[Paleopsych] David Goetze and Patrick James: Evolutionary Psychology and the Explanation of Ethnic Phenomena
Premise Checker
checker at panix.com
Sat Apr 2 16:07:18 UTC 2005
David Goetze and Patrick James: Evolutionary Psychology and the
Explanation of Ethnic Phenomena
http://human-nature.com/ep/articles/ep02142159.html
Evolutionary Psychology 2: 142-159
5.1.22
David B. Goetze, Department of Political Science, 0725 Old Main Hill,
Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322-0725, USA.
Patrick James, Political Science Department, 113 Professional
Building, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
Abstract:
In a recent series of articles, Hislope (1998, 2000) and Harvey
(2000a, 2000b) have raised questions about the usefulness of
"evolutionary theory" especially for any purpose other than
identifying "distal" causes of ethnic phenomena. This article responds
to those views and argues that evolutionary psychology shows great
promise in contributing to the explanation of contemporary ethnic
identities and ethnic conflict. The authors argue that an evolutionary
psychology approach embraces research conducted through conventional
social science approaches, helps to complete explanations of the
proximate causes of ethnic conflict, and can recast thought and
encourage new areas of research about important issues in the ethnic
conflict field. Illustrations are provided in support of each of these
points. Some of these arguments have been heard before with respect to
the general role of evolutionary theory in explaining social phenomena
but they are arguments we think bear repeating and illustrating in the
context of the study of ethnic phenomena. Before examining the ways
that evolutionary psychology can contribute to social science
explanation of ethnic phenomena, we summarize the general evolutionary
psychology approach to the study of social behavior.
Keywords
: affective intelligence model, Balkans, Bosnia, ethnic conflict,
fitness cliff, inclusive fitness, intolerance, kinship bonding,
martyr, nationalism, proximate cause, Rwanda, social norms, threat.
_________________________________________________________________
Evolutionary Psychology Approach
An elaborate description and defense of the general evolutionary
psychology approach to the study of social science phenomena is found
in Tooby and Cosmides (1990, 1992), Cosmides and Tooby (1994) and Buss
(1995). Because ethnic phenomena and ethnic conflict are human social
phenomena there is no obvious reason why evolutionary psychology
cannot be applied to their study and, indeed, ample reason why it
makes sense to do so. Van den Berghe (1981), Johnson, (1986) and
Salter (2000), for example, have strongly suggested that psychological
mechanisms revolving around kinship bonding are pivotal in generating
ethnic behaviors.
More broadly, an evolutionary psychology approach posits that, through
the process of natural selection, humans have acquired a diverse array
of mental mechanisms. Each one is designed to respond to the demands
of a specific environmental problem or task that is relevant to the
survival and reproductive success of the individual and has been
repeatedly encountered by humans in the environment of evolutionary
adaptation. Persistent exposure to a particular environmental problem
over large numbers of generations results in the evolution of a
well-defined adaptation in the form of a psychological mechanism.
In general, evolved psychological mechanisms are thought to operate in
an algorithmic fashion. Scanning and filtering functions of a
mechanism identify environmental stimuli that constitute a particular
environmental problem or task and elicit specific emotions and
behaviors that address the problem or task in ways that contribute to
its adaptive resolution. Evolved psychological mechanisms are thought
to exist for addressing innumerable problems and tasks such as: mate
choice, hunting, alliance formation, and reputation-building, to name
only a few. Among the problems and tasks relevant to ethnic phenomena
are: group bonding and cooperation for both benign and malevolent
purposes, and responses to the menace of group threat and conflict.
Embracing Conventional Research
Research that adopts an evolutionary psychological approach can be
quite complementary with traditional social science research that
addresses these same ethnic phenomena. When developed insights of
evolutionary psychology are brought into the analysis explanations can
be expanded and given more meaning. To the point, an especially
crucial aspect of the explanation of ethnic phenomena involves the
description of human nature. The most common way of facilitating
explanations among traditional researchers is to adopt ad hoc and
implied assumptions about human nature and to investigate causal
factors consistent only with those assumptions. In contrast,
evolutionary psychologists do not take "nature" for granted and,
instead, hypothesize about the relevant mechanisms of the human brain
that come into play as humans engage in ethnic behaviors. They bring
novel elements to an explanation by fleshing out hypotheses about the
possible connections among environmental stimuli, mental activity, and
actual behaviors that generations of adaptations have given us.
Evolutionary psychology approaches synthesize traditional dichotomies
between so-called nature and nurture by acknowledging the interaction
between environment and culture on the one hand and the
genetically-inspired mechanisms and molds of human social behaviors on
the other. Ultimately, behaviors result from these interactions as
environmental events trigger mental mechanisms, shape the paths of
human development, and even co-evolve with the mechanisms themselves
(Ridley, 2003; Marcus, 2003).
The evolutionary concept of "inclusive fitness" (developed by Hamilton
(1964, 1970, 1971) and West-Eberhard (1975) and popularized by Wilson
(1975) and Dawkins (1979, 1982)) has provided a dramatic boost to the
explanation of social behavior. Inclusive fitness refers to the idea
that humans enhance the spread of genes like their own by acting
beneficently towards close kin and that natural selection would have
favored genes that expressed such beneficent behavior. While the basic
concept is widely accepted in the evolutionary psychology field, the
role of inclusive fitness in explaining the existence of altruism and
bonding for groups larger than families and clans is still developing.
Van den Berghe (1981) and Johnson (1986) have emphasized evolved
mechanisms that activate kinship bonding whenever humans recognize
appropriate "markers" in others (i.e., encounter specific initiating
environmental stimuli) such as ethnic features, language, and mere
association. These markers serve as indicators for whomever might
qualify as remote or perceived family among the multitudes of
contemporary societies. Rushton (1989) identifies phenotypic
similarities as the stimuli that initiate kinship bonding mechanisms.
Goetze (1998) argues that all of these psychological mechanisms likely
evolved in hunter-gatherer society but their ability to generate
bonding in large-scale groups derives, in part, from the mobility of
modern humans and the difficulties in mobile societies of actually
locating real kin. Hence, humans exhibit at least minimal bonding
emotions and behaviors with large numbers of surrogate family. In
traditional research, debate about the depth and durability of ethnic
attachments has been carried on between the primordialists who see
such bonding as strong, extremely durable and originating far into a
sometimes mysterious past and circumstantialists who see group bonding
as ephemeral and interest-driven (Scott, 1990). While not sealing the
case for primordialism, inclusive fitness concerns provide at least
some scientific footing for the position and reduces some of the
mystery about group origins by demonstrating how strong, durable
ethnic group attachments might have formed and persevered.
An historian, Peter Mentzel (2000) utilizes the concept of a kinship
bonding mechanism to explore variation in the origins of nationalist
loyalties and viable nation-states in the Balkans, especially as they
developed under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. To begin, he notes
that nationalism, the politically active expression of ethnic
identity, resulted in more effective and stable nation-states in
Croatia, Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria than in the territories largely
populated by Albanians. The former can all point to politically
autonomous units emerging as the cohesion and strength of the Ottoman
Empire waned. By the 19th century, Serbia established a full-fledged
nation-state that would endure through the Yugoslav period and
maintain its cohesiveness despite disastrous attempts by Serbian
political elites to establish a Serbian Empire all its own, despite
the essential loss of the region of Kosovo, and despite the economic
deprivations imposed by NATO bombing and a regime of economic
sanctions. In contrast, an Albanian political entity did not develop
until the Yugoslav era, failed to incorporate the lion's share of the
adjacent Albanian population, and has continued in a status so fragile
that a collapsing pyramid scheme nearly tore the fledgling Albanian
state asunder.
A traditional issue for scholars and for Mentzel is explaining the
development of nations or nation-states and in the particular case,
why the Croats, Serbs, Bulgars, and Greeks, and even Bosnians have
been successful at state-building and the Albanians were relatively
unsuccessful. A traditional answer has been to assert that
nationalisms are constructions of political elites designed to serve
their political ends and that elite manipulations are the focal point
for understanding the building of nation-states (See, for example,
Rothschild, 1981; Mason, 1994). This approach begs the question,
however, of why such constructions would have resonated with mass
populations or why they would have failed to do so.
Mentzel's analysis provides a persuasive connection between elite
manipulations and the responses of the masses. Following the work on
kinship bonding and especially that of Johnson (1986), he argues that
kinship is the foundation stone for the often cooperative, emotional
and fairly durable attachments that individuals make to larger social
associations and, ultimately, to national groups. The evolved
psychology of kinship is not perfectly refined and humans react in
kin-like manner (forge strong attachments to nonkin) when the triggers
of kinship attachment are invoked. Calls to protect the Motherland,
for example, can stir the sacrificial behaviors of broad classes of
unrelated peoples. This can work even when political leaders - and
institutions more generally - lack a democratic base of public
legitimacy. The archetypal case is Josef Stalin's appeal to fight for
'Mother Russia' against the German invaders. Not everyone listened,
but the point is that even Stalin eschewed an ideological or personal
appeal in this instance, understanding at a fundamental level that
kinship had the best chance of working under the most dire of
conditions.
Mentzel's unique contribution here is in showing how a layered
development of ever larger associations could produce national level
associations and how the absence of this line of development serves as
an obstacle to the leap from direct kin-based groups to the enormous
and often demanding associations of nations and nation-states. He
argues that clan-based associations needed to pass through
intermediate associations that were constructed on evocation of kin
sentiments before they could make the leap to national groups. In the
Balkans, the intermediate associations that would perform those
functions were the "autonomous confessional associations," more
commonly thought of as religious associations. Except for Croatia, the
growth of Balkan nationalisms could be traced to the religious
"millets" organized in the Ottoman Empire. According to Mentzel, these
formal, nonterritorial associations were coterminous with the less
formal religious groups that had developed as large-scale,
transcendent replacements for earlier clan associations. The evocation
of kinship had enabled these religious associations to emerge and were
given added impetus by Ottoman organizational schemes. These events
had succeeded in pushing social organization into large-scale
associations that were, nonetheless, cemented by deep-seated emotional
attachments. The final step in the transition to nationalisms was to
define territories and add political status to these large-scale
associations. Nation-states in the Balkans can be seen as territorial
and political extensions of religious associations or, as in the
Bosnian case, as more or less tenuous alliances among these
associations.
Albania is the exception. Religious associations apparently never
succeeded in forging clan associations into transcendent associations.
Albanians adhere in significant numbers to Catholicism, Orthodox
Christianity, and Islam but those faiths did not serve to organize
clans or to evoke extensively the triggers of kinship affiliation that
an organization of clans would have enabled. Interclan relations and
amalgamations were not coterminous with religious affiliation. Lacking
religious grounds, elites attempted to build national identity out of
a sense of common language, but this effort was limited by the obvious
reality that Albanians spoke two distinct languages. In Mentzel's
(2000, p. 251) own words:
To restate all of this one could argue that Albanian nationalists
faced such a difficult task precisely because they needed to
confront (and attempt to co-opt) kinship relations such as the
Albanian clans directly without being able to use confessional
group attachments as an intermediary or disguised kinship
association. Hence, Albanian nationalist intellectuals stressed
linguistic nationalism in their attempts to build an Albanian
national consciousness, an effort made difficult because of the
Gheg/Tosk division.
Efforts to develop national identities and states in most Balkan
communities succeeded because of a progressive effort to expand the
scale and depth of associations that elicit kin-based affiliations.
Efforts to forge a national identity in Albania have not yet
culminated in comparable success because the evocation of kinship
affiliation was not or could not be used to forge a progression of
supra-kin associations. In paralleling traditional scholarship and in
studying the construction of national identity, Mentzel has rendered
the variation in a truly important and widely studied political
phenomenon more understandable by elaborating on a fundamental concept
from the repertoire of evolutionary psychology. Hopefully, Mentzel's
work will inform and enrich the continuing work of traditional
scholars in this field.
Completing Explanations
The categories of research examined here are by no means exclusive.
Mentzel's research was clearly directed at completing an explanation
of national identities. Because it was so firmly embedded in
traditional historical research, we chose to use it as an example of
the first category, "embracing conventional research." The research
reported on below could also be placed in the same category. We place
it in the category of "completing explanations," however, because of
its potential in making complete an explanation of ethnic conflict
where the lack of completeness is especially salient.
This research (Goetze and Smith, 2004) demonstrates how evolutionary
psychology has the potential for playing an important role in
constructing explanations of ethnic conflict that include the
proximate causes of ethnic conflict. This suggestion actually runs
counter to the positions of Hislope and Harvey who, in a previously
noted series of articles (Hislope, 1998; 2000; Harvey, 2000a; 2000b),
review the contributions of evolutionary theory to the study of ethnic
conflict. These authors argue that evolutionary theory has the
capacity to identify only the distal causes of ethnic conflict.
While acknowledging that evolved traits are important in such distal
explanations, Hislope (2000, pp. 161-162) prefers to focus on
"culture" as the source of proximate explanations:
A second reason for the inclusion of genetic factors when a
dependent variable appears explained by culture revolves around the
difference between proximate and distal explanations. While culture
may stand in an unmediated and direct causal path to any given
behavioral trait, what makes the cultural factor possible could be
a certain biological predisposition, a gene, or a novel turn in the
evolutionary history of the species. Hence, exploring distal causal
factors helps to complete the chain of causation and provides an
understanding of why things are the way they are. If
sociobiologists were to frame their study in such exploratory
"distal" terms, it is likely they could silence some of their more
severe critics.
Later, Hislope (2000, p. 174) offers his view on the extent of the
reach of evolutionary theory - the longest reach being in the cultural
evolutionary variant:
The argument advanced herein is that the articulation of cultural
evolutionary theory represents theoretical progress over
sociobiology, but its explanatory payoff remains limited due to the
role of contingency in human affairs and the significance of
non-evolutionary, proximate causal factors. While evolutionary
theory undoubtedly elucidates the development of all organic life,
it would seem to operate best at macro-levels of analysis, "distal"
points of explanation, and from the perspective of the long-term.
Hence, it is bound to display shortcomings at micro-level events
that are highly contingent in nature.
Likewise, Harvey (2000b, p. 184) finds evolutionary theory wholly
inadequate for even contributing to the explanation of micro events
such as the outbreak of war and ethnic violence:
Research on evolutionary theory, phenotype matching and kinship
affiliations is extremely useful for understanding the root causes
of patriotism, nationalism (both ethnic and non-ethnic),
xenophobia, and even racism. But it cannot explain ethnic war -
that particular subset of human social interaction that involves a
high level of inter-group violence and hostility. Nor can it
account for variations in the severity and timing of ethnic
violence more generally. Stronger explanations for this variability
focus on environmental forces, some of which underscore the
prominent role played by ethnic elites in the mobilization
process.
We can easily share the observation that evolutionary theory has
previously offered little in the way of adding to proximate
explanation of ethnic conflict. That condition is, we believe, only
temporary and Hislope and Harvey have underestimated the potential
that evolutionary psychology offers in forming proximate explanations
of social behavior including the outbreak of ethnic conflict. Again,
we do not claim that evolved mechanisms are the only source for
constructing explanations of social behaviors. We agree with Hislope
that monocausal explanations of social phenomena are unlikely to be
sustainable. We do argue, however, that evolved psychological
mechanisms typically play large roles in accounting for most social
behaviors including the outbreak of ethnic conflict. And, what often
seem to be cultural events independent of and cut off from
evolutionary processes may themselves have evolved as functional
adaptations that complement or activate embedded psychological
mechanisms.
In a preliminary study of the triggers of ethnic conflict, Goetze and
Smith (2004) report on a mechanism derived from evolutionary
psychology premises that illustrate these interactions in the context
of group mobilization for conflict. In particular, they posit an alarm
mechanism that disposes individuals to organize in the defense and
offense of their ethnic group when viable and deadly threats to the
security of their group are experienced. The behavioral manifestations
of this mechanism are precisely the organization of group defense and
offense when threats are encountered and, as activating stimuli, the
dissemination of threats (cultural phenomena) by political elites who
wish to engender a conflict situation.
Why would humans possess such a mechanism? Alexander (1979, section 4)
has speculated that humans developed alarm mechanisms that might even
be specific to human threats as a result of cumulative experiences in
the environment of evolutionary adaptation. Once humans had emerged as
the dominant species able to defend against nonhuman predators, their
most feared competitors were other humans and especially other humans
who were organized as a group for the purpose of predatory mayhem.
Behaviors that served as responses to threats from other humans may
have been necessary for immediate survival and became adaptive as
threat circumstances were repeated over the generations.
One can imagine that an array of menacing stimuli provokes defensive
reactions and that an array of behaviors could manifest those
reactions. A plausible speculation is that murderous threats and
actions directed at members of an ethnic group due to their ethnic
identity are included among the array of menacing stimuli. Likewise,
behavioral dispositions to organize group defense or offense in the
face of those threats are included among the array of adaptive
reactions. Empirical evidence that such connected stimuli and
behaviors are universal across cultures and group conflict conditions
would constitute considerable support for believing them to be part of
an evolved psychological mechanism - their universality arguing for
adaptations formulated early and effectively in the EEA. Goetze and
Smith (2004) report on two such cases of intense, violent ethnic group
conflict in Bosnia and Rwanda, respectively, and examined the
circumstances that preceded the outbreak of organized hostilities in
each case.
In Bosnia in 1995, the contagion effect of group hostilities in
neighboring regions was clearly in play. Croat and Serb (officially,
Yugoslav) forces had recently engaged in a full-scale war and tensions
in Bosnia about what Serbs in the region might do next were certainly
high. Serbian elites within Bosnia who controlled television
transmissions began disseminating reports of Muslim atrocities against
Serbian villagers in which the latter were reportedly murdered by the
former. No documentation that these events actually occurred has been
put forward suggesting very strongly that the reports were concocted
by Serbian elites in order to send off alarm bells in the minds of the
Serbian masses. In many Serbian villages, the organization of militias
soon followed and these militias were, in turn, often organized into
more regular forces for carrying on systematic hostilities within
Bosnia.
These media messages about Muslim atrocities were, of course,
available to Muslim elites and masses and one would expect that
Muslims would organize militias in alarm over Serbian activities. Yet
initially, Muslims did not commence organization of communal militias
on a widespread basis. Perhaps the messages did not deliver the same
provocative stimuli as they delivered to the Serbs. More likely,
however, reactions are conditioned by the degree of vulnerability of
the group to assaults by other groups. Groups that are most vulnerable
and relatively defenseless against communal assaults, as the Muslims
were at that time, have often tended to keep a low profile reminiscent
of the "freeze" tactics that other small mammals assume when
confronted with superior predators. A "rational" explanation of this
behavior is that individuals in vulnerable groups assess that their
own defense preparations could provoke other groups into preemptive
assaults and that the balance of forces does not offer favorable
outcomes to the vulnerable group. Humans surely make calculations of
this sort but only evolutionary psychology offers an explanation as to
why some manner of calculation clicks on in these types of situations
- such situations have been repeatedly encountered in the environment
of evolutionary adaptation and selection favored mental mechanisms
that could generate behaviors that optimally responded to the threats
to survival and reproduction.
In Rwanda in 1994, Hutu elites disseminated messages over mass media
that made reference to Tutsi atrocities committed against Hutu
villagers, but Hutus required little convincing as the reality of
recent Tutsi assaults on Hutus in neighboring Burundi was common
knowledge. Again, the atmosphere was already tense and Hutu elites
needed only to persuade Hutus that similar massacres could easily
occur in their own country. In fact, the media campaign was geared
primarily to spurring the organization of Hutus for the purpose of
massacring Tutsis and eliminating the latter from the country.
At least within Rwanda itself, Tutsis lacked resources to mount any
kind of defense against what developed as genocidal killing. Hence, in
most regions of the country, their reaction was predictably oriented
toward the "freeze" alternative and little organization was observable
among them to combat Hutu assaults. Only the regions bordering Uganda
experienced a military response. Tutsis had held important positions
within the Ugandan army and constituted an important proportion of its
manpower. Out of that military diaspora, a Rwandan army (Rwandan
Population Front or RPF) was forged that ultimately invaded Rwanda and
drove out the Hutu militias as well as the regular Hutu army units.
All of this happened despite the relatively small numbers of Tutsis in
the Rwandan population (at any time no more than 20%) and despite the
nearly successful attempt at massacring the entire Tutsi civilian
population. Perhaps two-thirds of the Tutsi population would be
slaughtered before the RPF would take control of the country. The
massive acquiescence of the Rwandan Tutsis was notable for its
uniformity of form -- almost no civilians attempted any resistance or
attempted to organize a resistance - and its universality - all
civilians appeared to react in the same fashion. An evolved
psychological mechanism that generates uniform behaviors in response
to similar and powerful stimuli offers as much explanation as any for
the lack of variation in behaviors, a pattern that seems anomalous
from a common sense point of view.
At the same time, variation in response to murderous threats was
clearly apparent across the Balkans and Rwandan cases and across the
groups within the Balkans. Goetze and Smith posit that a complex of
stimuli that include murderous threats and perceived military
capabilities affect whether freeze or mobilization responses emerge.
Another possibility is that perceived credibility of reports of
murderous assaults shapes mobilization responses. Clearly, false
reports of group assault will encounter different responses from one
society to the next. Some societies will be disposed to accept these
reports as true. Others will dismiss them rapidly as without
substance. In the USA, reports from white supremacists groups that
Jews and African Americans are murdering whites are generally not
believed. The important issue then becomes: what are the environmental
conditions that nurture disbelief in one society or, conversely, what
are the environmental conditions that make such reports credible?
Recasting Thought
Evolutionary theory can recast thought, encourage new areas of
research, and generate novel hypotheses about important issues in the
ethnic conflict field and help to determine which areas of research
are especially important.
Threat Mechanism
A unique question raised by an evolutionary psychology approach is
exactly how does an evolved psychological mechanism function? How do
specific behaviors connect algorithmically with specific environmental
stimuli? Marcus, Wood, and Theiss-Morse (1998) attempt to isolate the
workings of what they call a threat mechanism. In particular, they
develop a model that connects specific environmental stimuli with a
set of behaviors that they label intolerance. They are interested in
intolerance directed at members of an out-group, typically some manner
of ethnic or racial group. The primary problem, as they see it, is to
identify the environmental stimuli that provoke intolerant behaviors.
Identifying the right stimuli can be accomplished, however, only by
gaining understanding of the process through which stimuli are
translated into behaviors.
They begin their model-building task by first reviewing features of
two general models that have been used to explain threat behaviors - a
rational actor model and a symbolic politics model. The salient
features of a rational actor model include an assessment mechanism
that initiates intolerance behaviors whenever threatening stimuli are
perceived. More specifically, the mechanism surveys the environment
and assesses the probability of a dangerous event occurring.
Intolerance behaviors are seen as coping devices designed to
ameliorate or nullify the danger. An individual might attempt to
deprive a group of political rights, for example, if members of that
group are engaging in behaviors that have a high probability of
infringing on the status of one's own group.
A symbolic politics model identifies provocative behavior as the mere
presence of a member of a group that is associated with a threat
earlier in one's life or the presence of some symbol of the group.
People respond to these symbols in intolerant ways not because they
pose real threats or even a probability of real threat in the
contemporary environment but because the symbols acquired a negative
valence (through cultural transmission or conditioning) at a distant
time in the past. Environmental stimuli are not assessed through
rational calculation that evaluates the degree of threat but almost
subconsciously in a way that arouses emotional responses. By
triggering affect and emotion, intolerant behaviors are set in motion.
The type of stimuli that initiate this sequence are deviations from
norms - an action, event, or person that represents a violation of the
status quo and carries the associated negative valence.
Marcus, Wood, and Theiss-Morse (1998) find fault with these models and
propose a new model that corrects for deficiencies. They cite previous
work (Kinder and Sears, 1981) that demonstrates that the degree of
threat posed in a contemporary environment fails to elicit
appropriately measured intolerance responses and other studies
(Hamill, Wilson, and Nisbett, 1980; Jennings, Amabile, and Ross, 1982;
Kahneman and Tversky, 1982; Nisben and Ross, 1982) that show that the
human brain may not be adept at processing threats in a conscious
calculated manner. They note that rational calculation of threat is
unlikely to be the process invoked in threatening circumstances
because rational calculation is a relatively time-intensive process
and threats need rapid responses. Hence, the subconscious, affective
system of processing is more likely to be invoked because this system
processes stimuli at very rapid speeds.
However, the notion that even the affective system is triggered to
produce coping responses by high values on a differentiated threat
dimension may by misguided. The degree of immediate danger is not
likely to be the activating stimuli. Instead, the authors suggest that
threat responses tend to be provoked when out-groups are perceived to
be engaging in violations of accepted societal norms - in other words,
alarm bells tend to go off when out-groups are disrupting the societal
environment - an intriguing conclusion that suggests a new class of
behaviors that ought to be examined in the search for proximate causes
of ethnic conflict.
In a clever experimental design, Marcus, et al (1995) tested the
validity of the rational choice model, the symbolic politics model,
and their own affective intelligence model. First, subjects were given
the opportunity to rate a wide variety of different groups according
to their likes and dislikes. This procedure enabled subjects to "rely
on their previously secured affective disposition ..." Two weeks later
the same subjects were confronted with alternative scenarios involving
actions of groups that they had rated as "least-liked." The actions
were distinguished by whether the disliked groups were moving into
positions in society where they could pose danger to the subject or by
whether the actions of the group violated accepted norms of social or
political behavior. Thus, the scenarios created an opportunity to
assess, on the one hand, the likelihood of threat and, on the other
hand, the violation of social norms. In an initial study, the subjects
were presented with written scenarios and in a subsequent study,
subjects were presented with actual news broadcasts. The results were
similar in both studies. They found that the degree of threat did not
provoke differences in tolerance/intolerance evaluations as measured
by a post-experiment questionnaire. However, violations of social
norms did elicit more intolerant responses, thereby, supporting that
aspect of the affective intelligence model that identifies norm
violations as the environmental activators of the mechanism that
generates intolerant behaviors.
In a follow-up experiment; Marcus, Wood, and Theiss-Morse (1998) also
measured the affective-anxiety levels of subjects as they were being
exposed to news broadcasts that did or did not display violations of
social norms. They found that anxiety levels were significantly higher
when violations of social norms were present in the news broadcasts,
again lending credence to the notion that processing of the threat was
taking place on an emotional level rather than on the level of
rational calculation.
Many real-world cases of conflict offer at least casual support for
the affective intelligence model. Recent developments in the
Arab-Israel conflict comprise a case in point. During that summer of
2000, President Clinton attempted to broker an agreement between
Israel and the Palestinian Authority that would settle longstanding,
even ancient, land claims. The bargaining focused on what percentages
of the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be controlled by the Palestinian
Authority, after further devolution of authority from Israel. While no
meaningful agreement on the main issues emerged between
representatives of the respective sides, both Yasser Arafat and Ehud
Barak seemed open to continuing negotiations, with either Clinton or
(more likely) someone else as the intermediary. In other words, the
"peace process," as it became known, seemed to be moving forward in an
incremental fashion, subject to the usual short-term disappointments
such as those experienced in the summer meetings. The likelihood of
violence in the conflict, in at least an impressionistic sense, seemed
at an all-time low.
All of this changed dramatically and in a manner consistent with the
framework of affective intelligence soon after negotiations lapsed. A
visit by Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount in the early fall of 2000
ignited street violence from Palestinians at a level not seen since
the Intifadah of the late 1980s. This simple act, by one person,
brought the logic of affective intelligence into play.
Through his visit to a site holy to both Jews and Arabs in the Old
City of Jerusalem, Sharon violated what appeared to be a basic social
norm within the peace process. As a living symbol of Israel's
incursion into Lebanon in 1982, Sharon, within the context of the
winding down of the Arab-Israel conflict, would not be expected to
enter a high-profile point of dispute such as the Temple Mount. For
Palestinians this constituted an extreme departure from what appeared
to be a long-term commitment by Israel to self-restraint. Thus
Sharon's visit became the stimulus for a Palestinian response that, in
the language of Marcus, et al., consisted of intolerance behaviors. As
would be expected by the logic of affective intelligence, the
processing of threat appeared to be taking place on an emotional level
and largely in the form of social norm violations rather than through
rational calculation.
Marcus and his colleagues presented us with a model of how an evolved
psychological mechanism processes threat stimuli and converts these
stimuli into intolerance behaviors. Their work exemplifies the
fruitfulness of examining the actual workings of psychological
mechanisms that come into play as ethnic group conflicts develop and
argues strongly for a research program that examines the workings of a
range of psychological mechanisms that may be involved in the
elicitation of ethnic behaviors.
The affective intelligence model describes a psychological mechanism
that generates intolerance behaviors. Some of the details of that
model may have relevance for developing more refined explanations of
other ethnic phenomena including mobilization for violent group
conflict. Reports of ethnic massacres signify an extreme degree of
threat and it is hard to dismiss the influence of these reports in
triggering group mobilization. However, massacres are also clear
violations of social norms and these aspects of massacres may play a
more prominent role in activating group responses than one might
initially think.
Suicide Bombing
Behaviors surrounding suicide bombing are not exclusively ethnic
phenomena, but are important and frequently overlap with ethnic
phenomena, especially when a bombing targets a group that is of a
distinctly different ethny. Atran and others [[9]1] have explored the
genesis of suicide bombing and, in particular, why individuals become
suicide bombers. These authors utilize several ideas from evolutionary
psychology to generate novel hypotheses about the motives of suicide
bombers and about the factors in their environments that could
generate their terrorist behaviors.
Initially, Atran (2003a) cites the work of Krueger and Maleckova
(2002) and Krueger (2003) whose profiles of Palestinian suicide
bombers reveal few traits that set them apart from other individuals
in their societies. Suicide bombers are at least as educated and at
least as economically well-off and employed as the general population.
Moreover, they are not notably more religious than others at least
prior to their recruitment into terrorist organizations. Importantly,
they also exhibited no pattern of personality pathology that could
have set them apart from others. Hence, the socio-economic and
personality profiles of suicide bombers offer few obvious clues about
why they choose this line of work and puts scholars at something of a
loss in trying to explain these choices. Where can we look then to
answer why individuals join terrorist organizations and engage in
suicide bombings?
Suicide bombers may not be very different from the general population
in their societies. However, it does not follow that the societies
themselves are profiles of normality. Acknowledging this environmental
condition and drawing inspiration from evolutionary thought, Atran and
his commentators derive at least three explanatory hypotheses. The
first is a sociobiological one that focuses on individual motives. The
second hypothesis points to macro-environmental conditions that create
so-called "fitness cliffs." [[10]2] And, finally, a third hypothesis
points to the fictive kinship of the small group environment of
terrorist organizations as a determining factor in suicidal behaviors.
These are interwoven hypotheses in the sense that the explanation
embodied in the first hypothesis sets the stage for the second and
third hypotheses.
Among the few distinctive traits that stand out among suicide bombers
are their maleness and unmarried status. Lacking children of their own
and any immediate prospects of bearing any, unmarried males might be
more inclined to sacrifice, up to forfeiture of their own lives, for
the sake of the welfare of others who are born and nurtured by others
but perceived to be kin. The resort to the sacrifice of one's own life
for perceived kin may make sense, however, only in a society where
conditions in the environment have resulted in diminished life
prospects. The choice to engage in suicide bombing can be viewed then
as a fundamental inclination to enhance one's inclusive fitness.
However, single unmarried status hardly serves as the sole condition
pushing young males into such drastic acts. In societies characterized
by violent military occupation, inadequate medical care, and minimal
economic opportunities life tends to be brutish and short. The
prospects for fruitful and fecund family life are especially dim for
unmarried males and the support of already existing kin might assume
relatively higher adaptive value than marshalling resources for one's
own future, i.e., where the cliff of fitness abruptly descends.
Martyrdom can bring financial rewards to existing kin but more
importantly, confers status on entire clans. Suicide bombings
typically impose damage on society's enemies and are viewed by many as
enhancing future outcomes for that society.
Events with origins exogenous to the society may created the fitness
cliff or render it dramatically steeper. The occupation of Palestine
by Israeli troops is an often cited example of an event that has
eroded the life prospects of Palestinians. In explaining why
Palestinians take up suicide bombing, Jessica Stern (2003: 38) remarks
in her book on religious terrorists: "Hopelessness, deprivation, envy,
and humiliation make death, and paradise, seem more appealing." She
goes on to cite an elderly resident of Jenin: "Look around and see how
we live here... Then maybe you will understand why there are always
volunteers for martyrdom Every good Muslim understands that it's
better to die fighting than to live without hope." [[11]3] Life tends
to be short in Palestine, employment opportunities few even for the
well-educated, and the reproductive prospects for unmarried males
relatively unfavorable. In these conditions, dying in the interests of
altering the fitness cliff for the Palestinian community could, in
theory, be a superior means of transferring one's genes into future
generations in these conditions. Still, if unmarried male status and
oppressive conditions were sufficient to generate suicide bombers then
one could expect most unmarried males in such societies to engage in
such extreme terrorism and it appears that they do not even though in
some societies (e.g., Palestinian society) over 70% of the population
supports "martyrdom" operations (Atran, 2003: 5).
According to Atran (2003a: 4-6, 10-11), the final piece of the
explanatory puzzle derives from the interactions within terrorist
organizations. Atran proposes that the influence of the terrorist
organization, in particular, the influence of the small, terrorist
cell explains the final commitment to suicide. Arguably, the unit for
which humans are most willing to sacrifice and the unit exercising the
greatest influence on humans is the family. Natural selection provided
humans with mechanisms that created tight, emotional bonds with
immediate kin. As Goetze (1998) argues, however; mobility, modern
society, and globalization have torn people away from their natural
families. Modern humans, still operating with the mechanisms of
kinship that evolved in hunter-gatherer society, now find themselves
in search of substitutes. The small, terrorist cell serves as a
meaningful substitute to family and it is not surprising that members
end up forming strong emotional bonds with each other as well as the
typical sacrificial inclinations of close family. Leaders of terrorist
organizations cultivate and manipulate these emotional bonds and steer
their expression toward political goals of the terrorist organization.
Like any hypotheses, these three need to withstand evaluation through
empirical comparisons. Indeed, some scattered evidence casts doubt on
the accuracy of elements of the hypotheses. The "fitness cliff"
hypothesis presumes that life opportunities for potential suicide
bombers have recently plummeted. Yet, Atran reports that most bombers,
while sometimes underemployed for their education levels, have
relatively positive life opportunities - certainly no worse than that
of comparable individuals in their societies. Even the sociobiological
hypothesis is challenged by data indicating that over one-third of the
suicide bombers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka
and over two-thirds of bombers of the Kurdish Workers Party in Iraq
have been women (Schweitzer, 2000: 82-83 and reported in Stern, 2003:
53). Despite these disconfirming data, these hypotheses still provide
some compelling and novel insight into some emerging and unexpected
facts about the activities of suicide bombers. The disparity between
these data and hypotheses raises new issues about how situational
factors and environmental conditions may differ across these societies
and may even be activating different mechanisms that, nonetheless,
result in similar behaviors, that is, suicide bombing. As they are
refined with empirical observations, these hypotheses seem likely to
contribute in meaningful ways to explanation of these crucially
important phenomena.
All of these cases demonstrate that there need not be antagonism over
the approach taken by traditional scholars and practitioners of
evolutionary psychology. Traditional research provides valuable data
and important elements of useful explanations. Clearly, an
evolutionary psychology approach can contribute to these explanations
in multiple ways. It can extend traditional research on ethnic
phenomena, fill in proximate explanations of ethnic conflict, or open
up new areas of research and thought. Most studies of ethnic phenomena
using an evolutionary psychology approach fulfill more than one of
these missions.
Received 29 January, 2004, Revision received 30 August, 2004, Accepted
19 September, 2004.
Notes
[12]1. Interdisciplines, a website for interdisciplinary research in
the humanities, organized an online conference on Understanding
Suicide Terrorism in 2003. Featured were articles by Scott Atran
(2003a) and Nilufer Gole (2003) as well as extended commentary by a
host of other scholars. This discussion draws on the work of this
conference, especially Atran's whose related work can be found in the
pages of Science (Atran 2003b).
[13]2. This discussion on "fitness cliffs" is drawn from Pitchford's
(2003) commentary on Atran's work and also from Chisholm (1999:
Chapter 6, The Cost of Continuing).
[14]3. First cited in P. Jacobson (2001).
References
Alexander, R. D. (1979) Darwinism and Human Affairs. Seattle:
University of Washington Press.
Atran, S. (2003) Genesis and Future of Suicide Terrorism. Internet
conference on Understanding Suicide Terrorism organized by
Interdisciplines, [15]www.interdisciplines.org.
Atran, S. (2003) Genesis of Suicide Terrorism. Science, 299:
1534-1539.
Buss, D. M. (1995). Evolutionary Psychology: A New Paradigm for
Psychological Science. Psychological Inquiry, 6:1-30.
Chisholm, J. S. (1999) Death, Hope, and Sex: Steps to an Evolutionary
Ecology of Mind and Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cosmides, L. and Tooby, J. (1994). Better than Rational: Evolutionary
Psychology and the Invisible Hand. In American Economic Association;
Papers and Proceedings, May, 327-332.
Dawkins, R. (1979). Twelve Misunderstandings of Kin Selection.
Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 51: 184-200.
Dawkins, R. (1982). The Extended Phenotype: The Gene as the Unit of
Selection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goetze, D. (1998). Evolution, Mobility, and Ethnic Group Formation.
Politics and Life Sciences, 17: 59-71.
Goetze, D. and Smith, C. S. (2004) Triggers of Conflict in Rwanda.
Unpubished manuscript, Utah State University.
Gole, N. (2003) Close Encounters: Islam, Modernity and Violence.
Internet conference on Understanding Suicide Terrorism organized by
Interdisciplines, [16]www.interdisciplines.org.
Hamill, R., Wilson, T. D. and Nisbett, R. E. (1980). Insensitivity to
Sample Bias: Generalizing from Atypical Cases. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 39: 578-89.
Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The Genetical Evolution of Social Behavior I
and II. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7: 1-52.
Hamilton, W. D. (1970). Selfish and Spiteful Behaviour in an
Evolutionary Model. Nature, 228: 1218-1220.
Hamilton, W. D. (1971). Selection of Selfish and Altruistic Behaviour
in Some Extreme Models. In Eisenberg, J. F. and Dillon, W. S. (Eds.)
Man and Beast: Comparative Social Behavior. Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian.
Harvey, F. (2000a). Primordialism, Evolutionary Theory and Ethnic
Violence in the Balkans: Opportunities and Constraints for Theory and
Policy. Canadian Journal of Political Science, XXXIII: 1.
Harvey, F. (2000b). Primordialism, Evolutionary Theory, and the Timing
of Ethnic Conflict: Opportunities and Constraints for Theory and
Policy. In James, P and Goetze, D (Eds.) Evolutionary Theory and
Ethnic Conflict. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Hislope, R. (2000). From Ontology to Analogy: Evolutionary Theories
and the Explanation of Ethnic Politics. In James, P and Goetze, D
(Eds.) Evolutionary Theory and Ethnic Conflict. Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press.
Hislope, R. (1998). Can Evolutionary Theory Explain Nationalist
Violence? Czechoslovak and Bosnian Illustrations. Nations and
Nationalism, 4: 463-82.
Jacobson, P. (2001) Home-Grown Martyrs of the West Bank Reap Deadly
Harvest. Sunday Telegraph, 19 August.
Jennings, D. L., Amabile, T. M. and Ross, L. (1982). Information
Covariation Assessment" Data-Based versus Theory-Based Judgments. In
Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., and Tversky, A. (eds.) Judgment Under
Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Johnson, G. R. (1986). Kin Selection, Socialization, and Patriotism:
An Integrating Theory [with commentaries and response]. Politics and
the Life Sciences, 4:127-54.
Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. (1982). The Psychology of Preferences.
Science, 246: 136-42.
Kinder, D. R. and Sears, D. O. (1981). Prejudice and Politics:
Symbolic Racism versus Racial Threat to the Good Life. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 40: 414-31.
Krueger, A. (2003) Poverty Doesn't Create Terrorists. New York Times,
29 May.
Krueger, A. and Maleckova, J. (2002) NBER Working Paper no. w9074,
National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, July. Available
at [17]http://papers.nber.org/papers/W9074.
Marcus, G. (2003) The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes
Create the Complexities of Human Thought. New York: Basic Books.
Marcus, G. E., Sullivan, J. L., Theiss-Morse, E. and Wood, S. L.
(1995). With Malice Toward Some: How People Make Civil Liberties
Judgments. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Marcus, G. E., Wood, S. L. and Theiss-Morse, E. (1998). Linking
Neuroscience to Political Intolerance and Political Judgement.
Politics and Life Sciences, 17(2): 165-78.
Mason, D. T. (1994). The Ethnic Dimension of Civil Violence in the
Post-Cold War Era: Structural Configurations and Rational Choices.
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political
Science Association, New York.
Mentzel, P. (2000) National Identity in the Balkans: Confessionalism
to Nationalism. In James, P. and Goetze, D. (Eds.) Evolutionary Theory
and Ethnic Conflict. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Pitchford, I. (2003) A Theoretical Context. Discussions: 9. Internet
conference on Understanding Suicide Terrorism organized by
Interdisciplines, www.interdisciplines.org.
Ridley, M. (2003) Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What
Makes Us Human. New York: HarperCollins.
Rothschild, J. (1981). Ethnopolitics: A Conceptual Framework. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Rushton, J. P. (1989). Genetic similarity, human altruism, and group
selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 12: 503-559.
Salter, F. (2000). A Defence and Extension of Pierre van den Berghe's
Theory of Ethnic Nepotism. In James, P. and Goetze, D. (Eds.)
Evolutionary Theory and Ethnic Conflict. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood
Press.
Scott, G. M., Jr. (1990). A Resynthesis of the Primordial and
Circumstantial Approaches to Ethnic Group Solidarity: Towards an
Explanatory Model. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 13: 147-171.
Schweitzer, Y (2000) Suicide Terrorism: Development and Main
Characteristics in International Policy Institute of Counter-Terrorism
Countering Suicide Terrorism: An International Conference . Herzliyya,
Israel.
Stern, J. (2003) Terror in the Name of God. New York: HarperCollins.
Tooby, J. and Cosmides, L. (1990). On the Universality of Human Nature
and the Uniqueness of the Individual: The Role of Genetics and
Adaptation. Journal of Personality, 58 (1): 17-67.
Tooby, J. and Cosmides, L. (1992). The Psychological Foundations of
Culture. In Barkow, J. H., Cosmides, L. and Tooby, J. (Eds.) The
Adapted Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
van den Berghe, P. L. (1981). The Ethnic Phenomenon. New York:
Elsevier North.
West-Eberhard, M. J. (1975). The Evolution of Social Behavior by Kin
Selection. Quarterly Review of Biology, 50: 1-33.
Wilson, E. O. (1975). Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
[18]David Goetze
[19]Patrick James
References
9. http://human-nature.com/ep/articles/ep02142159.html#1.
10. http://human-nature.com/ep/articles/ep02142159.html#2.
11. http://human-nature.com/ep/articles/ep02142159.html#3.
12. http://human-nature.com/ep/articles/ep02142159.html#1
13. http://human-nature.com/ep/articles/ep02142159.html#2
14. http://human-nature.com/ep/articles/ep02142159.html#3
15. http://www.interdisciplines.org/
16. http://www.interdisciplines.org/
17. http://papers.nber.org/papers/W9074
18. mailto:dgoetze at hass.usu.edu
19. mailto:jamesp at missouri.edu
More information about the paleopsych
mailing list