RAPID: Current Contexts for Testing the Psychology of Radicalization

对国家(和国际)安全的迫切关切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、往往是暴力的观点或行为，而这些观点或行为与人口中的大多数人的观点或行为有很大不同。马里兰大学帕克分校(University Of Marland College Park)的研究员阿里·克鲁格兰斯基(Arie Kruglanski)开发的重要性探索理论预测，当个人经历严重的意义丧失，再加上接触到极端主义叙事和支持它的社交网络时，就会出现激进主义。难民危机的背景为检验激进化问题提供了一个独特和非常重要的背景，在这种背景下，大量个人脱离了正常环境和具有根基意义的社会接触。然而，很少进行系统的研究，以了解难民在多大程度上有激进化的倾向，以及可能产生这种倾向的条件。此外，难民危机的独特情况也揭示了对激进化进程的认识存在重大差距。特别是，难民的情况可能会激活相互竞争的动机状态--为了意义和为了生存--这可能会对激进主义潜力产生不同的影响。目前的项目重点是了解这些影响激进化的相互竞争的力量。调查人员利用叙利亚难民危机自然发生的背景来测试有关激进化的关键假设。自叙利亚暴力冲突爆发以来，已有超过470万叙利亚人登记为难民，近90万移民申请在欧洲避难。这项针对这一人群的研究将解决两个问题。首先，研究人员试图了解这些难民在多大程度上接受或不接受暴力极端主义。在接受暴力极端主义的程度上，第二个目标将确定可能促使他们这样做的难民和难民营特有的心理和背景因素。难民的情况是独一无二的。他们与家乡的朋友和家人失去了联系，与工作和社会支持网络也失去了联系。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重要性以及生活的目的感和意义。这可能会引发接受声称提供这种目的的极端主义意识形态的动机。另一方面，难民困境的艰辛可能会使他们关注在恶劣环境中生存的实际情况。这反过来可能会减少人们对意识形态问题的关注。这一快速项目将侧重于这两种力量的作用，即个人意义和生存，因为这可能决定难民激进化的可能性。将在约旦和黎巴嫩境内的叙利亚难民营中使用世界各地暴力极端分子成功使用的调查和实验方法进行研究。

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.