RAPID: Current Contexts for Testing the Psychology of Radicalization

对国家（和国际）安全的迫切关注是理解激进化的心理。激进化是指个人倾向于支持或致力于极端的、通常是暴力的观点或行为，这些观点或行为与大多数人的观点或行为有很大的不同。研究人员Arie Kruglanski（马里兰大学帕克分校）提出的意义追寻理论预测，当个人经历了意义的深刻丧失，并接触到极端主义的叙述和支持它的社会网络时，激进主义就会出现。在难民危机的背景下，大量的人脱离了正常的环境和社会联系，这是一个独特而非常重要的背景，可以用来测试激进化的问题。然而，很少有系统的研究来了解难民有激进倾向的程度，以及什么条件可能对这种倾向产生影响。此外，难民危机的独特情况也表明，人们对激进化进程的认识存在重大差距。特别是，难民的处境可以激活相互竞争的动机状态——为了意义和生存——这可能对激进化的可能性产生不同的影响。目前的项目侧重于了解影响激进化的这些相互竞争的力量。研究者利用自然发生的叙利亚难民危机来检验关于激进化的关键假设。自叙利亚爆发暴力冲突以来，已有470多万叙利亚人登记为难民，近90万移民向欧洲申请庇护。针对这一人群的研究将解决两个问题。首先，研究者试图了解这些难民接受或不接受暴力极端主义的程度。至于暴力极端主义在何种程度上被接受，第二个目标将确定难民和难民营特有的可能促使他们这样做的心理和背景因素。难民的处境是独特的。他们与家乡的朋友和家人，以及他们的工作和社会支持网络失去联系。肮脏的生活条件，远离稳定的现实，靠近冲突地区，以及集体受害可能会降低难民的个人意义感以及生活的目的和意义感。这可能会促使人们有动机接受那些声称提供这种目的的极端主义意识形态。另一方面，难民困境的艰辛可能会使他们关注在悲惨环境中生存的现实问题。这反过来可能会减少对意识形态问题的关注。这个RAPID项目将重点关注这两种力量的作用，即个人意义和生存，因为这两种力量可能决定难民激进化的可能性。研究将在位于约旦和黎巴嫩的叙利亚难民营进行，使用调查和实验方法，这些方法已成功地用于世界各地的暴力极端分子。

A pressing concern for national (and international) security is understanding the psychology of radicalization. Radicalization is the tendency for individuals to support or commit to extreme and often violent views or behaviors that differ substantially from those of a population's majority. Significance Quest Theory, developed by the investigator Arie Kruglanski (University of Maryland College Park) predicts that radicalization emerges when individuals experience a profound loss of significance, combined with exposure to an extremist narrative and a social network that supports it. The context of a refugee crisis, in which large numbers of individuals are unmoored from the normal environment and social contacts that ground meaning, offers a unique and very important setting for testing questions about radicalization. However, little systematic research has been conducted to understand the extent to which refugees have a propensity to radicalize, and what conditions might bear on such propensities. Moreover, the unique circumstances of refugee crises also reveal important gaps in knowledge about radicalization processes. In particular, the circumstances of refugees can activate competing motivational states--for significance and for survival--that might have different effects on radicalization potential. The current project focuses on understanding these competing forces affecting radicalization. The investigator uses the naturally occurring context of the Syrian refugee crisis to test key hypotheses about radicalization. Since the outbreak of the violent conflict in Syria, over 4.7 million Syrians have registered as refugees and nearly 900,000 migrants have applied for asylum in Europe. The research focusing on this population will address two questions. First, the researcher seeks to understand the extent to which these refugees do or do not embrace violent extremism. To the extent to which violent extremism is embraced, the second aim will identify the psychological and contextual factors specific to refugees and refugee camps that may prompt them to do so. The refugees' circumstances are unique. They are disconnected from friends and family back home, as well as from their jobs and social support networks. The squalid living conditions, displacement from stable realities, proximity to the conflict zone, and collective victimization may lower the refugees' feelings of personal significance as well as the sense of purpose and meaning in life. This may induce the motivation to embrace extremist ideologies that profess to provide such purpose. On the other hand, the hardships of the refugee predicament may focus them on the practicalities of survival in dire circumstances. This in turn may reduce attention to ideological concerns. This RAPID project will focus on the role of these two forces, namely, personal significance and survival, as these may determine the likelihood of refugee radicalization. Research will be conducted in refugee camps for Syrians located in both Jordan and Lebanon using survey and experimental methodologies that have been successfully used with violent extremists across the world.