Yassine* was bouncy, chatting up the research assistants, and generally in good spirits.
I would go tomorrow, I would do it tomorrow, he said.
When we probed for the sincerity of his claim, he responded, only if we go together.
You pay for the tickets, with a wink and a smile.
The survey is on your religious, political and cultural values.
A market in busy Barcelona.
MikeDotta/Shutterstock.com
Youre then told the reason for the survey is to find people suitable for a brain scan.
To our surprise, the part about the brain scans piqued peoples interest.
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Once satisfied with the scientific merit of the work, most consented to participate.
You cant compare us to others.
But go ahead and try.
Its interesting what youre doing.
But he had one very important condition to be satisfied before agreeing to participate.
Just to prove to my mother that I have one.
Humor was never in short supply among our participants.
We carried out two brain studies in Barcelona between 2014 and 2017.
Spainranksamong Europes top countries for failed and completed terror attacks and the greater Barcelona region is the countrysprimaryrecruitment hotspot.
On the one hand are those who want to reduce radicalization to an individual pathology.
So radicalization tends to either be seen as brought on by individual characteristics or purely social factors.
And of course, neither of these depictions are true.
We are instead trying to get to the bottom of the interplay between these factors.
Sacred values are moral values that are non-negotiable and inviolable.
You certainly wouldnt trade them in for material incentives.
Despite the label sacred, these values dont have to be religious.
For example, most readers would likely consider individual liberty a basic right.
If not, anti-slavery is a sacred value for you.
We also looked into non-violent conflicts like theCatalan independencemovement.
This can happen for both long-held values or new values that people adopt as part of their radicalisation process.
These threats can even be as abstract as cultural annihilation.
If our culture survives modernity, it will be precisely because of these groups.
In the case of radicalization, the adoption of extremist values are concerning enough.
Ourfirst fMRI studyexplored what could make non-sacred values become more like sacred values.
Unbeknown to them until the debrief, the Spanish players were purely virtual.
The other half continued getting passed the ball.
Unsurprisingly, participants rated higher willingness to fight and die for sacred rather than non-sacred values.
In other words, social exclusion made non-sacred values more similar to sacred values.
This is what oursecond neuro-imaging studyexplored.
These participants were more radicalized than our previous study participants.
In daily life, the DLPFC and vmPFC work in tandem when making decisions.
They essentially disengage this part of their brain.
But, their willingness to fight and die lowers as their deliberative and subjective valuation regions reconnect.
So what mechanisms bring people to lower their willingness to fight and die for a cause?
When they got out of the scanner they rated their willingness to fight and die for each value again.
This change was correlated with increased DLPFC activation in the brain.
Their deliberative pathways were reopening.
Lets take the contention that it all comes down to individual characteristics.
They were all considered normal.
We also found that the idea that radicalization derives solely from social or environmental conditions is flawed.
Our studies did not find any relationship between economic factors like poverty and support for extremist ideas or groups.
But social exclusion does not merely mean the experience of discrimination.
Terrorist groups recruit new members throughout the world by capitalizing on this feeling.
This will help to lay the groundwork for a resurgence of a similar organisation.
Western countries contain marginalized communities who are recruitment targets of both jihadist and extreme right-wing groups.
Counter-messaging
Our research also points to potential problems in mainstream anti-terrorism communications policies.
One tool that many governments use is that of alternative and counter-messaging, such as FrancesStop-Djihadismecampaign.
There are a multitude of such campaigns by civil society organizations that are discretely funded by governments.
In addition, sacred values are unique to the individual.
This adds an additional difficulty for mass distributed online alternative and counter-messaging.
Successful radicalization, even online, usually contains an element of person-to-person interaction.
No compelling evidence shows that disembodied online messages play a determining role.
Radicalization is a deeply social process that promises a sense of belonging and a purposeful role in social change.
The impulse to become an agent of social change need not be negated.
It should instead be re-channelled towards positive ends.
One of the main differences was how engaged non-radicalized peers were in their communities.
While some were still frustrated they nonetheless felt they had the power to effect social change.
At every turn his conservative parents rejected his ambitions.
One day he came in contact with a former acquaintance who was now radicalized.
Within weeks Fahads starry-eyed demeanor changed.
Shortly after, he disappeared.
His social media accounts and other forms of communication were shut down.
But the worst-case scenario had in fact not emerged.
As the possibility of a purpose-driven life re-emerged it washed out his flirtation with extremist ideology.
It exists at the intersection of these elements.
An inclusive society with pathways to purpose must be an aim for policies that seek to counter violent extremism.
- All names have been changed to protect participants anonymity.
Part of what convinces radicalised people to speak with us is the guarantee of their anonymity.
