EASP Small Group Meeting - Jerusalem, Israel, 7-10 September 2009
Resolving Societal Conflicts and Building Peace:
Socio-Psychological Dynamics
Terrorism and Otherness
The role of personal involvement
in the shift of lay thinking from rationality to irationality
Andrea Ernst-Vintila
Universite de la Mediterranee – CNRS UMR 6012 Espace
Universite de Reims Champagne-Ardenne - Laboratory of Applied Psychology
Terrorism as a collective risk and social phenomenon
Terrorism: objective dimension, « terrorist act »
Lack of consensus on the definition of terrorism
EU law on terrorism adopted in 2002 ; French Criminal code art. 421
Risk = Probability x Vulnerability
 How do people think about their situation with regard to risk?
 What makes people take, or refrain from taking, action towards risk?
 How do people shift from individual, reflex action to collective action?
Terrorist risk
Objective facts
Social phenomenon
Object of lay thinking (social representations)
2
Social representations: theories of lay thinking
Social representation
 A way of seeing which is locally and temporarily shared within a given
community, which allows cognitive appropriation of risk and guides
risk-related action.
Practices: capital role in the making of the SR
Social representations: conditions for practices
3
The structural approach to social representations
 Social cognitive systems = Elements + Relations between elements
 The more the relations between the elements, the stronger the SR
 Functional elements, useful for risk-related action
 Normative/attributive elements, used in evaluating risk
Peripheral
elements
Central
core
The central core
 Gives meaning and organises the SR
 Consensual and stable over time
The peripheral system
 Is the operating part of the SR
 Reflects the interindividual variability
and the prescriptions for actions
 Subject to change over time
4
Social representations of terrorism
Social representations of terrorism
 Depend on established terrorism-related practices
 Are affected by the individuals’ personal involvement
Sample
 55 safety officers (FR)
 55 French passengers
 51 US passengers
Method
 Structural approach to social representations
 Free association test-inductor « terrorism »
 Prototypicality analysis (Verges, 1992)
5
Survey locations
Marseille-Provence Airport
Flight AF 8969 Algiers - Paris hi-jacked in Marseille by a commando of
the IAG (December 1994)
Boston-Logan Airport
 Take-off airport of flights AA 11 et UA 175 crashed against the WTC,
New York City (11 September 2001)
6
Personal involvement
A mediator in the making of social representations
Resultant of three independent components
1. Risk valuation: estimated importance of risk’s stake
I______________________________________________________________________________I
Terrorism is a matter of
no importance (-)
2. Personal concern with risk: self-declared
Terrorism is a matter of
life and death (+)
estimation of exposure to risk
I______________________________________________________________________________I
Terrorism concerns everyone, I am
just as exposed as anyone else (-)
I feel personally and
specifically exposed
3. Perceived capacity to act towards risk: feeling of control over risk
I______________________________________________________________________________I
7
I cannot do anything about it (-)
It fully depends on me (+)
Participants’ personal involvement
Personal
involvement
Terrorist risk
valuation
Personal
exposure
to risk
Perceived
capacity
to act
(individual)
Perceived
capacity
to act
(collective)
Min=1, Max=6
Min=1, Max=6
Min=1, Max=6
Min=1, Max=6
FR passengers
N=55
2,56*
1,78*
2,19
3,6*
US passengers
N= 51
4,76*
2,41*
2,25
3,95*
5
3,47
3,44
4,69
F(2,155)=73,28;
p<.01
F(2,155)=14,95;
p<.01
Safety officers (FR)
N=55
Significativity
F(2,155)=18,69;
p<.01
F(2,154)=13,59;
8 p<.01
Analysis of the free-association test
Safety officers (FR)
Average rank
< 2,4
Passengers (FR)
Average rank
>= 2,4
Frequency
>= 10
Attack
Bomb
Deads
Frequency
< 10
Danger
Coward
Fear
Terror
Victims
9/11
Ben-Laden
Explosion
Extremism
Fanatism
Islam
Religion
Average rank
< 2,4
Average rank
>= 2,4
Frequency
>= 10
Attack
Bomb
Fear
Deads
Frequency
< 10
Coward
9/11
WTC
Al-Qaïda
Plane
Ben-Laden
Danger
Explosion
Extremism
War
Lack of justice
Lack of safety
Integrism
Islam
Hostages
Religion
Violence
9
Analysis of the free-association test
Passengers FR
Average rank
< 2,4
Passagers US
Average rank
>= 2,4
Frequency
>= 10
Attack
Bomb
Fear
Deads
Frequency
< 10
Coward
9/11
WTC
Al-Qaïda
Plane
Ben-Laden
Danger
Explosion
Extremism
War
Average rank
< 2,4
Frequency
>= 10
Lack of justice
Lack of safety
Integrism
Islam
Hostages
Religion
Violence
Frequency
< 10
Attack
Deads
Muslims
Fear
Average rank
>= 2,4
Bomb
9/11
Chaos
Murder
Al-Qaida
Middle-East
Suicide
Extremists
Innocence
10
Safety
Bin-Laden
Analysis of the free-association test
Passengers FR
Average rank
< 2,4
Passagers US
Average rank
>= 2,4
Frequency
>= 10
Attack
Bomb
Fear
Deads
Frequency
< 10
Coward
9/11
WTC
Al-Qaïda
Plane
Ben-Laden
Danger
Explosion
Extremism
War
Average rank
< 2,4
Frequency
>= 10
Lack of justice
Lack of safety
Integrism
Islam
Hostages
Religion
Violence
Frequency
< 10
Attack
Deads
Muslims
Fear
Average rank
>= 2,4
Bomb
9/11
Chaos
Murder
Al-Qaida
Middle-East
Suicide
Extremists
Innocence
11
Safety
Bin-Laden
Conclusion
Established / Weak Practice: Safety officers / Passengers
• Differences in the functional aspects of the social representation
High / Low Personal Involvement: US/FR Passengers
• If high personal involvement + lack of risk-related practice
• New normative items come to define terrorist risk: Deads, Muslims
High personal involvement+lack of practice: shift in the lay thinking
• Normative shift; probably a shift from social representation to nexus
Nexus
• Prelogical, affective form of lay thinking; powerful symbolic force
• More radical and more narrow than social representations
• Commands profound collective mobilisation and clear-cut opinions 12
• Leaves no room for reasoning or discussion
EASP Small Group Meeting - Jerusalem, Israel, 7-10 September 2009
Resolving Societal Conflicts and Building Peace:
Socio-Psychological Dynamics
Terrorism and Otherness
The role of personal involvement
in the shift of lay thinking from rationality to irationality
Andrea Ernst-Vintila
[email protected]
Universite de la Mediterranee – CNRS UMR 6012 Espace
Universite de Reims Champagne-Ardenne - Laboratory of Applied Psychology
Bootstrap: calculation of the confidence
intervals
Safety
officers
Passengers
Average rank
[1,40 ; 1,72]
[1,34 ; 1,62]
Frequency
[19 ; 27]
[23 ; 32]
Average rank
[1,77 ; 2,76]
[1,79 ; 2,42]
Frequency
[9 ; 16]
[9 ; 16]
Average rank
[2,60 ; 3,06]
[2,86 ; 3,35]
Frequency
[15 ; 23]
[15 ; 23]
Average rank
[1,33 ; 2,25]
[2,27 ; 3,78]
Frequency
[1 ; 5]
[8 ; 15]
Element
Attack
Bomb
Deads
Fear