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EASP Small Group Meeting - Jerusalem, Israel, 7-10 September 2009

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

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EASP Small Group Meeting - Jerusalem, Israel, 7-10 September 2009

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  1. 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

  2. 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) 2

  3. Social representations: theories of lay thinking • 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. Practices: capital role in the making of the SR Social representations: conditions for practices 3

  4. The structural approach to socialrepresentations • 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 Peripheral elements • The central core • Gives meaning and organises the SR • Consensual and stable over time Central core • The peripheral system • Is the operating part of the SR • Reflects the interindividual variability and the prescriptions for actions • Subject to change over time

  5. Social representations of terrorism • Social representations of terrorism • Depend on established terrorism-related practices • Are affected by the individuals’ personal involvement 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. Survey locations • 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)

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

  8. Participants’ personal involvement

  9. Analysis of the free-association test Safety officers (FR) Passengers (FR)

  10. Analysis of the free-association test Passengers FR Passagers US

  11. Analysis of the free-association test Passengers FR Passagers US

  12. Conclusion • Established / Weak Practice: Safety officers / Passengers • Differences in the functionalaspects of the social representation • 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 • 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

  13. 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 a.ernst.vintila@gmail.com Universite de la Mediterranee – CNRS UMR 6012 Espace Universite de Reims Champagne-Ardenne - Laboratory of Applied Psychology

  14. Bootstrap: calculation of the confidence intervals

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