Turban
Myths
THE OPPORTUNITY AND CHALLENGES FOR REFRAMING
A CULTURAL SYMBOL FOR POST-9/11 AMERICA
STANFORD PEACE INNOVATION LAB
SEPTEMBER 9, 2013, STANFORD CALIFORNIA
Introduction
01
Introduction
The Stanford
team conducted a
multi-threaded
research project,
which enabled the
team to formulate
recommendations
presented in a
public forum on
September 9 on
the Stanford
campus
In the summer of 2013, the Sikh American Legal Defense and
Education Fund (SALDEF) commissioned the Stanford Peace
Innovation Lab – a research group based at Stanford University – to
conduct a study on American perception of the Sikh American
community, and to develop preliminary recommendations for an
advocacy and engagement program. The impetus for the project
was growing concern in the Sikh American community following the
2012 Oak Creek shootings in Wisconsin. The Stanford team – in
collaboration with SocialxDesign, a consumer engagement
consulting firm with offices in Silicon Valley and Washington DC –
conducted a multi-threaded research project which enabled the
team to formulate recommendations presented in a public forum on
September 9 on the Stanford campus. What follows is a summary
of the scope of the project, its key findings, and recommended
strategies for meeting a number of challenges facing the Sikh
American community in post-9/11 America.
The project is the first known multi-threaded research of its kind,
mining perception of American Sikhs and their challenges from
numerous sources:
Scope
02
The research was
Scope
conducted from
July 1st through
the first week of
September,
though one of the
survey projects
(conducted by
Politix) continues
to draw
respondents.
The project is the first known multi-threaded research of its kind,
mining perception of American Sikhs and their challenges from
numerous sources:
• Two independently managed consumer survey projects
(Google Consumer Surveys and Politix)
• A study of Internet conversation regarding Sikh
Americans
• A review of news accounts of hate crimes against Sikh
Americans
• Qualitative interviews with leaders in the Sikh American
community and their peers in other ethnic and faithbased communities
• A review of the most recent academic literature in
neuroscience, psychology, sociology, and criminology as
it relates to Sikh and Muslim Americans around bias,
stereotypes, hate crimes, profiling, shooter bias and
media portrayals (film, television and video games).
The research was conducted from July 1st through the first week
of September, though one of the survey projects (conducted by
Politix) continues to draw respondents.
Methodology
03
Methodology
• Surveys: The Google Consumer Survey questions yielded
roughly 1,500 responses each. The Politix surveys –
conducted in two separate polls – yielded close to 700 and
250 responses respectively.
• Qualitative: We interviewed close to 20 leaders in the Sikh
community and other ethnic and faith-based communities as
well as leaders in conflict engagement and resolution.
• Literature review and online conversation: We surveyed
the most recent academic literature (more than 60 articles) on
Sikh and Muslim Americans, neuroscience and behavioral
psychology, and news accounts of hate crimes against Sikhand Muslim-Americans, Internet conversations on popular
online community sites, and entertainment (games and film).
Summary Findings
04
Summary Findings
According to
respondents in
the qualitative
research – both
Sikh and non-Sikh
– there are
significant gaps in
Sikh integration
into American life
relative to peer
communities.
The top-level findings from the research are as follows:
• According to the first survey project, Americans tend to
associate turbans with Osama bin Laden more so than
with named Muslim and Sikh alternatives and more than with
no one in particular. (Google Consumer Surveys)
• 49% of Americans believe “Sikh” is a sect of Islam (it is an
independent religion). (Google Consumer Surveys)
• 70% cannot identify a Sikh man in a picture as a Sikh.
(Google Consumer Surveys).
• 79% cannot identify India as the geographic origin of
Sikhism. (Google Consumer Surveys).
• Anti-turban bias even among people with a greater
knowledge of Sikhs. According to a second survey project –
conducted by a news aggregator whose readers in a recent
survey have a greater knowledge of Sikhs -- 20% of
respondents say that if they encounter a stranger wearing a
turban they are likely to become angry or apprehensive.
(Politix Surveys).
• Bias is unconscious, charged by emotion, and reinforced
by images. The literature on bias suggests that the turban
Summary Findings
05
may be a particularly challenging cultural and religious symbol
in post-9/11 America.
• A sizable gap in the integration of Sikhs into the
mainstream of American life: According to respondents in
the qualitative research – both Sikh and non-Sikh – there are
significant gaps in Sikh integration into American life relative
to peer communities. The consensus is that this gap might
have the effect of reinforcing bias.
• A sizable gap in institutional capacity: Respondents also
agree that Sikhs are at an early stage of institutional maturity,
lacking in resources and capacity for responding to crises and
for creating sustainable, forward-looking programs that benefit
Sikhs and other communities. Sikh leaders recognize the
progress made over the past decade, but they also recognize
where the Sikh community stands relative to its peers.
Analysis
06
Analysis
The turban was
associated with
figures who have
played the role of
antagonist in
news narratives
over the past few
decades.
The turban as the object of enmity. Beyond the headlines,
what was noteworthy to the team from the survey research was
evidence of bias against the turban regardless of the
sophistication of the sample group. As noted, according to
Google Consumer Surveys – whose respondents could not
identify Sikhs, their religion, or geographical origin, the turban was
associated with figures who have played the role of antagonist in
news narratives over the past few decades. According the Politix
survey – which drew from an audience with greater knowledge of
Sikhs – at least one in five people said that if were to encounter a
stranger wearing a turban they are likely to become angry or
apprehensive. The results of the two survey projects suggest that
the turban itself has become an object of enmity, perhaps
affecting the perception of its wearers whoever they happen to be.
Analysis
07
Google Consumer Survey Results
This man is most likely a….
08
Analysis
09
Analysis
Analysis
10
The Person you would associate with a turban and beard is:
11
Analysis
Analysis
12
You most associate a turban and beard with someone who is…
13
Analysis
Analysis
14
Which of the following is NOT a sect of Islam?
15
Analysis
Analysis
16
DO YOU KNOW? Sikhism is originated in or near
17
Analysis
Analysis
18
Politix Survey Results
The implications of this phenomenon are manifold. But from the
perspective of the research team, the immediate upshot was the
opportunity to address the turban misassociation problem from the
perspective of behavior design. (See recommendations). Because
of its strong visual identity, and because of the strong emotion it
invokes among so many Americans, the turban can be analyzed in
the context of a behavioral loop. Thus the turban can be seen as a
viable candidate for a campaign that is as much about behavioral
change as it is about advocacy. In fact, the change the dynamics
between Sikhs and non-Sikhs in America, a campaign that does not
incorporate behavior design might be insufficient.
The science of bias and hate. As noted, the literature review on
bias and hate crime – drawing from more than 60 journal articles
and in-depth reports from neuroscience and behavioral sciences –
Analysis
19
shows an emerging consensus that bias is largely unconscious,
charged by emotion, and reinforced by images.
Stanley, Phelps & Banaji (2008) state:
“Evidence that human preferences, beliefs, and behavior are
influenced by sources that are outside the reach of conscious
awareness, control, intention, and self- reflection is
incontrovertible. Recent advances in neuoscience have
enabled researchers to investigate the neural basis of these
implicit attitudes, particularly attitudes involving social groups.“
Unkelbach & Denison (2008) used a “shooter bias” paradigm to
assess participants aggressive tendencies toward targets wearing a
turban or hijab. As predicted, this experiment demonstrated a
shooter bias for targets wearing a turban or a hijab and the results
were comparable regardless of gender target confirming a negative
stereotype associated with Islamic appearance. The evidence
further supported the prediction that the shooter bias against
Muslims was the behavioral manifestation of acquired negative
stereotypes towards this group. This study and others also lend
weight to the hypothesis that the turban misassociation problem
needs to be approached from a behavioral perspective.
Analysis
20
“The Turban Effect”
“Whether they’re holding a steel coffee mug or a gun, people
are just more likely to shoot at someone who is wearing a
turban,” says author Christian Unkelbach, a visiting scholar at
Australia’s University of New South Wales. “Just putting on
this piece of clothing changes people’s behaviour.”
Media’s Role in Bias Reinforcement
Analysis
21
A number of scholars have looked at media, specifically film,
television and video games to assess how Arab and Islamic
appearing characters are portrayed. Shaheen (2003) analysis
shows that, out of 1000 films that have Arab & Muslim characters
(from the year 1896 to 2000), 12 were “positive” depictions, 52 were
“even-handed,” and the rest of the 900 or so were “negative.”
Shaheen also notes the participation of the US Government and
military in action films and story lines in the late 80’s and 90’s that
promote the stereotype of Arab/Muslim/Turban wearing character
as terrorist.
Sisler’s (2008) comprehensive review of Arab representation in
video games confirms the continuation of stereotypical
representations in first person shooter games such as War in the
Gulf (Empire, 1993), Delta Force (NovaLogic, 1998), Conflict:
Desert Storm (SCi Games, 2002), Full Spectrum Warrior (THQ,
2004), Kuma/War (Kuma Reality Games, 2004) and Conflict: Global
Terror (SCi Games, 2005). The stereotypes and accompanying
simplistic narratives reinforce the dark turbaned ‘Other’ as the
enemy. A few notable games, America’s War and Kuma/War have
other purposes beyond entertainment as recruitment tools for the
US military or as a means to rationalize the ‘war on terror.’
The cumulative effect of repeated cultural images and associations
of Islamic appearance + terror acts as a passive reinforcement to
Analysis
22
unconscious biases Americans hold regarding Muslim and Muslim
appearing Americans.
The Sikh Community Gap Analysis. As noted, the research
team also conducted a series of interviews with leaders in the Sikh
community and peers from other faith-based and ethnic groups.
The goal for this particular workstream was to identify gaps in
competency for meaningful advocacy work or behavioral
interventions. The research team created a framework for
evaluating these competencies – dubbed the “capabilities graph” -and for guiding communities on how to build on them.
the capabilities graph
Intelligence
Analysis
23
Objective: The ability to respond and to detect crises before
they happen.
Gap: Infrastructure is in very early stages.
Next step: Begin work in 2013/2014 to begin identifying data
sources and partners.
Both the leaders at SALDEF and respondents in the qualitative
research agree on the need for a more sophisticated data platform
for comprehending consumer sentiment and for detecting potential
conflict before it arises.
Identity
Objective: To leverage the depth and diversity of the Sikh
American community.
Gap: Alignment as well as representation of different groups
(e.g., women).
Next step: Series of regional public forums designed to get
consensus and alignment.
Respondents also recognize the need to follow a best practice in
the world of conflict resolution – dubbed “identity-based
engagement” -- that recognizes that communities must first engage
and align themselves internally. There is a great deal of diversity
Analysis
24
within the Sikh community. If more of the community were aligned
and mobilized -- engagement potentially could have a greater
impact.1 At the September 9 event at Stanford, leaders in the Sikh
community had the opportunity to experiment with an interactive
format for driving engagement and alignment. (See
recommendations). This format can be used for a national series of
local events that later rolls up into a national summit.
Integration
Objective: Mixing well into the “manystreams” of American
public life.
Gap: Sikhs stay “inside,” so they are seen as outsiders.
Next step: Designing interventions that can scale.
As noted earlier, Sikhs rightly or wrongly are perceived as outsiders
who not well integrated into American life. The “peacemaker
initiative” outlined in the previous section is just one example of a
program designed to close the integration gap. At the September 9
event at Stanford, Sikh leaders collaborated with peer from other
1
At the 9/9 event at Stanford, the research team explored the need to engage
and mobilize a number of Sikh constituents -- particularly women -- who can
play a bigger role in “putting a human face on the Sikh community” by
demonstrating its diversity.
Analysis
25
communities to identify interventions that (a) enable Sikhs to better
mix in other communities, and (b) that can scale with the aid of
technologies.
Influence
Objective: Leverage the “long tail” of influence, both inside
and outside the Sikh community.
Gap: Biggest challenge is countering the post-9/11 narrative.
Next step: Influencer mapping and convening in preparation
for campaign for rebranding the turban.
The research team uncovered a further gap in “integration”: the
Sikh community’s relative lack of engagement with general
influencers on hate crime, human rights, peacebuilding, etc. (See
sample below). In addition, the community has the opportunity to
think more broadly – and more granularly – about the marketplace
of Sikh influence. There are influencers with great sway with older
Sikhs (“inside the temple”). There are influencers with greater pull
with younger Sikhs. There are influencers who might have pull with
mainstream American culture where one of the number-one tasks
may be to counter the effect of anti-Islamic propaganda has
accidentally resulted in anti-Sikh bias. But without the infrastructure
for harnessing this influence, it will be challenging to do anything at
scale.
Analysis
26
Institutional capacity
Objective: A sustainable organizational infrastructure
for the benefit of the entire Sikh ecosystem.
Gap: infrastructure is at the very early stages of development.
Next step: A contemporary variant on the Interfaith model.
As reported in the top-level findings, there is also a considerable
gap in capacity for advocacy work. While Sikhs appear to be
evolving their capabilities in this area, it will need to go further if it
hopes to change the cultural dynamic in a sustainable way. One
recommendation is to develop a new type of collaboration between
groups of common cause, replacing the traditional Interfaith model
with a broader model that incorporates other kinds of affinity groups
to work with one another.
In the meantime, if the Sikh community were to make measurable
progress along each of these five areas of competency, the impact
of community interventions could inspire change at a faster rate. In
the end, the turban is as much of an opportunity as it is a challenge.
It’s the opportunity to leverage the power that the turban has in the
American mind and to alter its valence – from negative to positive –
for the good of all Americans.
Recommendations
27
Recommendations
The challenge for
the Sikh
community – and
for any other
community at risk
of being targeted
for hate crimes –
is to test and
develop new core
loops in a way
that can truly
subverts the older
core loop.
Based on its findings, the research team presented three related
frameworks for co-creating an engagement plan, using its 9/9 event
on the Stanford campus as a first exercise in drafting that plan:2
Design for behavior. Perhaps the most dramatic and disturbing
finding from the research is the role that the turban plays in
American perception of Sikhs. It’s a problem that needs to
addressed on multiple fronts, but the toxic composition of
bias+emotion+image that drives turban-inspired hate crime
requires interventions that leverage behavior and game design.
Using methods developed at the Stanford Peace Innovation Lab
and other groups, the Sikh community can design tests for
changing the way turbans are perceived. Three of the core
principles of game design are that (1) the “core loop” – i.e., the
smallest set of meaningful interactions that are repeatable and
which encourage the loop to continue – can be defined, (2) that the
2
The research team invited leaders from the Sikh community to meet with peer
leaders from the Jewish, LGBT, Hispanic, African American, and Interfaith
communities.
Recommendations
28
loop can be broken or slowed down, and (3) that a competitive
model can be used to outwit opponents.
Core Loop of Hate Crimes
Design for “positive peace.” The challenge for the Sikh
community – and for any other community at risk of being targeted
for hate crimes – is to test and develop new core loops in a way that
can truly subvert the older core loop. The research team presented
a strawman test for the group convened at Stanford on 9/9: a
focused community intervention where members of the Sikh faith
actively and visibly take part in educating and mentoring city youth
in the skills of “peacebuilding.” There are several reasons why an
approach like this might succeed. The first is that in order for the
Recommendations
29
original core loop to be broken, the meaning of the visual cue – the
turban – would need to be subverted. The second is that the act of
a Sikh American participating in the education of peacebuilding not
only subverts the meaning of the visual cue, but also presents an
opportunity for Sikh Americans to educate people on one of its most
durable “brand assets.” It’s an opportunity to evolve the brand of
Sikhism to be more outward-facing, as well as an opportunity to
transform the brand of the turban. Third, this approach is consistent
with best practices in the growing field of creative conflict
engagement, which seeks to reduce conflict in society not by simply
responding to conflicts when they arise, but by creating the right
conditions for positive and sustainable human relations between
different groups.
Quality of Engagement
POSITIVE
Collective
Intelligence
Collaboration
Cooperation
Coordination
Communication
Attention
Awareness
zero
NEGATIVE
Sustainable
Peace
Positive but
Unstable
Peace
Quantity of Engagement
Truce
Verbal Hostility
Physical Hostility
Battle
War
Annihilation
From Negative to Positive Peace
HIGH
Recommendations
30
Design for movement.
The 9/9 event at Stanford was the Sikh American community’s first
opportunity to experiment with an interactive event format that
enables groups of any size to rapidly surfaces ideas, discuss them,
and advance the best ideas for potential implementation. The
opportunity now is to take this approach to the next level by iterating
on best practices from communities that have practiced behavior
design and event design to organize themselves at scale.
SocialxDesign along with the Stanford Peace Innovation Lab
participated in one of the nation’s largest community development
projects sponsored by The White House.3 The project visited more
than two dozen cities with an interactive format for surfacing,
aligning, and mobilizing Latino leadership. The team later
formulated a template for designing for movements, and it has been
adopted by a number of community groups as a best practice for
growing quickly, inclusively, and with impact. Given the challenges
that the Sikh American community is facing, and given the
3
The White House The Conversation Market Mainstream With Geek-Style Unconferences,
Techcrunch, August 19, 2012.
31
Recommendations
complexity of those challenges, we believe that what is required is
the scale and dimensions of a movement. In the end, the future of
Sikhs in America depends on the vibrancy of its community – along
the five dimensions of the capabilities graph – and a road tour
design to gather the community may be the best way to start.
Selected References
32
Ahluwalia, M. K., & Pellettiere, L. (2010). Sikh men post-9/11: Misidentification,
discrimination, and coping. Asian American Journal of Psychology, 1(4), 303–
314. doi: 10.1037/a0022156
Banaji, M. R., & Greenwald, A. G. (1994). Implicit stereotyping and prejudice.
In The psychology of prejudice: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 7, pp. 55-76).
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Baumann, J., & DeSteno, D. (2010, August 23). Emotion Guided Threat
Detection: Expecting Guns Where There Are None. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0020665
Baumann, Jolie Elizabeth, (2012). Anger and threat detection: increased
expectancy for emotion-relevant stimuli influences object recognition.
Psychology Dissertations. Paper 25. http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20002727
Berger, J.M. & Strathearn, Bill, (2013). Who Matters Online: Measuring
Influence, Evaluating Content and Countering Violent Extremism in Online
Social Networks. London: ICSR.
Devos, T., & Banaji, M. R. (2005). American= white?. Journal of personality
and social psychology, 88(3), 447.
Freeman JB, Penner AM, Saperstein A, Scheutz M, Ambady N (2011) Looking
the Part: Social Status Cues Shape Race Perception. PLoS ONE 6(9): e25107.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025107
Goldstein, Laura, & Lewin, Tamar, (2012). Victims of Mistaken Identity, Sikhs
Pay a Price for Turbans. New York Times
Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: attitudes,
self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological review, 102(1), 4.
Selected References
33
Halliburton, Christian, Race, Brain Science, and Critical Decision-Making in the
Context of Constitutional Criminal Procedure (November, 30 2011). Gonzaga
Law Review, Forthcoming; Seattle University School of Law Research Paper
No. 11-32. Available at SSR
Halse, Rolf, (2011). The Muslim-American Neighbour as Terrorist: The
Representation of a Muslim Family in 24. Reconstruction: Studies in
Contemporary Culture, Volume 11.4.
Keller, C., Siegrist, M. and Gutscher, H. (2006), The Role of the Affect and
Availability Heuristics in Risk Communication. Risk Analysis, 26: 631–639.
doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2006.00773.x
Kurzban, R.; Tooby, J.; Cosmides, L. (2001). Can race be erased? Coalitional
computation and social categorization. Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences 98 (26): 15387–15392. doi:10.1073/pnas.251541498. PMC 65039.
PMID 11742078
Lee, Cynthia, Hate Crimes and the War on Terror. HATE CRIMES:
PERSPECTIVES AND APPROACHES, Barbara Perry, ed., 2008; GWU Legal
Studies Research Paper No. 442; GWU Law School Public Law Research
Paper No. 442.
Mahalingam, R. (2013). Misidentification, Misembodiment and the Paradox of
Being a Model Minority. Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory, 8(3), 299304.s
Selected References
34
Mahmood, Cynthia Keppley (2012). Gun Cultures, Majority Nationalism, And
The Prominence Of Fear: Reflections On Anti-Sikh Hate Crimes. Sikh
Formations, Vol. 8, Iss. 3, 2012
Mange, J., Chun, W. Y., Sharvit, K., Bélanger, J. J., (2012) Thinking about
Arabs and Muslims Makes Americans Shoot Faster: Effects of Category
Accessibility on Aggressive Responses in a Shooter Paradigm, European
Journal of Social Psychology.
Neha Singh Gohil, Dawinder S. Sidhu, ( 2008). The Sikh Turban: Post-9/11
Challenges To This Article of Faith, Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion,
Volume 9.2.
Riddle, K. E. , (2008). “Always on my Mind: Exploring How Frequent, Recent,
and Vivid Television Portrayals are Used in the Formation of Social Reality
Judgments" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International
Communication Association, TBA
Shaheen J.G. (2003). Reel bad Arabs: How Hollywood vilifies a
people
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, 588 , pp. 171-193.
Slovic, P. (2004). What's fear got to do with it? It's affect we need to worry
about. Missouri Law Review, 69, 971-990.
Stanley, D., Phelps, E., & Banaji, M. (2008). The neural basis of implicit
attitudes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(2), 164-170.
Unkelbach, C., Forgas, J., & Denson, T. (2008). The turban effect: The
influence of Muslim headgear and induced affect on aggressive responses in
Selected References
35
the shooter bias paradigm Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44 (5),
1409-1413 DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.20.
Vit Sisler, (2008). Digital Arabs: Representation in Video Games, European
Journal of Cultural Studies 11 : 203-219.