work on how to normalize questions as acceptable social behavior because cults, of all kinds, fear questions most of all.
Making questions normal and even required will minimize blind loyalty over time. We humans are naturally curious creatures. Let's stop the bad and build the good, at the same time.
3
This research reminds me something we should all be wary of: state controlled mentation and potential action.
@Tone, below, makes this vital point.
Like 'The Law' taking guns away from 'unstable' persons, this research, beneficially informative in itself, could be arbitrarily weaponized against a chosen group or against particular persons.
Like Russian or Chinese attacks on people considered by the state to be too bourgeoisie.
Or like New England puritans noting and taking down people appearing to be non-believers or too immodest or too independent.
Or like the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution: just because...
Don't, please, think it could not happen here.
8
LOVED this! So smart. So simple to enact.
2
The NRA seems to me to be the organization that most validates violence in this country. They can talk about guns not killing all they want, but they encourage people to carry guns because there are bad guys all around. They support legislation that enshrines this idea. They have normalized the idea of gun ownership.
It seems to me that we have known for a long time that demonizing and causing people to live in impoverished and hostile conditions will create more hostility. It is natural that we want to blame and injure those who attack us, but we know from the examples of great men that if we can step back and try to understand the situation, try to make it better for everyone, that we will all be safer. But it is so very hard.
10
@Susan Montauk Just so we are clear Planned Parenthood is also an organization that validates violence in this country.
Any thoughts on the idea of demonizing gun ownership and its impact on our ability to implement reasonable controls?
Here is a good basis for not stereotyping. I'm a Sanders supporter, and I've clearly heard and seen him say and do things that take far more patience than I probably would ever have. He has declared both respect for "identity politics" and a "50 state" campaign strategy. The latter is intended to address the people across the country and especially in what has been regarded as the Electoral College "territories." He doesn't depend on trying to sway Trump voters or other Republicans to a Democratic Party candidate, but he does address many of them. He does exactly what Nafees Hamid has suggested here by addressing the issues of working people, how they have been neglected and how they may be helped. He has spoken about and directly to the groups who've believed they have been disenfranchised and are thereby frustrated, angry and scared. His policies and plans are described as relieving those feelings. Some of those people are indeed white supremacist and racist but not all of them. In not lumping them all together, here is where I believe Sanders has the patience to do what Nafees Hamid advises. It is a primary reason that I support Sanders.
19
I find this fascinating and can see it's implications all around me. From my fellow employees argument on Facebook that leads them to unfriend each other to Trump decrying "those Democrats".
6
fMRI's measure oxygenation of individual brain areas in artificially constructed experiments occurring out of normal organic horizontal societal context as well as out of an individual's linear or omni-directional whole and ongoing developing consciousness. A brain tomorrow differs from the brain today. In this video, a tweet depicted as originating with Octavia Ocasio-Cortez states that video games don't cause violence, but rather, white nationalism causes violence. Video games do indeed wire a player to become better and better at the game, but not necessarily better and better at walking into each new day attentive to the entire world around him or her. Practice can make perfect and practice can make "permanent." And, anyone interested in controlling their own thinking can practice mindfulness, read history books and direct their higher cognitive faculties toward critical thinking and not toward carrying out the agendas of charismatic or culturally attractive leaders and gurus. Our suffering world does not need discrete controlled fMRI studies anymore than we needed phrenology.
4
@Debra Merryweather we do need fMRIs for many reasons. Meditation has its place but it does not solve everything. Our brains change every day of our lives and there is no permanent in the brain, ever. this information
is good and important for anyone involved in situations where "true believers" shape real world events.
2
@Debra Merryweather The tweet was from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Sorry about that.
@Sherrie Noble Where did I mention meditation? I said mindfulness as in paying attention to what is really happening. Again, fMRI's measure brain oxygenation out of context. And, the brain rewires itself 24/7. Anyone who is paying attention should already know how fanatics are created. History is full of them. An MRI can show brain damage. fMRI's are too often used to pictorially, what the researcher already knows or suspects. Good description of how fMRI's work can be found online. I also recommend the writings of Bonnie Badenoch for some good detailed footnoting about how fMRI's "don't work" in predicting of helping advance the cause of, for instance, healing trauma. I am a trauma victim, to be more specific, a sexual abuse and brain trauma victim.
1
Nice and thoughtful effort but it if ti is correct it is also hopeless. Both parties here, and all candidates, preach marginalization, and the latter has been part of Democratic politics for decades. Trump's "marginalization" advocacy is quite new on the right.
Worse the Times itself contributes heavily to that. Its editorials, op-eds and its 1619 project are all based on preaching that people have been unjustly marginalized.
So if Hamid's theory is correct, relief is not around the corner.
9
Perhaps a corollary to this notion of people being told in one form or another they are marginalized becoming more marginalized is when people who actually want to make them feel marginalized tell them they are marginalized even when they are not in order to get them to feel that way.
12
There is a reason why despite decades of studies using scanning techniques, literally none are used routinely in the behavioral sciences. Using a scan with current methodology (a gross measure of physiologic activity) to determine the behavior of an individual is like flying over NYC and trying to determine the actions of an individual in a particular apartment based on the lights in the city.
44
@LTJ would be good if you could explain as the article itself explained nothing
1
Brains and minds are not the same thing. Is this research claiming to have solved the mind/body problem? I doubt that is really the case. Science is important, but when it is overblown, it undermines itself. No wonder increasing numbers of people don’t believe the scientists.
6
I'm not clear what new insights were gained by performing brain scans. The results of peer pressure on extreme attitudes are useful to know, but, given those behavioral results, what use is it knowing what brain regions are activated? Is this activation the cause of extremism? Or the consequence? These same brain regions are activated in many situations, so is activation a cause of extremism? Or simply a correlate? If the intent is to identify likely extremists, the danger of false positives is quite high.
26
@Metaphor Fan It's not just peer pressure, though that isi surely an element. But the fact is that Presbyterians, Methodists, Buddhists and Catholics are not terrorists. The link to Islam cannot be overlooked, though the Tiems would never pursue that aspect because of fear of being accused of profilinig.
1
@Metaphor Fan
Let us say, also, WILLFULLY false positives.
False positives against particular persons or groups.
@Allan H. Have you heard of the Irish Republican Army ? All Roman Catholics, I believe.
(https://www.britannica.com/topic/Irish-Republican-Army)
Timothy McVeigh was also raised a Roman Catholic.
Tamil Tigers were mostly Hindu.
Instead of blaming the NYT, one would do better to study more history.
Commenter Jeroen van Baar notes some issues with the methodology of the science in this video, particularly with regard to interpretation of brain scan data.
However, even granting that the science may not yet be definitive, the message the video conveys aligns with intuitive social practice. Where disaffected members of society can form self-reinforcing peer groups that are toxic to general social well being, it seems often more effective to keep lines of communication open so it is easier for for them to reintegrate and gain the rewards of membership in the larger, social peer group. (The science of the video appears likely to be valid to me just because it seems to show the physiological correlate of what seems intuitively probable.)
Another key element of the video seems to me to be that the elements of the larger social group with the most power to mobilize the attractions of reintegration are those non-extreme groups closest to commitment the same "sacred beliefs" (for example, conservatives rejecting white nationalism). When those elements demonstrate credible disapproval of extremism, that negative message has greater power to reduce the rewards of belonging to a smaller, extreme group. I would imagine that it is also true that positive messages conveyed by elements on the more distant end of the non-radical spectrum, conveying continuing recognition of shared human qualities, can also help reinforce reintegration.
9
Although in it's infancy, I suspect, this is a most interesting study of what makes us humans violent...or not. And feeling excluded, marginalized, even blamed for something foreign to us, may indeed activate parts of the brain responsible for radicalization and, if persistent, put into action, at times with horrific destructive consequences...based on beliefs that have nothing to do with reality, and certainly none to do if done in the name of an all-loving God. The question is, how do you get to these 'fanatics', religious, nationalistic, and otherwise, before they cause mayhem, especially with the current technology and the always- easy- availability of weapons of 'mass destruction'. Perhaps our capitalist system, causing an ever deeper inequality, devoid of ethics, is not an innocent bystander after all.
13
Drone attacks by the United States may have something to do with 'radicalism'. Our 18 year war in Iraq may have something to do with dissatisfaction.
33
@Dennis
I encountered an interesting theory involving Cambodia while researching the Vietnam War.
Certainly, the American war was significantly disruptive of the region, but the American bombing in particular. The bombers could fly at 30K feet and drop their load on the countryside. Suddenly, the earth would explode around isolated villages who had no idea what was happening or why. With no TV, radio, newspapers, internet, many people were more susceptible to the dogma of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. The bombing may have led to a strong sense of powerlessness that led to an over zealous urge to power and an unspeakable horror in Cambodia.
1
This is a very interesting video, though I wish that the authors would also study how cadmium and lead toxicity (as well as other heavy metals and contaminants) in the body often lead to violent and extremist behavior.
12
@S - Yes, with a look at the correlation between the elimination of leaded gas in the US with the substantial drop in crimes of all types, and also reduction in teen pregnancy.
7
This fits in very well with what we know about radicalization and methods of indoctrination, including the breakdown of connections with wider society and replacement of those connections with the 'family' of the group - be it a gang, a white supremacist group, or an extreme religious group.
It appeals to those who are already feeling alienated, and it is magnified via social eco-chambers where the local society stokes extremity and the will to use violence.
It only follows from this that these methods and exposures have neurological effects. What is interesting is to see what those mappings are, and that they are responsive to social influences such as the values of a larger social group that is not radicalized.
I'm looking forward to seeing more about this in the future, and it would not have hurt to have told the audience the names of the parts of the brain that are effected. That may sound nerdy, but on Netflix's series "The Mind Explained" they talk about things such as the Amygdala and the Default Mode Network, so adding that when showing effected brain regions would be helpful.
16
Dr. Hamid’s research is broadly consistent with the thesis put forward by Mike Martin in his book “Why We Fight” which tries to understand the evolutionary basis for conduct that appears inconsistent with passing on your genes to the next generation - such as fighting, mostly a young man’s endeavor, which increases the risk of dying.
The importance of groups seems to be the commonality. As an evolutionary matter, being ostracized from your group was a death sentence in times gone by. You were vulnerable and exposed to predators and other humans. Therefore, it made sense to act in support of the group and stay within it. So, we are all, in a sense, primed to act in this manner, even where it requires your sacrificing your life for your group. I am of course simplifying the thesis through generalities. Each individual acts in his own way.
The question remains how to appeal to those whose allegiance is to a sub-group that might find itself at odds with the larger societal group. How can a radical be persuaded by that larger group to defect from his smaller in-group? While the human brain is malleable, there is no quick solution to any of this. Compassion and inclusiveness can’t hurt, though. But lets see where the research conducted by Dr. Hamid and others leads.
8
@Charlie in NY
No, fighting is not exclusive to youth. In some patients the fighting motivation actually increases in age. That human anatomy is largely a matter of DNA inheritance is known, although not as straightforward predictable for human behavior as past scientists have claimed. 90% of DNA is not wholly understood yet.
4
@Charlie in NY: Identity tends to be tribal, and tribes come into conflict when competing for limited resources.
7
@Charlie in NY "But lets see where the research conducted by Dr. Hamid and others leads." It will lead nowhere.
3
It wasn't clear to me how incipient terrorists could be accurately identified and that a control group or groups were used, especially in the experiment where the fMRI was done before and after the subjects heard what their peer group felt and thought. Have other cognitive researchers found the same things that Hamid has?
11
The video illustrated that influencing political/religious positions may actually be possible by modeling more open behavior and acceptance. It isn't necessary to obliterate another's values or give up your own to diminish fear and hatred.
Attacks on who we are tend to make all of us, except maybe the Dalai Lama, prepare to fight, not listen. In the US post 9/11, almost the entire country was swayed to support a military operation because it was held that failing to attack the "enemy" was dishonoring our values. Being attacked made it very difficult to exercise restraint and see alternative responses
This experiment suggests it is not impossible to encourage a different outcome. But it requires self awareness, and a willingness to stand up for more inclusive values, for someone to model behavior that discourages violence.
OTOH, the converse of this seems to be that it is equally easy to manipulate people - or for them to choose the messages - that harden their judgments - - through any interactions that make them feel more like outsiders.
That feeling of being an outsider has also been a factor in the school shootings we've had. When individuals feel personal fury at being rejected in their corner of society, some of them may resort to violence.
In terrorist groups: when people seeking acceptance by others like themselves are recruited, but belonging requires rigid adherence to extreme values, members will choose violence, even death, over being outcasts.
7
As a cognitive neuroscientist I am highly skeptical of these claims. Dr Hamid mentions he ‘did not find any evidence of mental illness’ which is a red flag for me as mental illness cannot be diagnosed with brain imaging alone. The rest of the video suffers from the regular issues of cognitive neuroimaging such as reverse-inference (each part of the brain is involved in many functions, so you cannot infer one function from seeing a region ‘light up’) and poor generalizability. These limitations of our field are fine when studying how the brain works but problematic when trying to make claims about real-world issues on the basis of neuroscience (or any lab research for that matter). The problem of extremism is too important: we must be very careful when communicating our findings.
163
@Jeroen van Baar
Yes, but it impiles that the patients had be clinically diagnosed, but just not included in the video for sake of clarity. Rafees Hamid knows that any diagnostic claims his research makes need to be documented and peer accepted.
10
If he knows this, why did we get a propaganda film rather than that peer reviewed research paper. Do you have a link to his?
10
@Jeroen van Baar "The problem of extremism is too important: we must be very careful when communicating our findings." What is the balance? If you are so careful that no one outside academic circles is able to access actionable insights, then what is the value of doing the research in the first place?
The recommendations are useful (don't blame whole groups and amplify moderate peer influencers) - even if the science behind it is either shaky or not well presented.
If this video changes people's behavior in a positive direction, it is useful. We are at an inflection point, with poorly understood impacts of social media - amplified both by state actors and attention-seeking algorithms threatening social cohesion. Cognitive scientists need to worry less about 'speaking carefully" and worry more about finding ways to impact conversation and policy with findings they already agree on!
4
Fascinating. I hope more studies are done and that I get to hear about them.
Daily, I think about the issue of the anti-immigrant sentiment that is raging across the country. It's important to me because it affects me: I am a brown immigrant and have been personally told that I have taken "away from Americans". I have wondered if the anti-immigrant sentiment is driven by fear of living in a country which is becoming non-white, a fear, of being excluded from the mainstream, a fear of being excluded from decision-making.
Thanks for posting this, NYT. I hope to see more on this.
14
This is a good start to understanding some of the problems, but it is lacking in substantive and sustainable approaches to bring people to better ways of thinking. That’s a thing that people will opt into, as the study pointed out, for the sake of inclusion, being heard and respected.
When basic needs are not protected and are perceived to be under threat, trouble is almost assured. With technology and globalized tools, including all people in a safe and secure future is achievable.
The alternative is to continue the paths of division and dissent in which the majority may find themselves increasingly marginalized even to the point of serfdom. At that point, say goodbye to democracy and freedom everywhere.
15
@Daniel Kauffman EXACTLY - thank you!!!
This is a great piece of science that validates the sociology we have been aware of for decades.
4
@Kenny Fry
Only sociology has never explained why some go over the edge and most others just find other non-malignant outlets. This gets the ball rolling for further study that might lead to diagnosis and preventive measures, treatment. Maybe those areas of the brain in the video have above average capacity, or another area that serves the purpose of mitigation is less developed. Just speculation, but this is one research area that might actually bring peace to mankind.
1
Hey folks, what have we got to lose? A little more inclusiveness, a little less "othering". Listening instead of shouting. Dropping labels and acknowledgement of people and where they stand. Anyone ready to give it a try?
81
@Myra Woods Now perhaps a postcard blitz of the WH might start the President going down the road that leads to fewer mass attacks from disgruntled people who feel empowered by Trump’s own hate? Nah. He is rigid and isolated and narcissistic. He and everyone around him kow-towing are not going to change what they think and this empowers the angry.
So the American voter, including conservatives, will have to eject them from the WH in November. Perhaps a falling economics and a rising Coronavirus death rate might convince even Republicans of his incompetence, thus making his behavior not acceptable to those he most needs. Such a response would fit with the findings of the small studies shown in the clip. But getting rid of all these haters is the way to go in November and sufferance is what the nation will have to do in the meantime.
1
@Myra Woods
Thank you. Even if the science is in it's early stages, and the reporting is made in very broad strokes, it can't hurt to try to be more inclusive and to include respect in our human interactions.
3
What's to be learned from scanning the brains of potential terrorists?
Well, insofar as we define terrorist as someone with a strongly held belief, so strong that the person is willing to defend this belief to point of violence against a majority which at best holds the belief more weakly and certainly will not resort to violence to defend it, scanning the brains of such people amounts to the herd attempting to pinpoint those of different belief from themselves not to mention prevent violence against themselves by those of different belief.
Which is to say you have the majority of people with weakly held beliefs, certainly with no strong beliefs which require violence to be defended, peering into the minds of those of different belief, those who hold any strongly held and different conviction, and placing such people automatically under suspicion. In short, these brain scans identify dissent, hostility to majority viewpoint, and it would be interesting to see how the brain scan of a Galileo or Oscar Wilde would light up when faced with the platitudes, cliches of the majority.
These brain scans are just only if every person is subject to them and we are honest about differences between terrorists, geniuses and common people too timid to have an original opinion not to mention defend it to point of death. The majority should be aware that they first of all are a system of beliefs when they use such technology to pinpoint those of dissenting belief to themselves.
5
@Daniel12
We are learning that biometrics, anatomy, is becoming more important in the understanding of human behavior then behavioral psychology alone. Maybe anatomy/chemistry motivates behavior substantially more then previously assumed. Fascinating science, repeatable, and documented too.
6
Very very excellent summary.
2
It’s so sad that anti-science has reached so deeply into nytimes readers judging by the early reactions to this video. There is an implied assumption that somehow the scientists don’t have a knowledgeable background in this field and the ideas come out of nowhere. There are many studies on terrorism and combatting terrorism and this study adds to the field. It informs us that there are some pathways to preventing people with strongly held beliefs from acting violently on those beliefs. Once we know there is a way then we can redirect. I think the real problem for readers is that their own sacred beliefs feel right whereas reading that others hold profoundly different beliefs as strongly is confusing. It seems wrong to give the other beliefs credence. But if we don’t know how others think and feel, how can we try to improve the world situation? The scientists aren’t saying it’s right to hate non whites, for example, but that we have to work with the world as it is. I, for one, will stop saying that all trump supporters and republicans are just racists. I know it’s not true but it has been an easy way to avoid understanding them.
28
@Sean Casey junior: My objection is not based on anti-science but real science. One study by one person who is using a novel technique to determine propensitive for criminal behavior is not good science. For example. the author picked people he believed to be "potential terrorists," whatever that meant to him, but did not scan the brains of people who, again to him, were not potential terrorists. This is just modern Phrenology when one could project future criminal behavior based on the shape of the skull. Which by the way predicted tht non-whites and the Irish were all destined to be criminals.
Great article. It is much easier and safe to stay silent and not confront or friends and family, but our future may just well depend on us challenging ignorance and apathy.
6
One more important question, how many people in our daily lives make decisions based on prejudices, personal biases and self fulfilling prophecies?
5
AS A PSYCHOLOGIST, I found the research presented to be fascinating as well as convincing. Most interventions cannot involve brain scans, as they are very expensive at this point in time, and access is extremely limited. The takeaway, though, is to help those radicalized to understand that the larger group, from which they are excluded, want them to join the larger group and not to engage in violence as a means of expressing their sacred values. In the process of radicalization, a religious leader with intent to recruit new persons, insists on secrecy and cutting ties with the family and friends as part of the process of initiation. The brain scan suggests that the thinking can be altered by having the larger social group invite newly radicalized and isolated members to rejoin the larger, mainstream, social group. It may be the case that group loyalties can be shifted from the group having radical to those with more flexible sacred beliefs. Easier said than done. The next experiment I'd like to see is the effect of speech to incite violence has on radicalized thinking and engaging in terrorist attacks.
37
@John Jones
“Sacred values” might also be political, nationalist, etc.
@John Jones
Respectfully... what do you find convincing about this study? As a fellow social scientist, I'm constantly dismayed at our attraction to using unproven tools like fMRI to "quantitatively" study nebulous entities like "sacred values." At best this study is well-intentioned but poorly designed. At worst, it smacks of pseudoscience – like phrenology with shiny machines. The fact that we need fMRI to tell us that inclusivity and understanding gets better results than exclusivity and punishing rhetoric suggests a paucity of moral imagination.
1
@John Jone: It scares me tht a psychologist would accept this research before it has been peer reviewed and independently duplicated.
If exclusion has such a profound effect on these so called radicals, they seem normal. They become angry. Therefore, they become combative across many fronts on their list of irritants even if many targets of their angst are not related. That means they are “hotheads” that do not reason well.
6
Mr. Hamid, Thank you and your colleagues for this much-needed research and this insightful presentation. It is but a piece of the puzzle.
I do believe that a majority of human beings would land on your scale of a 3 regarding the approval of violent acts of any kind.
We are all seeking a sense of calrity, of the purpose of our lives both higher and broader terms, and there are 2 camps; those that need no one to show them this path and those that need to be lead. Some choose to be led and are historically easy prey for self-serving and oppresive leaders such as DJT. Fear is the magic ingredient that leads to anger, which leads to rage that leads to extreme violence.
What complicates the whole thing is the preferable 'nature vs. nurture' thing. In this case, inclusion vs. exclusion, which speaks to Cultural differences, here at home and abroad.
It will not end at home until we take back our Democracy and start the process of fixing it.
8
The media cited in this piece has monetized hate. Algorithms skew toxic content to the vulnerable, and they likely have no exposure to clear thinking peers.
Access to their minds is blocked by economic concerns too strong to overcome.
Access to high capacity, high cycling firearms is also driven by profits. Combine the two and the yield is tragedy.
People talk about taking money out of politics...
how about taking money out of hate.
124
@Mike B Sorry. Anything which can arouse strong emotions will be monetized. Look at birth, wedding, and funerals. And recall some of the most profitable uses of the the newly invented VCR.
When rationality conflicts with instinct, instinct wins most times. This article is suggesting the use of one set of instinct against another: conforming to peer vs protecting sacred values.
Am wondering if it was ‘disapproval’ from peers that shifted their perspective or that the more moderate outlooks of their peers offered a path to inclusion. Or, put another way, there was no overt disapproval being communicated in study - just a perspective that said ‘you can belong by being part of this more moderate mentality’ - another solution to their fundamental grievance.
9
Under the 1st Amendment of the Constitution of our republic Americans are free to hate or love whomever they please for whatever reasons they choose.
And by any means that they choose that are protected by the 1st Amendment which excludes violence.
The notion that 'science' can predict and prevent terrorism or violence calls to mind science fiction books/ films like ' Minority Report' aka state pre- crime prevention and ' A Clockwork Orange' aka state forced behavior mind alteration.
Whether or not nature aka biology or nurture aka culture are destiny is likely to be forever unknown.
There are way too many variables and unknowns to craft the double-blind/ randomized controlled experimental tests that provide predictable and repeatable results.
28
@Blackmamba I believe it would be easy enough to design the experiment to test the hypothesis being advanced in this OpEd (based on the MRI data). I think it would be much harder to conduct it and it would have to be longitudinal anyway.
For every trait, it is a combination of both (nature and nurture, even completely hereditary traits can be damaged due to environmental impact and "nurture" is an artificial separate from "nature"). The only issue is the contribution.
4
@RamS
There are deep legal and moral professional ethical issues that would need to be addressed.
Plus while there is only one biological DNA evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300,000+ years ago we are all unique. Even fraternal and identical twins.
Science offers the best current natural explanation based upon the best current natural observations using the best current natural available data controlled unknowns and variables.
Science is always provisional and testable.
6
To what extent would a white nationalist consider a blue check mark conservative their peer? Couldn't such a tweet be experienced as an act of exclusion that pushes an extremist even farther from the mainstream?
Certainly, being affirmed in the wider culture doesn't hurt, but I'd assume that the support they receive among their more radical circles is more fundamental to sustaining "sacred values" and repressing self-consciousness/regression to the pro-social mean.
4
Jared, I think this is a perceptive remark and gets to the heart of the video's issue.
People can sort themselves into self-reinforcing peer groups that align with the rewards of "sacred beliefs" more strongly than the rewards of general social integration. If members of society at large were to recognize this and try to address it in order to prevent violence, the strategy needs to involve increasing the rewards of general social integration to better the odds of pulling back more of those committed to the society of those aligned with the rewards of sacred beliefs less valued by the broader community.
It won't always work: networks of radicalized people often provide intense levels of mutual support for members. But like any social group, dynamics fluctuate and at different times, different members may be more subject to reintegration in general society. The strategies the video depicts are simply about maximizing these opportunities as they occur.
1
You don't need and MRI and a PhD to work this one.
But since people with PhD's and a MRI have not been experiencing marginalization they might not understand the subsequent anger and commitment to violent action to overthrow an oppressor that can be the result.
The real answer is to stop being an oppressor.
94
@Lewis
Quote: "The real answer is to stop being an oppressor."
Yes, of course. That would be a great answer, if only everyone would do it. But we know they won't.
The human species is full of both goodness and brutality. Some people will always be oppressors or always try. So we need ways to combat them. It's not realistic just to say "stop being an oppressor."
19
@Lewis No one looking at this clip has any idea about what, or if these Ph.Ds have experienced marginalization. The clip is an explanation of studies done on radicals or those who would be likely to carry out violence against others. You miss the point if you focus on the messenger and ignore the message.
7
What if the perception of oppression is planted by fake news or a personality cult con man who somehow holds elected office?
3
Interesting studies, but I’m not sure his conclusion is accurate. A study of a limited number of radicalized men from one particular group is not necessarily indicative of other groups. Nor has the researcher or his colleagues done the research necessary to determine whether the actions he prescribes have long term impact on those who are truly radicalized.
9
Interesting from the perspective of a cognitive scientist.
However, I wonder about the phrase and meaning of "sacred values".
Everyone might have values of some sort, good or bad, but sacred is usually associated with religion, with a deity and serving that deity based on a set of rules, or perceived set of rules.
Religion provides the group "inclusion" and sacred religious values, or their interpretation, the justification for action or rejection of action.
This is very much not a ball game experiment.
When religion itself is left out of the study, then indeed the brains of Islamic radicals might have potential points of similarity with white extremists were they to be examined.
Note that these are Islamists, proponents of and adherents to a religion which imparts sacred values. Can the same be said about white extremists?
Perhaps some are radicalized Christians, but this does not seem to be true of most.
I would be wary of concluding too much from a comparison of radicalized Islamists and white extremists.
6
Useful to review the definition of “sacred values” used here. The focus in not on religion, but one what matters deeply to a person beyond the self. For example one of my sacred values is democracy.
6
@Maria Brent Useful to remember that words have meanings. Sacred from Latin sacra, sacred matters, transactions relating to worship of the Gods. If democracy is your religion then the use of the word sacred is correct. The English language has enough words to describe important values. The word sacred contains a meaning not addressed in the article, nor appropriate.
1
@Joshua Schwartz
Words can also be metaphorical, not necessarily literal. Language is rich that way.
9
A very important video and very important research. It needs to go viral.
22
@Harvey Botzman; Important research is research that passes a peer review and can be duplicated. Neither apply to this research.
1
So well done. We all can learn something from this!
16
Fantastic presentation! Worth watching.
12
Great presentation and these lessons need to be widely and more frequently voiced and made known !! The positive power of inclusive voices is a great healer !!
26