Dehumanisation in religious and sectarian violence: the case of Islamic State

Ramsay, Gilbert

doi:10.1080/23269995.2016.1253271

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In the final experiment, we extend our thesis to hypothesize that when victims have strongly reduced human attributes, morally motivated perpetrators may be motivated to humanize victims to make their moral violence meaningful (23). To do so, we drew on previous research that found that people are ascribed reduced human attributes when they are unconscious (50).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent ethnographic and historical analyses, and classical works on the evolution of cooperation and the sociology of crime, indicate that descriptively, many perpetrators feel their violence is righteous and that their victims deserve what is coming to them. The husband who avenges the murder of his wife, the vigilante who cripples criminals, the soldier who kills the enemy, the public that votes for capital punishment, and even the suicide terrorist who detonates a bomb-all may see violence as morally justified, obligatory, and even praiseworthy (16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23). Meanwhile, recent philosophical analyses have argued that the logic of dehumanization is inconsistent with perpetrators' actions.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence

Tage

Valdesolo

Graham

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

140

100

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Across five experiments, we show that dehumanization-the act of perceiving victims as not completely human-increases instrumental, but not moral, violence. In attitude surveys, ascribing reduced capacities for cognitive, experiential, and emotional states to victims predicted support for practices where victims are harmed to achieve instrumental goals, including sweatshop labor, animal experimentation, and drone strikes that result in civilian casualties, but not practices where harm is perceived as morally righteous, including capital punishment, killing in war, and drone strikes that kill terrorists. In vignette experiments, using dehumanizing compared with humanizing language increased participants' willingness to harm strangers for money, but not participants' willingness to harm strangers for their immoral behavior. Participants also spontaneously dehumanized strangers when they imagined harming them for money, but not when they imagined harming them for their immoral behavior. Finally, participants humanized strangers who were low in humanity if they imagined harming them for immoral behavior, but not money, suggesting that morally motivated perpetrators may humanize victims to justify violence against them. Our findings indicate that dehumanization enables violence that perpetrators see as unethical, but instrumentally beneficial. In contrast, dehumanization does not contribute to moral violence because morally motivated perpetrators wish to harm complete human beings who are capable of deserving blame, experiencing suffering, and understanding its meaning.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence

Tage

Valdesolo

Graham

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

140

100

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In this example, dehumanisation is reflected in the alleged resemblance between the Yazidi people and the devil as non-human beings and in the view of women as spoils of war, which shows an objectification of human beings (Jasko et al, 2020). While the statements by Abu Jihad reflect dehumanisation of the victim, there are indications of self-dehumanisation when Abu Jihad considers himself as a tool of Allah (Kizilhan & Cavelius, 2016b;Ramsay, 2017). Despite these observations of different kinds of dehumanisation, it is important to emphasise that ISIS ideology draws on a rhetoric paying much attention to the 'believer vs. non-believer' dichotomy (Ramsay, 2017;Thompson, 2017).…”

Section: Dehumanisation and Sociological Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the statements by Abu Jihad reflect dehumanisation of the victim, there are indications of self-dehumanisation when Abu Jihad considers himself as a tool of Allah (Kizilhan & Cavelius, 2016b;Ramsay, 2017). Despite these observations of different kinds of dehumanisation, it is important to emphasise that ISIS ideology draws on a rhetoric paying much attention to the 'believer vs. non-believer' dichotomy (Ramsay, 2017;Thompson, 2017). Moreoever, the explanatory approaches which ascribe much importance to dehumanisation can be challenged in many other ways.…”

Section: Dehumanisation and Sociological Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The socialpsychology of Islamist terror – interdisciplinary perspectives on violence and ISIS totalitarian structures

Kizilhan

Steger²

2021

Global Security: Health, Science and Policy

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The number of potential Islamist perpetrators and supporters has been rising worldwide since the beginning of ISIS in 2014. Despite its military defeat in 2017, ISIS remains a serious threat. How come that numerous people join ISIS and allow the organisation to motivate them to participate in cruel and inhuman acts, such as mass-killings, within a very short period of time? This article offers socio-psychological explanations, such as processes like dehumanisation and role distance and the perception of a collective humiliation as well as structural and personal violence in the Middle East to answer this question. In connection to that, the authors argue that ISIS targetly addresses the psychological needs resulting from the social and political contexts in which the recruits live by having construced a distinct totalitarian ideology based on a very selective reading of religious narratives from Islam. Identifying religious elements from Islam as means for a particular purpose and not as the actual focus, the authors emphasise that ISIS has not lived another version of Islam but constructed a distinct ideology, which becomes manifest in strong internal social hierarchies, the genocide of minority groups and a dissemination of this mentality which is independent of a centralised organisation. Future studies must examine these observations and focus on the questions whether this mentality spread by ISIS changes the societies from which people are recruited and, if so, in which way this change becomes evident.

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“…While IS itself seems to embrace a radically Manichean stance, famously announcing its eradication of the “grey zone” and the “division of the world in two camps,” 12 and consistently uses derogatory or dehumanizing labels to name the Shi’a Muslims (“Rafidi swine,” “filthy pigs,” etc. ; read Ramsay, 2016), the group nonetheless articulates a typical conspiratorial narrative that strictly followed the characteristics of the genre. As such, IS rearticulated a significant conspiratorial tradition in Salafi-jihadi thought that can be traced back to (at least) the writings of Sayyid Qutb, whose radical pamphlets “Our Struggle Against the Jews” (1950) and “Milestones” (1964) depicted a world where Muslims are trapped in a state of “ignorance” ( jahiliyyah ) caused by the combined actions of non-Muslim groups (above all the West) and hypocrite individuals ( munafiqun ) deceitfully pretending to be Muslims.…”

Section: Conspiratorial Narratives In Action: Three Casesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conspiratorial Narratives in Violent Political Actors’ Language

Baele

2019

Journal of Language and Social Psychology

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This article articulates the concept of “conspiratorial narratives”—defined as stories which integrate a large range of events and archetypal characters from past and present in a single teleological explanation for the alleged suffering of a given social group—and argues that this particular linguistic construct is a key marker of extremist language. Using three different cases to illustrate our theoretical contribution (Nazi propaganda, Rwandan genocidaires’ radio, IS’ messaging), we show that paying attention to conspiratorial narratives leads us to significantly revise classic accounts of violent actors’ language, and provides a better understanding of the link between that language and violence itself—more precisely, why violence happens, how much violence is directed to whom, and when it occurs.

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Dehumanisation in religious and sectarian violence: the case of Islamic State

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 5 publications

References 24 publications

Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence

Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence

The socialpsychology of Islamist terror – interdisciplinary perspectives on violence and ISIS totalitarian structures

Conspiratorial Narratives in Violent Political Actors’ Language

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