Accultured Norms

This chapter looks at the importance of understanding the many cultural differences that exist between different groups and in different contexts around the world. Without a sensitivity to such differences, wars can be lost and positive influences minimized. These differences include the existence of high-context versus low-context societies, differing hierarchical approaches to power and authority, collectivist versus individualist societies, differing emotion expression/recognition, gender differences, differing evidencing of empathy, face preferences, and communication styles. Lack of cultural attunement to these issues can exacerbate misunderstandings and conflicts, unless understood and factored into difficult strategies and dialogues.

On Being Mortal

This chapter introduces readers to the basics of what they need to know about social psychology—that is, the study of how people’s feelings, ideas, and behaviors are influenced by the presence of others. It also looks at the increasingly important bio/neural factors such as genes, brain structure, and hormonal processes that are now being examined and understood as relevant to any study of human behavior, including group conflicts. In addition, it provides a brief introduction to the various methodologies that are increasingly able to measure social behavior, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalography, DNA analysis, and hormonal testing.

Peacebuilding More Successfully?

This chapter addresses some of the suggestions that are emerging from the growing field of social and behavioral psychology about how the work of peacebuilders, diplomats, the military, and others can use some of the insights noted in this book. The suggestions are not a substitute for the theories and practices that are currently in use by researchers and activists in their various fields. Rather they suggest an extra way of undertaking our analysis by taking into account the multiple lawyers of instincts and emotions that often imbue the actions of communities and peoples involved in often violent conflict. Every such analysis will of course be informed by the particular complexities of the contexts within which particular conflicts are occurring, and the security needs within that context. But by also addressing the instinctual and emotional needs of the various parties involved in conflicts, the work of peacebuilders of all hues can make their work more effective and more sustainable.

Introduction

The certainty with which we act now might seem ghastly not only to future generations but to our future selves as well. —Sapolsky (2017, p. 674) This book is being written at a time when the failures of the Western interventions into Iraq and Afghanistan and the fragmentation of Syria into thousands of militias of various hues, with ever-changing interventions by at least seven other countries, have laid bare the limitations of traditional war methodologies. While the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq did stimulate some debates about the limitations of traditional approaches to war (...

New Horizons, New Tribes

This chapter looks at the future of war in a world where social media are ubiquitous and at how our social and biological natures are affected, both for good and for evil, by their presence, particularly in times of conflict and war. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have already significantly changed how people, communities, and nations relate to each other, form new connections, or deepen older ones. They have also radically changed how people make judgments about leaders, and other groups, and how they act on those judgments. Such power is unprecedented and has potentially disastrous consequences if used in situations of tension and violence. It appears that our human social and biological tendencies make us easy prey for varied purveyors of conflict who wish to emotionally persuade us to support particular goals or objectives. We therefore need to find better ways to ensure that we can effectively prevent the hijacking of our human and emotional predispositions and that social media processes deliver on what is the best in our human biosocial nature and not the worst.

Us and Others

This chapter looks at the importance of group belonging for feelings of safety and validation, particularly in times of conflict. It examines how and why varying group identities such as religion, ethnicity, and social and cultural identities enable people to deny the importance of the lives of members of other groups or even their own lives. It looks at the social and biological advantages of group membership, which can increase our suspicion and rejection of others. It also looks at how we usually understand others not by thinking but by feeling and addresses the role of mirror neurons in this process, as well as hormones such as oxytocin, and their implications for group conflict. It considers the phenomenon of emotional contagion between groups, which will drive them to group behavior that can be contrary to their “normal” behavior.

My Truth or Your Truth?

This chapter looks at the nature of beliefs and their relationship to “truth” or “facts.” For many of us, far from our beliefs being “true,” they are actually born out of a particular social context, allied to physiological needs such as a differing neural sensitivity to threats and the greater certainty of belief that a group can provide. Thus beliefs are often what is termed “groupish” rather than necessarily true. The chapter examines why we often rationalize what our gut instincts tell us rather than care too much about fact checking and why and how, once we form our beliefs, we have a tendency to see and find evidence to support them. It also looks at memories (including collective memories), which are also notoriously faulty; that is, our memories often reframe and edit events to create a story that suits what we need to believe today, rather than what is true.

The Next Adaptation?

This chapter looks at the research that shows that totally selfish behavior is the exception, not the rule. It examines the innate human tendencies and capacities that exist for cooperation between people, in contrast to the competitiveness that previous evolutionary psychology has suggested is the norm. However, the research is ambivalent about the future of such cooperation. It suggests that although socially and biologically humans have evolved for cooperation, so far it appears to be mainly with the people they perceive as their “own” group, and only gradually with other groups. The chapter looks at the question of whether we are asking too much of our biosocial histories that we should willingly expand our circles of concern to include the increasing refugee and migration movements that are changing the diverse nature of our societies. If we need to do this, how can it be done?

Follow the Leader

This chapter looks at the importance of leaders in setting the tone and direction of contexts that are riven by confusion and conflict. The supremacy of emotions in choosing our leaders is particularly relevant in situations torn apart by conflict. In such situations our choices are often instinctual, dictated not only by our environment, our emotions, genetics, and brain structures but also by hormones such as adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol, which inform our response to fear messages. This supremacy of emotions in choosing our leaders is particularly relevant in situations termed “weak psychological situations” such as crises or situations characterized by uncertainty and by the presence and/or threat of out-groups. It appears that our desire for a strong leader who will provide us with security can often significantly outrank our desire for democracy and has important consequences for our capacity to manage conflict

The Lure of Extremism

This chapter looks at the phenomenon of violent extremism or “terrorism”—so called depending on the context. It notes that fundamentalism (including violent fundamentalism) is a form of extreme belief—with the group aspects often more important than the actual beliefs. The chapter shows just how strongly our choices for membership of extreme groups are facilitated by our genetic, neurological, and hormonal predispositions to situations of tension and to danger, particularly when added to perceptions of group inequities and exclusion. It appears that membership of such groups is more often about a sense of solidarity and collectiveness than about truth, and strategies aimed at changing “beliefs” can have only a limited force. Thus, the actual as well as the expressed reasons for joining such groups need to be taken into account in designing strategies to change such memberships.