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The role of entitativity in perpetuating cycles of violence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 December 2018
Abstract
Whitehouse's theory on fusion can explain why suicide terrorists are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their groups, but the following questions on violent extremism remain: (a) Why are victims of suicide terrorism often innocent bystanders? (b) Why do terrorists seem motivated by ancient conflicts? We incorporate findings from the entitativity literature to provide insights into how perceptions of in-groups and out-groups are key processes influencing violent extremism.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018
References
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Target article
Related commentaries (29)
Altruism, collective rationality, and extreme self-sacrifice
Why do people engage in suicide terrorism? In his target article, Whitehouse summarizes a comprehensive research program devoted to answering one aspect of this question. Whitehouse focuses on why terrorists will sacrifice their own lives for the benefit of their group, arguing that a sense of group fusion – fostered through shared dysphoric events – explains their willingness to make this ultimate sacrifice. But other puzzles of violent extremism remain. For example, why do terrorists feel vindicated carrying out their attacks against innocent bystanders? And why is current-day violent extremism so often rooted in ancient disputes involving past generations?
Here, we outline a broader perspective on violent extremism that addresses these questions and adds another dimension to Whitehouse's contribution using the psychological concept of entitativity – the perception of group members as a single entity (Campbell Reference Campbell1958). Whereas fusion captures the oneness that individuals feel toward their in-group, entitativity applies to entitative perceptions of any group (Lickel et al. Reference Lickel, Hamilton, Wieczorkowska, Lewis, Sherman and Uhles2000). Entitativity theory, therefore, can explain the puzzle of why people will engage in self-sacrificial behavior against uninvolved out-groups and across generations, causing continued cycles of violence.
Out-group entitativity and vicarious revenge
Typically, a conflict erupts between two parties with an initial act of aggression that is followed by revenge. However, acts of violent extremism, including suicide terrorism, have a unique structure, in which retaliation for some perceived offense is directed at innocent bystanders. Consider the events of 9/11. Al-Qaeda claimed that its attack was in retaliation to the U.S. government's support of Israel and the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, yet their attacks targeted civilians who were not involved in these events. Violent extremism often involves such acts of “vicarious revenge” – retaliation directed toward individuals not involved in an initial conflict (Jackson et al. Reference Jackson, Choi and Gelfandin press; Lee et al. Reference Lee, Gelfand, Shteynberg, Yuki and Brewer2013).
Past research suggests that vicarious revenge can be traced to perceptions of out-group entitativity. When out-groups are perceived as a single entity, all members of a group are seen as equally blameworthy – and substitutable – for an offense committed by the group. For example, if a street gang is viewed as highly entitative, the whole gang is also seen as responsible for one member's wrongdoing (Denson et al. Reference Denson, Lickel, Curtis, Stenstrom and Ames2006). Out-group entitative perceptions can have damaging consequences. After the American Columbine mass shootings, the shooters’ families were perceived as entitative with the shooters themselves, which led to overt aggression and death threats (Lickel et al. Reference Lickel, Schmader and Hamilton2003). When applied to violent extremism, this suggests terrorists view innocent out-group members as entitative with other out-group members and equally deserving of revenge. These perceptions of out-group entitativity allow terrorists to rationalize unjustifiable acts of aggression against blameless individuals.
Transgenerational entitativity and the persistence of conflict across generations
Cycles of violent extremism are often rooted in ancient conflicts involving long deceased individuals. These conflicts can often revolve around historical religious figures (in the case of Islamic extremists fighting on behalf of the prophet Muhammad), biblical conflicts (in the case of Hamas and Israeli radicals), or extinct political systems or figures (in the case of Neo-Nazism). Nevertheless, violent extremists give up their lives for these historical groups and individuals in the same way they might give up their lives for their current-day family or battalion.
Past research on transgenerational entitativity may explain this paradoxical behavior. Perceptions of an in-group as transgenerational – as a totality of past, present, and future members – have been found to increase willingness to endure losses for the benefit of the group's posterity (Kahn et al. Reference Kahn, Klar and Roccas2017). Groups perceived to have essential qualities and histories that are passed down transgenerationally facilitate stronger esteem for one's in-group (Sani et al. Reference Sani, Bowe, Herrera, Manna, Cossa, Miao and Zhou2007; Reference Sani, Bowe and Herrera2008) and greater opposition to out-groups (Jetten & Wohl Reference Jetten and Wohl2012; Smeekes & Verkuyten Reference Smeekes and Verkuyten2014; Warner et al. Reference Warner, Kent and Kiddoo2016). Moreover, stories about conflicts that get passed down across generations become increasingly biased, with in-group blame minimized and out-group blame accentuated over time (Lee et al. Reference Lee, Gelfand and Kashima2014), further escalating conflicts over time. A transgenerational group perception can explain why cycles of revenge often persist and escalate across multiple generations (Lee et al. Reference Lee, Gelfand and Kashima2014; Stillwell et al. Reference Stillwell, Baumeister and Del Priore2008) and why fused extremists sacrifice themselves for the sake of in-group members who lived long before they were born.
By applying past literature on entitativity, we show how Whitehouse's research on fusion could be integrated into a broader theory of how group perceptions influence violent extremism. When individuals perceive their entitative in-groups as strongly interconnected with the past and future, it guides them to make extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of their groups. On the other hand, when they perceive out-groups as entitative, they will rationalize acts of aggression against innocent out-group members. Fusion, out-group entitativity, and transgenerational entitativity are all processes that are needed in combination to understand the puzzle of violent extremism. These largely separate lines of research all have in common basic perceptual processes that lead to the recognition of groups as cohesive entities based on their shared essential features. Future research is needed to examine the interrelationship among these different perceptual processes and the factors that can break cycles of conflict.