EASP Small Group Meeting - Jerusalem, Israel, 7-10 September 2009 Resolving Societal Conflicts and Building Peace: Socio-Psychological Dynamics Terrorism and Otherness The role of personal involvement in the shift of lay thinking from rationality to irationality Andrea Ernst-Vintila Universite de la Mediterranee – CNRS UMR 6012 Espace Universite de Reims Champagne-Ardenne - Laboratory of Applied Psychology

22 Terrorism as a collective risk and social phenomenon Terrorism: objective dimension, « terrorist act »  Lack of consensus on the definition of terrorism  EU law on terrorism adopted in 2002 ; French Criminal code art. 421 Risk = Probability x Vulnerability  How do people think about their situation with regard to risk?  What makes people take, or refrain from taking, action towards risk?  How do people shift from individual, reflex action to collective action? Terrorist risk  Objective facts  Social phenomenon  Object of lay thinking (social representations)

33 Social representations: theories of lay thinking Practices: capital role in the making of the SR Social representations: conditions for practices Social representation  A way of seeing which is locally and temporarily shared within a given community, which allows cognitive appropriation of risk and guides risk-related action.

4 Peripheral elements Central core The central core  Gives meaning and organises the SR  Consensual and stable over time The peripheral system  Is the operating part of the SR  Reflects the interindividual variability and the prescriptions for actions  Subject to change over time The structural approach to socialrepresentations The structural approach to social representations  Social cognitive systems = Elements + Relations between elements  The more the relations between the elements, the stronger the SR  Functional elements, useful for risk-related action  Normative/attributive elements, used in evaluating risk

5 Social representations of terrorism  Depend on established terrorism-related practices  Are affected by the individuals’ personal involvement Social representations of terrorism Sample  55 safety officers (FR)  55 French passengers  51 US passengers Method  Structural approach to social representations  Free association test-inductor « terrorism »  Prototypicality analysis (Verges, 1992)

6 Marseille-Provence Airport  Flight AF 8969 Algiers - Paris hi-jacked in Marseille by a commando of the IAG (December 1994) Boston-Logan Airport  Take-off airport of flights AA 11 et UA 175 crashed against the WTC, New York City (11 September 2001) Survey locations

7 Personal involvement  A mediator in the making of social representations  Resultant of three independent components 3. Perceived capacity to act towards risk : feeling of control over risk I______________________________________________________________________________I I cannot do anything about it (-) It fully depends on me (+) 1. Risk valuation : estimated importance of risk’s stake I______________________________________________________________________________I Terrorism is a matter of Terrorism is a matter of no importance (-) life and death (+) 2. Personal concern with risk : self-declared estimation of exposure to risk I______________________________________________________________________________I Terrorism concerns everyone, I am I feel personally and just as exposed as anyone else (-) specifically exposed

8 Participants’ personal involvement Personal involvement Terrorist risk valuation Min=1, Max=6 Personal exposure to risk Min=1, Max=6 Perceived capacity to act (individual) Min=1, Max=6 Perceived capacity to act (collective) Min=1, Max=6 FR passengers N=552,56*1,78*2,193,6* US passengers N= 514,76*2,41*2,253,95* Safety officers (FR) N=5553,473,444,69 Significativity F(2,155)=73,28; p<.01 F(2,155)=14,95; p<.01 F(2,155)=18,69; p<.01 F(2,154)=13,59; p<.01

9 Average rank < 2,4 Average rank >= 2,4 Frequency >= 10 Attack Bomb Deads Frequency < 10 Danger Coward Fear Terror Victims 9/11 Ben-Laden Explosion Extremism Fanatism Islam Religion Average rank < 2,4 Average rank >= 2,4 Frequency >= 10 Attack Bomb Fear Deads Frequency < 10 Coward 9/11 WTC Lack of justice Al-Qaïda Lack of safety Plane Integrism Ben-Laden Islam Danger Hostages Explosion Religion Extremism Violence War Safety officers (FR) Passengers (FR) Analysis of the free-association test

10 Average rank < 2,4 Average rank >= 2,4 Frequency >= 10 Attack Deads Muslims Fear Bomb 9/11 Frequency < 10 Chaos Murder Al-Qaida Middle-East Suicide Extremists Innocence Safety Bin-Laden Passengers FR Passagers US Average rank < 2,4 Average rank >= 2,4 Frequency >= 10 Attack Bomb Fear Deads Frequency < 10 Coward 9/11 WTC Lack of justice Al-Qaïda Lack of safety Plane Integrism Ben-Laden Islam Danger Hostages Explosion Religion Extremism Violence War Analysis of the free-association test

11 Average rank < 2,4 Average rank >= 2,4 Frequency >= 10 Attack Deads Muslims Fear Bomb 9/11 Frequency < 10 Chaos Murder Al-Qaida Middle-East Suicide Extremists Innocence Safety Bin-Laden Passengers FR Passagers US Average rank < 2,4 Average rank >= 2,4 Frequency >= 10 Attack Bomb Fear Deads Frequency < 10 Coward 9/11 WTC Lack of justice Al-Qaïda Lack of safety Plane Integrism Ben-Laden Islam Danger Hostages Explosion Religion Extremism Violence War Analysis of the free-association test

12 Conclusion High / Low Personal Involvement: US/FR Passengers If high personal involvement + lack of risk-related practice New normative items come to define terrorist risk: Deads, Muslims Established / Weak Practice: Safety officers / Passengers Differences in the functional aspects of the social representation High personal involvement+lack of practice: shift in the lay thinking Normative shift; probably a shift from social representation to nexus Nexus Prelogical, affective form of lay thinking; powerful symbolic force More radical and more narrow than social representations Commands profound collective mobilisation and clear-cut opinions Leaves no room for reasoning or discussion

EASP Small Group Meeting - Jerusalem, Israel, 7-10 September 2009 Resolving Societal Conflicts and Building Peace: Socio-Psychological Dynamics Terrorism and Otherness The role of personal involvement in the shift of lay thinking from rationality to irationality Andrea Ernst-Vintila Universite de la Mediterranee – CNRS UMR 6012 Espace Universite de Reims Champagne-Ardenne - Laboratory of Applied Psychology

Element Safety officers Passengers Attack Average rank[1,40 ; 1,72][1,34 ; 1,62] Frequency[19 ; 27][23 ; 32] Bomb Average rank[1,77 ; 2,76][1,79 ; 2,42] Frequency[9 ; 16] Deads Average rank[2,60 ; 3,06][2,86 ; 3,35] Frequency[15 ; 23] Fear Average rank[1,33 ; 2,25][2,27 ; 3,78] Frequency[1 ; 5][8 ; 15] Bootstrap: calculation of the confidence intervals