Can brain science tell us more than the Quran about why young, non-religious Somali Americans would want to kill and die in Syria for ISIS?
What do Tylenol, schoolyard bullies, chocolate and our self-image have to do with young Somali-Americans from Minnesota ending up in Syria fighting for ISIS, or our ability to prevent a Paris-like terrorist attack from happening in the U.S.? According to social psychology and the brain science that supports it, the answer is, quite a lot.
Until the terrorist attacks in Paris, and the more recent killings in San Bernardino, California, shifted media and law enforcement attention away from the Somali-American community in Minnesota, this Muslim enclave received by far the most scrutiny of any Islamic population in the U.S. In 2013, the FBI stated that for several years, preventing the potential radicalization of Somali-American youth has been its highest priority in Minnesota. Given the continued marginalization of Somali-Americans in the U.S., this community remains a bellwether for trends in Islamic radicalization and how to prevent ISIS from fomenting terrorism in the U.S.
But why would mostly non-religious Somali-American adolescents and young adults want to kill and die in Syria for ISIS? Many pundits and politicians in the U.S. have posited that it is fundamentally the fault of the Islamic faith. They claim that the apparently violent teachings of the Quran have led directly to Somali-Americans becoming terrorists. But despite these assertions, a look at the human brain through the lens of social psychology, and the supporting brain science, can probably provide us with a much better understanding of why young Somali-Americans would want to become jihadists than the pages of the Quran.
What social psychology tells us is that the problem that we face in the Somali-American community in Minnesota is largely an issue of disconnected youth in the midst of an acute crisis of social identity rather than one of widespread religious fanaticism or economic frustration. In their search for identity and a group that will accept them, young Somali-Americans have been falling prey to sophisticated recruiters who have been selling them a lie about their religion.
Social psychology also makes clear that our sense of self is largely a product of our social and cultural groups, which gives us as a society more power than we might think to remedy the problem of homegrown Islamic terrorism in the United States and to prevent a repeat of the Paris attacks on American soil.
So what is social psychology? It is the study of how our thoughts, feelings and, ultimately, our actions and identities, are influenced by our social interactions and the people around us. Within this field, the supporting brain science looks at the actual functioning of the brain to provide a more complete understanding of how it chemically responds to the same inputs.
Social psychology and the supporting brain science show us that over millions of years, the human brain has been hard-wired for contact and connection with other people, not as a luxury, but as an absolute necessity for survival. In effect, the human brain has developed to become a social organ. The connection between mother and infant forms the basis for our social bonds, and it all grows from there.
As humans evolved, our brains developed certain mechanisms and survival strategies that prompt us to form and maintain social connections and to try to avoid their loss. In terms of our brain chemistry, we are programmed to feel discomfort and distress when we lose social connections and to experience contentment, happiness and security when we have positive interactions or form new bonds.
Almost all of us know the sorrow, pain and grief that we feel when an important person in our lives passes away, or a relationship ends. This is nature’s way of letting us know that social loss is potentially dangerous to us. It is also meant to motivate us to try to form new social connections and bonds to replace the ones that have been broken. But it isn’t just the loss of a loved one, or a failed relationship, that can hurt. As we all know, a condescending glance from a stranger — real or imagined — is often enough to ruin the day.
Why would the perception of rejection by a stranger upset anyone? It isn’t because we are being oversensitive or immature; it is because our social brains are programmed to respond to even meaningless instances of real or imagined rejection as a significant threat to our place in the group, and therefore as a painful event. This is how important social connections are to us on a biological level, and have historically been for our survival. The pain and happiness that we feel because of positive or negative social interactions is evolution at work, making sure that we are safe within our group and are not left to fend for ourselves.
Given that we are designed to experience pain as a result of even minor negative interactions, it should come as no surprise that our response to much more direct and potentially threatening instances of rejection can leave us with deep and lasting trauma. Schoolyard bullying is one of the most studied and best understood examples of direct social threat. This kind of attack represents a grave danger to our place in our group and our sense of self because our brains perceive the non-intervention of others as a rejection by them.
For creatures that are built to connect and to develop an identity through our interactions with others, an attack of this kind can be incredibly painful and potentially devastating for our self-image. On a repeated basis, this type of negative feedback about a person’s identity can have tremendous repercussions. This is why, as social psychologist Matthew Lieberman notes, children who are routinely bullied are seven times more likely to be depressed as adults and four times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
But perhaps the most important point that social psychology makes about how our brains register positive or negative interactions with others is that they aren’t just experienced as passing or illusory emotional responses. Social interactions and signals about our standing in our group are experienced in a real, physical and lasting way. Research has proven that on a chemical level, positive social interactions register in the brain in the same manner as eating chocolate and that negative social interactions are experienced in the same way as physical pain. The corollaries for our brains are so strong between social and physical experiences that taking Tylenol can actually relieve social pain, such as rejection or loss. In effect, the same medicine that helps us get over a headache can also help us get over a broken heart and that bar of chocolate really can make us feel better.
But social experiences don’t just cause pain or happiness, they actually help form our identities. To a greater extent than we might like to admit, we use what other people think about us to develop our self-image. Reflected Appraisal Generation, as this phenomenon is known, is one of nature’s ways of ensuring our survival. It uses our very sense of self, along with the pain and happiness that we experience through our social interactions, to ensure that we maintain good standing in our group. Whether we like it or not, we are social, group-oriented creatures by design.
The rest: http://www.salon.com/2015/12/20/can...would_want_to_kill_and_die_in_syria_for_isis/
What do Tylenol, schoolyard bullies, chocolate and our self-image have to do with young Somali-Americans from Minnesota ending up in Syria fighting for ISIS, or our ability to prevent a Paris-like terrorist attack from happening in the U.S.? According to social psychology and the brain science that supports it, the answer is, quite a lot.
Until the terrorist attacks in Paris, and the more recent killings in San Bernardino, California, shifted media and law enforcement attention away from the Somali-American community in Minnesota, this Muslim enclave received by far the most scrutiny of any Islamic population in the U.S. In 2013, the FBI stated that for several years, preventing the potential radicalization of Somali-American youth has been its highest priority in Minnesota. Given the continued marginalization of Somali-Americans in the U.S., this community remains a bellwether for trends in Islamic radicalization and how to prevent ISIS from fomenting terrorism in the U.S.
But why would mostly non-religious Somali-American adolescents and young adults want to kill and die in Syria for ISIS? Many pundits and politicians in the U.S. have posited that it is fundamentally the fault of the Islamic faith. They claim that the apparently violent teachings of the Quran have led directly to Somali-Americans becoming terrorists. But despite these assertions, a look at the human brain through the lens of social psychology, and the supporting brain science, can probably provide us with a much better understanding of why young Somali-Americans would want to become jihadists than the pages of the Quran.
What social psychology tells us is that the problem that we face in the Somali-American community in Minnesota is largely an issue of disconnected youth in the midst of an acute crisis of social identity rather than one of widespread religious fanaticism or economic frustration. In their search for identity and a group that will accept them, young Somali-Americans have been falling prey to sophisticated recruiters who have been selling them a lie about their religion.
Social psychology also makes clear that our sense of self is largely a product of our social and cultural groups, which gives us as a society more power than we might think to remedy the problem of homegrown Islamic terrorism in the United States and to prevent a repeat of the Paris attacks on American soil.
So what is social psychology? It is the study of how our thoughts, feelings and, ultimately, our actions and identities, are influenced by our social interactions and the people around us. Within this field, the supporting brain science looks at the actual functioning of the brain to provide a more complete understanding of how it chemically responds to the same inputs.
Social psychology and the supporting brain science show us that over millions of years, the human brain has been hard-wired for contact and connection with other people, not as a luxury, but as an absolute necessity for survival. In effect, the human brain has developed to become a social organ. The connection between mother and infant forms the basis for our social bonds, and it all grows from there.
As humans evolved, our brains developed certain mechanisms and survival strategies that prompt us to form and maintain social connections and to try to avoid their loss. In terms of our brain chemistry, we are programmed to feel discomfort and distress when we lose social connections and to experience contentment, happiness and security when we have positive interactions or form new bonds.
Almost all of us know the sorrow, pain and grief that we feel when an important person in our lives passes away, or a relationship ends. This is nature’s way of letting us know that social loss is potentially dangerous to us. It is also meant to motivate us to try to form new social connections and bonds to replace the ones that have been broken. But it isn’t just the loss of a loved one, or a failed relationship, that can hurt. As we all know, a condescending glance from a stranger — real or imagined — is often enough to ruin the day.
Why would the perception of rejection by a stranger upset anyone? It isn’t because we are being oversensitive or immature; it is because our social brains are programmed to respond to even meaningless instances of real or imagined rejection as a significant threat to our place in the group, and therefore as a painful event. This is how important social connections are to us on a biological level, and have historically been for our survival. The pain and happiness that we feel because of positive or negative social interactions is evolution at work, making sure that we are safe within our group and are not left to fend for ourselves.
Given that we are designed to experience pain as a result of even minor negative interactions, it should come as no surprise that our response to much more direct and potentially threatening instances of rejection can leave us with deep and lasting trauma. Schoolyard bullying is one of the most studied and best understood examples of direct social threat. This kind of attack represents a grave danger to our place in our group and our sense of self because our brains perceive the non-intervention of others as a rejection by them.
For creatures that are built to connect and to develop an identity through our interactions with others, an attack of this kind can be incredibly painful and potentially devastating for our self-image. On a repeated basis, this type of negative feedback about a person’s identity can have tremendous repercussions. This is why, as social psychologist Matthew Lieberman notes, children who are routinely bullied are seven times more likely to be depressed as adults and four times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
But perhaps the most important point that social psychology makes about how our brains register positive or negative interactions with others is that they aren’t just experienced as passing or illusory emotional responses. Social interactions and signals about our standing in our group are experienced in a real, physical and lasting way. Research has proven that on a chemical level, positive social interactions register in the brain in the same manner as eating chocolate and that negative social interactions are experienced in the same way as physical pain. The corollaries for our brains are so strong between social and physical experiences that taking Tylenol can actually relieve social pain, such as rejection or loss. In effect, the same medicine that helps us get over a headache can also help us get over a broken heart and that bar of chocolate really can make us feel better.
But social experiences don’t just cause pain or happiness, they actually help form our identities. To a greater extent than we might like to admit, we use what other people think about us to develop our self-image. Reflected Appraisal Generation, as this phenomenon is known, is one of nature’s ways of ensuring our survival. It uses our very sense of self, along with the pain and happiness that we experience through our social interactions, to ensure that we maintain good standing in our group. Whether we like it or not, we are social, group-oriented creatures by design.
The rest: http://www.salon.com/2015/12/20/can...would_want_to_kill_and_die_in_syria_for_isis/
. But anyways, the answer is simple. Human beings are different. Some are easily swayed than others, especially girls. Many girls are also naive. They believe anything. If people are young, and uneducated\ignorant.. then you can pretty much convince them to do and believe in literally everything anything.
. My bad... but you dont need someone telling you that isolation will lead to kids joining ISIS .. we already know it.
