Threat assessment of the involuntary celibate (incel) online community: developing a structured professional judgement tool to identify incels at risk

INCEL群体(非自愿独身的混合体)描述他们自己根本无法找到性关系或浪漫关系，尽管他们渴望这样的关系--一种被称为禁欲的状态。这一群体与极端的厌女症有关，人们普遍认为，只有伤害外部群体(有魅力的男人或女人)才能改善他们的处境。直接煽动对妇女的暴力行为导致这种思想被描述为暴力极端主义。近年来，与INCEL社区有关的大规模暴力事件一直在增加，自2014年以来已有50多起案件。此外，论坛用户同意，与INCEL相关的攻击将在未来变得更加频繁。少数门徒采用最暴力的门徒亚文化，美化门徒，幻想强奸和对社会施加暴力，他们的社会危害已经变得越来越明显(Moskalenko等人，2022年)。不幸的是，临床医生、执法人员、立法者和教育工作者缺乏一个框架和程序，使那些对社会风险最大的人能够与其他较良性的人(尽管如此，他们可能需要支持和治疗)区分开来。本论文将采用混合方法，利用有效的心理测量学工具，并在与社区接触的不同阶段对INCEL进行访谈，以提高我们对INCEL社区的信仰体系、不满和态度的理解。先前研究的局限性突出表明，需要让INCEL自身参与研究，以获得INCEL经验和核心脆弱性的整体表述。这项研究将开发一种结构化的专业判断工具，用于INCEL社区的威胁评估，以帮助从业者区分哪些INCEL有暴力风险，哪些没有暴力风险，并确定早期干预的机会。

The incel community (a portmanteau of involuntary celibate) describe themselves as fundamentally unable to find a sexual or romantic relationship despite desiring one - a state known as inceldom. The group is associated with extreme misogyny and a widespread belief that their situation can only be improved by harming the out-group (attractive men or women). Direct incitements of violence against women have led the incel ideology to be described as violent extremism. In recent years, mass violence associated with the incel community has been increasing with over 50 cases since 2014. Additionally, forum users agree that incel-related attacks will become more frequent in the future. The potential for societal harm of the small group of incels who adopt the most violent manifestations of the incel subculture, glorifying incel killers and fantasizing about raping and inflicting violence towards society (Moskalenko et al., 2022) has become increasingly clear. Unfortunately, clinicians, law enforcement, lawmakers and educators are lacking a framework and process whereby those most at risk to society can be distinguished from other more benign incels (who may nevertheless be in need of support and treatment). This thesis will take a mixed-methods approach to improve our understanding of the belief systems, grievances and attitudes of the incel community using validated psychometric tools and interviews with incels at various stages of engagement with the community. The limitations of previous research highlight the need to involve incels themselves in research to gain a holistic formulation of incel experiences and core vulnerabilities. This research will develop a structured professional judgement tool for threat assessment of the incel community to help practitioners discern between incels who are and are not at risk of violence and identify opportunities for early intervention.