VIOLENT EMOTIONS

People are continuously evaluating or appraising the relevance of their environment for their well-being; these appraisals help account for different emotions (Arnold Reference Arnold1960). Lazarus (Reference Lazarus1966) proposed the distinction between primary appraisal, the assessment of an event’s implications for one’s well-being and secondary appraisal, the assessment of one’s ability to cope with the situation. After a fast and automatic evaluation of these first appraisal dimensions, other dimensions are evaluated: How does the event influence my goals? Who or what caused the event? Do I have control and power over the consequences of the event? Are the consequences of the event compatible with my personal values and societal norms? It is thus the personal meaning we give to ambiguous stimuli through appraisals that determines emotions we feel. This implies that it is a person’s perspective at the situation, not the situation per se, that results in an emotional response. This emotional response leads to emotion expression and an action tendency (Clore and Ortony Reference Clore and Ortony2000; Smith and Lazarus Reference Smith and Lazarus1990).

Emotions thus propel behavior, but perhaps even more importantly, different emotions propel different behavior. This is the basic tenet of appraisal theory of emotions (Lazarus Reference Lazarus1991). A second central tenet is that people can evaluate—or appraise—the same event differently and consequently have different emotional responses. Appraisal theory was developed to explain personal emotions experienced by individuals. Yet, “the self” implicated in emotion-relevant appraisals is clearly not only a personal or individual self. If group membership becomes part of the self, events that harm or favor an in-group by definition harm or favor the self, and the self might thus experience affect and emotions on behalf of the in-group. As people categorize themselves as group members, individual emotions turn into group-based emotions; “I feel for us.” Woven into the group’s overarching narratives of life, these emotions provide guidelines and bases for making attributions about “us” and “them.” Since collective action is by definition a group phenomenon, group-based emotions are an important aspect of protest behavior (Van Troost, Van Stekelenburg, and Klandermans Reference Van Troost, Van Stekelenburg, Klandermans and Demertzis2013).

Emotions function as accelerators or amplifiers (Van Stekelenburg and Klandermans 2007; 2010). In polarizing and radicalizing public debates, accelerating implies that, due to emotions, radical ideas and beliefs are more likely to translate into radical action, while amplifying means that these ideas and beliefs are strengthened. Obviously, radicalization is seldom the result of cold, cognitive reactions of the sort described in rational choice models, but are rather shaped and influenced by a sense of indignation or “hot cognitions” of injustice (Gamson Reference Gamson1992).

Radicalization requires attainment of a kind of emotional consensus in which members of a group come to share positive and negative feelings about certain actors and issues, potentially strengthened by emotional contagion (Van Stekelenburg, Oegema, and Klandermans Reference Van Stekelenburg, Oegema, Klandermans, Azzi, Chryssochoou, Klandermans and Simon2010). Contagion takes place if people “catch” each other’s emotions (Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson Reference Hatfield, Cacioppo and Rapson1994). If people express their indignation and anger about intergroup incidents—on social media for instance—others may read it and “catch” the emotion. The more so, if they strongly identify with the group.

An intergroup conflict may create circumstances in which in-group love is directly associated with hate and hostility toward the threatening out-group (Brewer Reference Brewer1999). These intimidating intergroup contexts are dominated by beliefs that foster insecurity and threat as well as feelings of humiliation (Longo, Canetti, and Hite-Rubin Reference Longo, Canetti and Hite-Rubin2014), fear, anger, and hatred (Bar-Tal, Halperin, and de Rivera Reference Bar-Tal, Halperin and Rivera2007). Obviously, feelings of humiliation are completely different emotional experiences from feelings of fear, anger or hate. Humiliation, for instance, is generally thought to occur in situations of asymmetric power relations where the humiliator has control over the victim. It is a major driver of political violence and radicalization, particularly a driver of support for extreme ideologies and actions. Fear, on the other hand, is a primary aversive emotion that arises in situations of perceived threat and danger (Bar-Tal, Halperin, and de Rivera Reference Bar-Tal, Halperin and Rivera2007). Shared fear may cut deeply into the psychic fabric of society and become linked with a social ethos of conflict. It causes great mistrust and delegitimizes opponents and is a major platform for violence. People are angry, on the other hand, when they experience an unfair or illegitimate situation for which they can blame someone else. Those who are blamed could have done otherwise and, the angry parties believe, are able to do something about it now (Roseman, Antoniou, and Jose Reference Roseman, Antoniou and Jose1996). Anger is assigned an important role in driving action against those responsible, which makes shared anger the emotion of fight or attack (van Zomeren et al. Reference van Zomeren, Spears, Fischer and Leach2004). Anger is observed in normative actions where efficacious and thus hopeful people protest (Sturmer and Simon 2009). In non-normative violent actions, however, anger combined with contempt appears to be the more relevant emotion (Fischer and Roseman Reference Fischer and Roseman2007; Tausch et al. Reference Tausch, Becker, Spears, Christ, Saab, Singgh and Niddiqui2008). Hatred, finally, is a direct reaction to protracted harm perceived as deliberate, unjust, and stemming from an inner evil character of the hated individual or group (Bar-Tal, Halperin, and de Rivera Reference Bar-Tal, Halperin and Rivera2007). Shared hate delegitimizes the out-group and facilitates a clear distinction between the out-group and in-group. If feelings of superiority are threatened, fear can undergo a terrible transformation into hatred and violence (Sternberg and Sternberg 2008). They propose that hatred is based on a negation of intimacy originating from disgust (Ben-Nun Bloom 2014), passion resulting from anger and fear, and decision-commitment deriving from the devaluation and diminution of the “others” based on contempt.

Matsumoto and colleagues (2015) suggest that anger, contempt, and disgust work together in combination to motivate action, devaluation of the other group, and then elimination of their members. The hostility triad—contempt, anger, and disgust—form the emotional foundation for moral judgments (Rozin et al. Reference Rozin, Lowery, Imada and Haidt1999). Contempt is paired with moral violations involving disrespect and violations of duty or hierarchy (the ethics of community); anger with violations of rights and fairness (ethics of autonomy), and disgust with violations of physical purity, such as food and sex taboos (ethics of divinity). Rozin et al. propose a gunpowder metaphor for understanding the triad of anger, contempt, and disgust, where gunpowder’s components charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate by themselves have their own caustic properties—like anger, contempt, and disgust do—but are not explosive. However, when compressed together, they become a dangerous, explosive mix.

Note that violent emotions often comprise of “dangerous explosive mixes.” People can experience multiple emotions at the same time (Benski Reference Benski, Patrick and Coy2010; Flam and King Reference Flam and King2007). In fact, people hardly ever experience a single emotion; instead they display a mixture of emotions.

RADICALIZATION

Following social psychologists such as Fathali Moghaddam (Reference Moghaddam2005) and Doosje et al. (Reference Doosje, Moghaddam, Kruglanski, Wolf, Mann and Feddes2016), I consider radicalization to be a process. Both scholars depict the process of radicalization as a staircase. Thought and action on each floor are characterized by particular psychological processes. People are located on different floors of the building, but everyone begins on the ground floor. The ground floor starts with subjective interpretations of material conditions, perceptions of fairness, and trust in politics. Individuals try to move up to the first floor, in search of ways to improve their life conditions. These individuals attempt to improve their own situation and that of their group. On this floor, they are particularly influenced by options for individual mobility and voice. When people feel their voice is listened to, they “buy into” the system. However, when they feel they are voiceless, they become more dissatisfied and detached. They may then climb up to the second floor where they come under the influence of persuasive messages telling them that external enemies cause their problems. From this stage on, social movement organizers become important in the process of radicalization. Some individuals keep climbing up to reach the third floor, where they adopt a morality supportive of radicalization. Gradually, those who have reached the third floor become separated from the mainstream norms and values of their society, which generally condemn radical activism. Those individuals who continue to climb up to the fourth floor adopt a more rigid style of categorical “us versus them,” “good against evil” thinking; it is seen as legitimate to attack “the forces of evil” in each and every way feasible. They take on a view supportive of an “ends justify the means” approach. The group’s isolation is an important factor in explaining its deviation from the “normal” perception of reality and strengthens this tendency toward violence (della Porta Reference della Porta1995). Eventually, some of these individuals move up to the fifth floor and take part in and directly support violent actions. The higher people move up the staircase to radicalization, the lower the degrees of freedom. After people have become part of a radical political group the only options left open to them are to kill, be killed, or be captured.

The strength of Moghaddam’s stages model is that it elaborates the different psychological processes at play at the different stages. However, it ignores the role of emotions in propelling violent actions and the role of organizers’ emotion work at play in the different stages.

EMOTIONAL TRANSFORMATION

The emotion transformation theory suggests that emotions and extremism transform over time and thus that every stage in the social-psychologial process to radicalization (i.e., Moghaddam’s staircase) is accompanied by different emotions (Matsumoto, Frank, and Hwang 2015). They propose that emotions transform over time, often via stories, to inculcate cultures with hatred and violence. Specifically, this emotional transformation follows three phases (based on Matsumoto, Hwang, and Frank Reference Matsumoto, Hwang and Frank2012):