ArticlePDF Available

Violent and peaceful crowd reactions in the Middle East: Cultural experiences and expectations

February 2013
Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 5:20-44

DOI:10.1080/19434472.2011.616668

Authors:

Winston R. Sieck

Korn Ferry Institute

Anna Grome

Applied Research Associates, Inc.

Elizabeth S. Veinott

Michigan Technological University

Show all 5 authorsHide

Collective honor in Middle Eastern crowds may serve as an important basis for both conflict and conflict resolution between security forces and crowd members. To investigate this issue, we extended a social–cognitive model of crowd behavior to account for the role of honor in social identities and relations, and tested the model in two studies. In Study 1, we collected critical incidents representing crowd experiences in the Middle East. The interview data were coded to include security actions that escalate force and those that generate understanding or exhibit restraint. Study 2 used a scenario-based interview procedure to test the hypothesis that Middle Eastern civilians and Americans with no Middle Eastern cultural experience hold differing beliefs and expectations about crowd reactions to security force actions. The results showed that escalation of force against the crowd led to an increase in the level of conflict more often than not, whereas attempting to understand the crowd or exhibiting restraint tended to decrease conflict. Middle Eastern expectations were largely congruent with these findings, whereas American beliefs diverged. The results have implications regarding the cultural and cognitive determinants of crowd behavior, and for the management of crowds by regional governments and in international peacekeeping situations.

…

. Distribution of country of origin across three groups.

…

Categories of security force goals/actions resulting from multidimensional scaling methods analysis.

…

Figures - uploaded by Shane T. Mueller

Content may be subject to copyright.

Content uploaded by Shane T. Mueller

Content may be subject to copyright.

Violent and peaceful crowd reactions in the Middle East:

cultural experiences and expectations

Winston R. Sieck∗, Jennifer L. Smith, Anna P. Grome, Elizabeth Veinott

and Shane T. Mueller

Applied Research Associates

(Received 8 September 2010; ﬁnal version received 18 August 2011)

Collective honor in Middle Eastern crowds may serve as an important basis for both

conﬂict and conﬂict resolution between security forces and crowd members. To

investigate this issue, we extended a social –cognitive model of crowd behavior

to account for the role of honor in social identities and relations, and tested the

model in two studies. In Study 1, we collected critical incidents representing

crowd experiences in the Middle East. The interview data were coded to include

security actions that escalate force and those that generate understanding or

exhibit restraint. Study 2 used a scenario-based interview procedure to test the

hypothesis that Middle Eastern civilians and Americans with no Middle Eastern

cultural experience hold differing beliefs and expectations about crowd reactions

to security force actions. The results showed that escalation of force against the

crowd led to an increase in the level of conﬂict more often than not, whereas

attempting to understand the crowd or exhibiting restraint tended to decrease

conﬂict. Middle Eastern expectations were largely congruent with these ﬁndings,

whereas American beliefs diverged. The results have implications regarding the

cultural and cognitive determinants of crowd behavior, and for the management

of crowds by regional governments and in international peacekeeping situations.

Keywords: culture and cognition; honor; Arab spring; intercultural interaction

In March 2006, a crowd of Kurds gathered in protest near the Halabja Monument. In an

attempt to disperse the crowd, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan guards ﬁred warning shots

into the air from their machine guns. Rather than quelling the demonstration, the

enraged crowd members braved the gun ﬁre to drive the panicked guards away and

attack the monument. They smashed windows and set ﬁres, ultimately destroying the

memorial that commemorated the day that Saddam’s government killed more than

5,000 people by poison gas attacks in 1988. One 17-year old protestor was shot and

killed, and six others were wounded. (Worth, 2006)

Peaceful gatherings can provide an important means for people to feel that they have a

stake in the success of free and open societies that sanction collective action. When

such gatherings turn violent and destructive, they can instead serve to support terrorist

and insurgent agendas. Relatively new or less stable governments, such as in some

Middle Eastern countries, are likely to be especially vulnerable in this regard. The criti-

cal nature of such events leads us to address the question of why violent reactions

ISSN 1943-4472 print/ISSN 1943-4480 online

#2011 Society for Terrorism Research

DOI: 10.1080/19434472.2011.616668

http://www.informaworld.com

∗Corresponding author. Email: sieck@globalcognition.org

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression

2011, iFirst Article, 1–25

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

sometimes occur in protests and other gatherings, and why others remain relatively

peaceful, even when the political stakes are enormous.

One possible explanation comes from notions that crowd membership drives people

towards irrationality and destructiveness (Le Bon, 1947). The irrationality concept is

perhaps most enticing in its ability to explain crowd violence by ordinary citizens.

According to this view, crowd membership leads to mindlessness and irrationality

caused by de-individuation (loss of self), leading to an increase in destructive ten-

dencies (Le Bon, 1947; Prentice-Dunn & Rogers, 1982). Arab crowds have at times

been described in similar terms, including the explicit suggestion that there is little

one can do about it. For example, Patai’s (2002) ethnography on Arabs includes the

following excerpt:

the rank and ﬁle supplied the mass of manpower and the outﬂow of emotionalism which

inundated the capital’s [Baghdad’s] streets whenever a popular uprising occurred. In the

past (prior to the 1958 revolution), though popular uprisings caused damage to life and

property ... they were like the ﬂoods of the river Tigris, capable of destruction but

short-lived and quickly exhausted. The ruling Oligarchy well understood the nature of

those outbursts and learned how to cope with them by letting the ﬂood pass swiftly,

and the police often tried merely to channel it and clear the wreckage. (Patai, 2002, p. 171)

Such simple explanations have been largely debunked within the social psychology lit-

erature on crowd behavior, and have been replaced with models that maintain the

rationality of the individuals involved (Couch, 1968). Here, we propose a more

complex explanation of Arab crowd behavior in particular, drawing on a social identity

model of crowd membership, combined with considerations of honor as experienced in

the Middle East (Gregg, 2005; Reicher, 1996).

The Social Identity Model of crowd membership emphasizes the self-concepts of

crowd members, and provides mechanisms for understanding how conceptions of

the self and related outcomes, such as self-efﬁcacy, change through participation in

crowd events (Stott & Drury, 2000). According to the model, social identity is a

mental model of one’s position in a set of social relations along with actions that are

possible and legitimate given such a position. Social identities thus support decision-

making in crowd situations. Core assumptions of the model include that crowd

members retain their rationality, although in-group goals and values do become more

salient to each person. Also, members tend to view their actions as anonymous to

out-groups, but they perceive their acts as being highly visible to the in-group of

fellow crowd members. Hence, they are very much aware of and subject to the appraisal

of their peers. Finally, crowd members experience increased feelings of power or self-

efﬁcacy as members of the collective (Drury & Reicher, 1999).

Social identities are also subject to change as a result of participation in crowd

events (Drury & Reicher, 2000; Stott & Drury, 2000). To understand the mechanisms

by which changes come about, elaborations of the model emphasize that crowd events

are characteristically intergroup encounters, and that the various groups can hold dis-

tinct understandings of the crowd members’ social identity (i.e roles within the

event, and society more generally). In particular, Drury and Reicher (2000) proposed

that changes in self-understanding can arise when crowd members hold a different

model of their social identity from that of security forces. For example, Drury and

Reicher documented a case in which English participants in an environmental protest

originally saw themselves as respectable citizens enacting a democratic right and

responsibility to voice their concerns within a neutral state. However, after a severe

W.R. Sieck et al.2

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

crackdown by security forces intended to bring about a quick dispersal of the crowd, the

crowd participants came to see themselves as radicals who stood in opposition to a

biased state. Although these British demonstrators did not react violently, the

changes in self-concept they experienced following the event were associated with con-

sequences such as loss of trust, and an increase in fear of the police. In this case, the

crowd participants’ self-efﬁcacy also presumably decreased as an outcome of the

crowd event. In other cases, successful collective action has been shown to lead to

increases in feelings of power among crowd members (Drury & Reicher, 1999). The

Social Identity Model of crowd behavior was developed based on studies of Western

populations. How does it apply to understanding crowds in the Middle East? Speciﬁ-

cally, what cultural considerations would be expected to inﬂuence the form that

social identities take in the Middle East?

In the Middle East and elsewhere, one’s honor or ‘face’ is an important measure of

how one appears to others, and how that image reﬂects on one’s family (Feghali, 1997).

Honor is considered a predominant value system that spans the Middle East, and one

that is distinct from and sometimes at odds with Islamic values (Gregg, 2005). For

example, Gregg (2005) notes that, ‘Ethnographies from nearly all MENA [Middle

East and North Africa] cultures suggest that the region is characterized by two predo-

minant value systems and their associated interpersonal etiquettes and self-care prac-

tices: that of “honor-and-modesty” and that of Islam’ (p. 90). Although many

subtleties exist,

conceptions of honor are generally associated with two primary

aspects, the protection of women belonging to one’s in-group, and the aggressiveness

of men towards other, out-group men. The honor system has been described as having

historical roots in societies surrounding the Mediterranean, with facets of it having

spread across the Middle East, well into south-central Asia, and to a variety of other

locations. For example, although ‘manliness in men’ tends to be discouraged and

even ridiculed in Western-middle class cultures, several researchers have pointed out

that subcultures of honor thrive within them (Nisbett & Cohen, 1996; Peristiany, 1965).

In the case of crowd situations, in-group/out-group considerations and male aggres-

sion seem the most relevant facets for understanding Middle Eastern crowd members’

social identities. In the typical depiction of such aggression, insult or injury is treated as

an attack on one’s reputation and status, and one must retaliate and re-establish honor

and status through an aggressive response. In line with this generalized portrayal,

researchers have experimentally demonstrated that cultural differences in the propen-

sity towards violence relate to the value of honor (Cohen, Nisbett, Bowdle, &

Schwarz, 1996). Another critical component of honor as related to the Social Identity

Model is the inherent demand to perform with style under the scrutiny of others in the

social context (Gregg, 2005). Recall that the Social Identity Model implies heightened

in-group visibility in crowd situations. Honor can be seen as the assertion and defense

of one’s public image, as reported by Peristiany (1965), ‘nothing is accepted on credit,

the individual is constantly forced to prove and assert himself ... he is constantly “on

show,” he is forever courting the public opinion of his “equals” so that they may pro-

nounce him worthy’ (p. 11). Other research further suggests that, in at least some cul-

tures, honor is not only given by one’s peers, but also projected to them. For instance, a

primary concern for the group’s honor, as shared by its individual members, was found

in a classic ethnographic study of Egyptian Bedouins (Abou Zeid, 1965). This facet of

honor is probably held within the Middle East, more broadly, as Bedouin concepts of

honor and other values are generally regarded as having had a strong regional inﬂuence

(Moracco, 1983). Hence, the notion of ‘group honor’ is potentially pertinent to Middle

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 3

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

Eastern social identities in crowds, given that in-group loyalties and goals tend to be

highly elevated according to the Social Identity Model. In these situations, an affront

to any one individual crowd member may be taken as threatening the group’s honor

and demand a collective response.

Abou Zeid’s and other studies also suggest that aggressive action towards outsider

men produces especially large gains in honor when such action is taken against a larger

or more powerful adversary, as indicated in the following quote. ‘Bedouin society

which admires, and in fact encourages, attacks on the camps of strong and powerful

clans considers it a most shameful action to violate the rights of the poor and the

weak’ (Abou Zeid, 1965, p. 246). This impetus to take on larger foes typically

appears to come with a complimentary lack of concern with risks to one’s own physical

well-being, or even life itself. Findings from a study of Algeria’s Kabyle region are sug-

gestive (Bourdieu, 1965): ‘This stake for the Kabyle is worth more than life itself.

[Honor] is also the desire to overcome one’s rival in man-to-man struggle’ (p. 204)

and, ‘[Honor] is above all in the action of defending, cost what it may, a certain

public image of oneself’ (p. 208).

As described above, from the perspective of the social identity model of crowd

behavior, honor may serve as an important cultural contributor to conﬂict between

security forces and crowd members in the context of Middle Eastern crowd events.

In particular, the degree of in-group visibility afforded by crowd membership pro-

vides an opportunity to prove oneself in the eyes of one’s peers. This may be

especially true to the extent that clear in-group/out-group divisions are created

between crowd members and security forces. At the same time, crowd members

may be expected to take personal responsibility for the group’s honor in the situation.

These considerations of honor further suggest that Middle Eastern crowd members

may be especially likely to oppose an aggressive security force, even at great risk

to their own personal safety. Note that this does not imply irrationality in the Le

Bon sense, but rather suggests that a deeply held shared value, made even more

salient in the crowd context according to the Social Identity Model, can lead to

violent confrontations. In addition to this hypothesis, we also expect that core

elements of the Social Identity Model would generalize to crowds in the Middle

East, including cognitively rational assessments and goal-driven behavior, increased

self-efﬁcacy as a result of successful crowd participation, and the link between social

relations and permissible actions.

Study 1: crowd incidents in the Middle East

The purpose of Study 1 was to test a speciﬁc implication of the concept of honor as a

prevalent value that regulates perceptions and decisions in the Middle East. In particu-

lar, we elicited and examined crowd incidents to determine whether security force

actions that were readily construed by crowd members as diminishing honor led to

increases in crowd member resistance, as compared with security force actions that

enhanced or did not affect honor.

In Study 1, we employed critical incident interviews to study the crowd experiences

of populations in the Middle East, eliciting information about the knowledge, goal

structures, and judgment and decision processes underlying observable actions of par-

ticipants in the crowd context (Flanagan, 1954; Hoffman, Crandall, & Shadbolt, 1998;

Sieck, McHugh, & Smith, 2006).

W.R. Sieck et al.4

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

Method

Participants

We collected 36 incidents from 25 people in the United States and Lebanon represent-

ing experiences with crowds in the Middle East from multiple perspectives. We con-

ducted interviews with 11 people from the Middle East (54% from Lebanon, 18%

from Egypt, 18% from Palestine and 9% from Jordan) who had participated in demon-

strations there. Middle Eastern crowd participant interviewees were identiﬁed by pro-

fessional recruiters who engaged local community centers, social networks and existing

panels. Selection criteria were that interviewees had to have been born and raised in the

Middle East, have participated in at least one demonstration in the region, and be at

least 18 years of age. We also interviewed 14 military personnel who were either

native to the Middle East (36%), or had advanced cultural knowledge of the Middle

East (64%), as well as speciﬁc experiences managing crowds in that region. These inter-

viewees were identiﬁed via military contacts, and selected based on peer-nomination of

Middle Eastern cultural expertise, and at least one experience managing a crowd in the

region. Interviews were conducted in the summer and autumn of 2005, in English and

Arabic. Most of the Arab participants spoke conversational English, although a trans-

lator was available to facilitate communication of difﬁcult concepts and nuances. Two

of the interviews were conducted entirely through a translator. The level of detail and

key ﬁndings were comparable across these interview approaches.

Interview guide

The general structure of the interview guide is described below. The interviews were

semi-structured, organized around an initial account of a speciﬁc incident provided

by the interviewee. The interviewers then revisited and inquired further about

various aspects of the incident to gather additional information. The incident account

was generated by the interviewee in response to a speciﬁc open-ended question

posed by the interviewers, such as ‘Can you tell us about a time when you were part

of a demonstration or protest of some sort?’ Once the participant had identiﬁed a rel-

evant incident, he or she was asked to recount the episode in its entirety without inter-

ruption from the interviewer. The interviewee’s account of the incident provided the

basic structure for the remainder of the interview. Next, the elicitors and participant

constructed a map of the situation to help clarify the positions of crowd members,

the physical context and any constraints, and the unfolding of crowd events. The par-

ticipant was asked for relative times and places of key events and turning points within

the incident. The aims were to elicit the salient events within the incident, including

cognitive events, such as points where understanding changed, or where judgments

or decisions were made.

The interviewers then led the participant back over his or her incident several times,

in order to elicit additional details about key aspects of the account. Examples of probe

questions used to gather more detailed information included:

.How did you recognize the crowd was changing?

.What were your concerns at that point?

.What were you noticing right then?

.How did you know that?

.What led you to this decision?

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 5

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

.What was it about the situation that let you know what was going on?

.What were you trying to accomplish at that moment?

.What was your biggest challenge at this point?

Once the actual events had been described sufﬁciently, the interviewers asked some

additional questions to gain insights into the participants’ understanding of how

things work in the situation. An example question is, ‘What if the security forces

had taken action X? How would things have turned out differently?’

Procedure

Participants were interviewed individually by a pair of trained interviewers. An Arabic

translator was available during all of the interviews with Middle Easterners, and the

translator joined the interview to facilitate communication between the interviewer

and interviewees as necessary. The interviews with crowd participants were audio

recorded; the military participants declined permission to record. The duration of

each interview was approximately 1.5–2 h. Crowd participants received $75 as com-

pensation for their time, while the crowd controllers did not receive compensation

because of their military status. Data records were created for each interviewee, consist-

ing of either the interviewer’s notes (if interview was not taped) or a transcript of the

interview and a summary of the incident.

Results

The data included a number of incidents depicting speciﬁc crowd experiences in the

Middle East, from either the crowd participants’ or security forces’ point of view.

We conducted a thematic analysis to identify patterns of related topics across the

data. We relay general examples of excerpts from these incidents that illustrate speciﬁc

themes, and then describe a quantitative analysis of the data. First, as an example of the

‘rational cognition’ theme, a Palestinian man recounts an incident in the street near his

home, illustrating that some crowd members explicitly engage in a rational assessment

of the weapons and level of force being directed towards them:

You become an expert at knowing whether they are using rubber bullets. You would

know because it’s a big size magazine connected to the riﬂe, and that the noise is different

from a riﬂe. You hear whether it’s live ammunition in the air.

In another example, a Lebanese woman recounts her participation in a demonstration in

Beirut to increase teachers’ salaries. The protestors again act quite rationally, leaving

peacefully after determining that their goals have been met:

About a half an hour after the cameras left is when the crowd started to disperse. After the

cameras left we thought our story was now going to get out and so everybody went home.

We didn’t really know whether the teachers ended up getting a pay raise, but we did see

the demonstration on TV. There, the government said they would have meetings with the

teachers. We felt that we got our message out by watching people say things about the

message, and we were happy with ourselves; feeling that we did something good.

The example shows how the participants assessed that their goals were met, so that they

knew when to stop the demonstration. It also illustrates the psychological effects,

W.R. Sieck et al.6

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

including an increased self-efﬁcacy that accompanied and persisted beyond the crowd

members’ decision to end the event. The following incident from Lebanon provides an

example of a theme concerning the link between social relations and actions. It also

shows de-escalation following a potential ﬂash point when the security force exhibits

heroic levels of restraint:

A Shia crowd had blocked off the roads to the airport near Beirut. They used tires that

were set on ﬁre, and cement blocks and barrels full of concrete to close off the two roads

leading to the airport. The overall area was quite large, and the number of crowd

members was around 500. Civilian cars that were coming up to the airport stopped

and created a big trafﬁc jam. The Lebanese Army ofﬁcer and his troops were sent to

clear the road. When the security forces arrived, the crowd became more violent.

Members of the crowd are waving sticks around, and throwing many stones. Then some-

thing happens. A member of Hezbollah within the crowd throws a grenade at the secur-

ity forces. Fifteen members of the security team were hurt. The soldiers expected the

stones, but not a grenade. It was an immediate challenge for the ofﬁcer to keep his

men calm and not ﬁre at the crowd. They took positions and held their ground, but

he convinced his men not to shoot. The rules of engagement said they could not

shoot unarmed civilians. But the grenade meant that the crowd could be treated as

armed, and the security forces could shoot. Both sides realized this. It changed the

tone of the crowd from strongly aggressive to being less certain. It calmed them

down. After the grenade, other members in the crowd seemed shocked and they

moved back on their own. They knew the security forces had the right to ﬁre. When

the crowd advanced again, the security force moved forward slowly and called out to

the crowd members to negotiate. There was a lot of talking, but then the situation

ended without further violence.

This incident illustrates a co-shifting of permissible actions and evaluations according

to ﬂuctuating social identities in the context of the situation. In light of the Social Iden-

tity Model, we suggest that crowd members make decisions with reference to tacitly

held sets of actions, with acceptability depending on social context. The informal

rules of action considered legitimate by different subgroups can shift throughout the

crowd event. Sub-groups try to assess each other’s informal action rules, and they

modify their own behavior based on that assessment. The action rules within the

crowd can cycle back and forth to higher and lower levels of escalation. As another

example of social relation/action links in the Middle Eastern cultural context, consider

the following example described by an Arab-American Marine who was part of a team

that had intercepted some bank robbers in Baghdad in 2003:

The Iraqis were standing there quietly watching the events; they seemed curious ... then

some of the men began saying, ‘Haram’ – meaning ‘shame’ or ‘it’s too bad.’ This started

spreading throughout the crowd. The crowd told the security force ofﬁcer that he needed

to go see the old man. He understood what the problem was as soon as he walked down

the sidewalk to the old man. The bank robbers, cuffed and laying on the concrete side-

walk, were not comfortable. One of these men was in his late 50s or 60s – he was a

gray hair. He was a little frail. The crowd could clearly see that he was in pain. Then

crowd began complaining about the way that the old man was being treated. The elder

was in obvious discomfort. They told the security force ofﬁcer that he should let the

old man go. Crowd members started shouting, ‘Let him go.’ The crowd started to

become more agitated and angrier. The security force ofﬁcer treated the elder with

respect, and decided to let him go. He helped the elder stand up, brushed off his

clothes, and cut off the elder’s ﬂexicuffs. He then picked the elder’s belongings up off

the ground and put them back into his pocket. He walked the elder to the edge of the

crowd and said, ‘You’re free to go, Uncle.’ The elder was very grateful. He kissed the

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 7

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

security force ofﬁcer on his cheeks and shook hands with him. The crowd immediately

applauded.

The above example also reveals that even ‘curious’ bystanders, who are sometimes dis-

missed as nonplayers, serve a function in the crowd. Crowds of bystanders have a moni-

toring function, observing the events and determining whether people are enacting

culturally appropriate social positions, or whether social relations are out of sync

with cultural norms, such as dishonorable treatment of elders.

Consistent with considerations of honor in social identities, the ﬁndings suggested

that Middle Easterners tend to exhibit a relatively high degree of risk-tolerance for

physical harm in crowd situations, as shown in the following incident involving a Leba-

nese demonstrator:

They’re bombing the roads to keep people from going back and forth to the palace to

protest. We would hide when the bombing started, and when they stopped, we would

go back down. It was like this. We were crazy then. We were young, but it was really

everybody who would do this, young people, old people; it was everybody. Just after

bombarding, we were few, but after some hours, it was normal size again. Our people

are like this; they are crazy. Not just for the demonstrations, but for other things too.

For example, several times we went to the beach, and they started to bombard us.

Okay, home ... we go home, and when everything is calm, we go back.

This example demonstrates a shared tolerance for risk that far outstrips the comfort

levels of most Americans. Similarly, extremely high risk tolerance and commitment

in protestors was reported by a Lebanese Army ofﬁcer who was appointed to security

detail during protests against Syria following the assassination of Prime Minister Raﬁc

Hariri:

The demonstrators included men, women, and children from all religious groups. The

people were angry, and wanted to vent their anger in public. They were not dangerous

– he did not see any sticks, arms, stone throwing, or anything. He had arranged his sol-

diers behind concertina wire, with an ofﬁcer on a pile of stones with a bullhorn. The

ofﬁcer was in charge of talking to the crowd. His job was to calm them down, and

repeat that they were not allowed to come in. The crowd reaction was shouting

slogans, walking over the concertina wire, and pushing the soldiers. He saw women

and children walking over two layers of concertina wire. He saw that as an indication

of the strength of their determination. He felt that attempting to block them completely

at that point would end in disaster, so he let a few enter the area, a little at a time.

In another example, a security team did not operate with such restraint, and it did lead to

disaster. The following incident occurred in Iraq, 2004, involving a deadly violent reac-

tion to aggression by a security team:

A protest was planned to occur in Hit, led by a former sheik. The plan was to gather people

in Baghdadi and then march to Hit. They were protesting to have the roads to Fallujah

opened. The roads were closed at the time to prevent weapons smuggling. The crowd

of about 2000 people began the march. Some insurgents, or civilians dressed as insur-

gents, joined the crowd. They wore RPGs and hoods, but later the investigators found

out that the RPGs were fake. The crowd was peaceful at ﬁrst. The police walked with

them. There were four ‘insurgents’ in the front. A sheik was leading the march and

there were sheiks dispersed throughout the crowd who were trying to keep things peace-

ful. An oil man and his security contractors left the base in three cars around this time,

coincidentally. They drove down the road, saw the crowd, apparently panicked and did

a herringbone on the road. The cars turn around to leave, but no one noticed that the

W.R. Sieck et al.8

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

lead car was stuck in a ditch with three of the security contractors. One of the contractors

got out of the car and shot one of the lead ‘insurgents.’ At that point, the crowd erupted.

The crowd killed the contractor and wounded another one (they thought they had killed

him). They let the third member of the security team (an Iraqi) leave. The mob tore the car

apart.

Another common theme that emerged from the interviews related to the connection

between social identity and honor was the use of language to highlight in-group/out-

group differences between the crowd members and security forces. This kind of commu-

nicative act reﬂected attempts to inﬂuence the models of social identity and correspond-

ing relevant actions held by sub-groups. Unfriendly crowd leaders attempted to

engender hostile emotional reactions among their fellows by proposing images of

polar opposition between security forces and the crowds. In the following example of

crowd member attempts to polarize, the security forces explicitly tried to focus on com-

monalities, and were able to provide some concrete demonstrations to back them up:

The protestors would call out arguments that created a distance between themselves and

the security forces. For example, the crowd members argued that they were Muslims, and

the security forces were Christians. They also brought Israel into the picture, suggesting

that the security forces were working on behalf of the Israelis. The security forces

attempted to talk to the crowd in ways that would calm them down and ﬁnd commonalities

between them. They would say things like, ‘Calm down,’ ‘we are not the enemy,’ ‘we’re

just doing our jobs here – have to clear the area.’ They also had some Muslims in their

ranks who stepped forward to directly counter the argument about religion. By pointing

out the commonalities, they were able to defuse the situation.

In another example, an Egyptian interviewee described a time when his family visited

Cairo, and was caught up in massive, violent demonstrations in 1981. Here, monitoring

and arguments by fellow crowd members about appropriate social roles and positions

did not have any apparent calming effect:

They took to the streets and they expressed their anger and dissatisfaction with the gov-

ernment for the prices going up. We parked our car and followed behind the main crowd.

There were a lot of people, and many were watching from the sides. We were not fam-

iliar with the area. It was like a scene that nobody would miss. You go and it’s exciting.

They were throwing rocks and what not, as they walked down the street. We saw a lot of

cars damaged. Hundreds of cars. See they attacked every car that had like a police ofﬁcer

in it or someone in uniform. My mom and my sister were very, very upset with the

crowd and what they did. They said, ‘These people could be our children so why are

you doing this?’ If you have a message you have to say or do it peacefully not

through violent demonstrations. I didn’t talk. Some others were saying things like,

‘yes, it’s about time,’ things like that. Others of them would say, ‘no, no, no this is

wrong! Why do they do this?’ It was kind of like a debate between the crowd, I

mean between the onlookers if you will. Some supported what was going on, and

some argued against it.

Quantitative analysis and results

In addition to the qualitative thematic analysis described above, we conducted a quan-

titative analysis to test more directly the speciﬁc hypothesis concerning opposition to

aggression. Speciﬁcally, we hypothesize that, in cases where Middle Eastern crowd

members construe security force actions as affronts to their honor, they are likely to

sanction resistance against even a heavily armed security force. On the other hand, if

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 9

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

the members of the security force act in ways that preserve the honor of crowd

members, crowd tensions are more likely to be defused.

In order to conduct the quantitative analysis, the 36 crowd incidents were coded for

causal linkages between change points in the crowd and various precipitating events.

Segments of the incidents were coded as causal linkages if they met the following

two criteria. First, the causal linkage had to consist of two parts, a situational event

or cue (e.g. crowd member threw a rock, security forces arrived on the scene, etc.) fol-

lowed by a resulting change point in crowd behavior or crowd demeanor (e.g. crowd

members grew angrier, crowd members drew closer to the security forces, crowd

became louder). Second, the causal relationship between the two parts had to be appar-

ent either by proximity in the incident (the events obviously followed each other

sequentially in the narrative) or by the presence of transitional phrases (e.g. because,

so, then, as a result). In all, 136 triggers and 157 crowd changes were identiﬁed.

Speciﬁc triggers could not be identiﬁed for 21 of the crowd changes. The data were

then further reduced to include only the security force triggering events, coded as

those that would be construed by crowd members as challenges to honor by escalation

of force, and those that would be construed as preserving honor by generating under-

standing or exhibiting restraint. Also, crowd change points were classiﬁed in terms of

whether they signiﬁed an increase or decrease in the overall level of conﬂict. The orig-

inal coding was conducted by two raters who worked collaboratively and decided codes

by consensus. Another rater coded the ﬁnal events independently to assess reliability.

The percentage agreement between for security forces triggers was 94%, and agreement

was 96% for crowd reactions.

A cross-tabulation of these results is displayed in Table 1. As can be seen, escalation

of force against the crowd led to an increase in the level of conﬂict more often than not

(62%), whereas attempting to understand the crowd or exhibiting restraint was much

less likely to lead to an increase in conﬂict (29%). The association between the kind

of security force actions and crowd change points was statistically signiﬁcant,

(1)

¼8.57, p¼0.003.

Summary

In Study 1, we elicited experiences involving crowds in the Middle East, and analyzed

themes across the incidents. Interpretations of the data were guided by a version of the

Social Identity Model, extended to account for considerations of honor. We found

support for core model assumptions, such as rational, goal-driven crowd member

decisions, increased self-efﬁcacy following crowd participation, and speciﬁc links

between culturally deﬁned social relations and actions. Elements of honor as reﬂected

in the social identities were found as well. We further examined the concept of honor as

providing an important basis for potential conﬂict, as well as conﬂict resolution

between security forces and crowd members that may be pertinent to understanding

Table 1. Crowd change points by security force actions.

Increased conﬂict Decreased conﬂict

Force escalation 16 10

Understanding, restraint 9 22

W.R. Sieck et al.10

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

crowd violence in the Middle East. The ﬁndings suggest that violent crowd reactions

are especially likely to occur when crowd members construe security force actions as

affronts to their honor. However, if the members of the security force act in ways

that preserve the honor of crowd members, crowd tensions are more likely to be

defused.

The results from Study 1 provided encouraging support for assumptions of a version

of the Social Identity Model that takes into account considerations of honor. Yet, the

extent to which honor factors into Middle Eastern crowd member decisions remains

somewhat ambiguous, given that the study was conducted with a single culture. A

more controlled, cross-cultural comparison would be helpful in further delineating

the effects of honor. Study 2 provides such a comparison by drawing on the implication

from Study 1 that crowd member action depends on how the relevant social identities

are construed.

Study 2: expected crowd reactions in the Middle East

The purpose of Study 2 was to determine whether and in what ways Middle Eastern

civilians and US military personnel arrive at different understandings of Middle

Eastern crowd behavior. The general idea follows from a conception of culture as a

shared symbolic meaning system, which implies that an important aim of cultural

research is to understand the point of view of members of the culture (Rohner, 1984;

Sieck, 2011). In the present case of crowds in the Middle East, the idea is to understand

the causal maps people use to interpret speciﬁc situations and formulate expectations

about how events will unfold. In particular, if Middle Easterners have a greater ten-

dency to frame social events in terms of honor and respect than the Americans, then

they would be more likely to form expectations that Arab crowd participants would

respond positively to signs of respect on the one hand, and also that they would be

more likely to anticipate a hostile backlash by crowd members in response to escalation

by members of the security forces.

In order to conduct the study, we adapted an approach that has been employed by

cognitive anthropologists and cognitive psychologists to study causal beliefs in a

variety of settings, such as those related to disease onset and treatment, and inﬂuences

of rainforest plants and animals on each other, among others (Atran, Medin, & Ross,

2005; Garro, 2000). For example, in a study examining the cultural knowledge and

understandings relating to diabetes causation in a Native American community, partici-

pants were asked to describe possible causes, effects and ways of dealing with diabetes

(Garro, 2000). In Study 2, we used a similar approach, but with an emphasis on under-

standing how people with different cultural backgrounds interpret social situations,

including their expected reactions to various kinds of behavior. Speciﬁcally, we exam-

ined causal beliefs concerning crowd reactions to various possible security force

actions, as well as more general beliefs concerning appropriate roles and goals of secur-

ity forces in speciﬁc crowd situations in the Middle East. Participants read a brief vign-

ette describing a crowd event (based on an actual incident collected in Study 1). After

reading the scenario, the participants were interviewed to elicit their beliefs about the

roles of each group, and expectations about security force actions and crowd

member behavior. Interview topics included their perceptions of the purpose of the

crowd, security force actions and goals, crowd member actions and goals, and

actions that would calm or inﬂame the crowd. A questionnaire was also administered

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 11

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

in which participants indicated their expectations regarding crowd member responses to

various security force actions.

Method

Participants

Thirty people participated in Study 2. There were two categories of participants: US

soldiers who participated in a training exercise at the Joint Readiness Training

Center in Ft Polk, LA, USA (n¼14); and Middle Eastern ex-patriot civilians living

in Dearborn, MI, USA (n¼16). The Middle Eastern civilians were identiﬁed by pro-

fessional recruiters who engaged local community centers, social networks and existing

panels. Selection criteria were that interviewees had to have been born and raised in the

Middle East, have participated in at least one demonstration in the region and be at least

18 years of age. Most of these participants were from Iraq (62%) and Lebanon (30%),

with the remainder from Syria and Saudi Arabia. The soldiers in Study 2 were identiﬁed

through their participation in the training exercise, and unlike the military participants

in Study 1, did not have extensive ﬁeld experience or special Middle Eastern cultural

knowledge. Study 2 data collection was conducted in the summer of 2007.

Interview guide

Structured scenario-based interviews were conducted for Study 2. At the beginning of each

interview, participants read a brief scenario describing a crowd event that occurred in the

Middle East, and then they were asked speciﬁc questions about their expectations for secur-

ity force and crowd member actions and goals. Two different scenarios were used in this

study, ‘Tires on Fire’ and ‘Bank Robbery’ (see below). Both of these scenarios were

based on real-world incidents collected in Study 1, and they were tailored to be appropriate

for the relevant participant population. The US military versions are shown below:

Tires on ﬁre

You are the commander of a peacekeeping force in a large city of a Middle Eastern

country. You’ve just gotten word that there is a protest taking place several blocks

from where you are. When you arrive on the scene, you see that there are approximately

20 men in the street burning a pile of tires. Most of the men are relatively young – in their

mid-20s to mid-30s. They are yelling and throwing more tires on the ﬁre. You can’t make

out what they are yelling, but they appear angry. There are hundreds of other people lining

the streets watching – men and women of all ages, and children. Some are yelling, some

are cheering, and some are just observing and talking with those around them. You also

notice there are several people observing from the balconies of their homes overlooking

the street. They appear more curious than frightened.

Bank robbery

You are on patrol through the streets of a small city in a Middle Eastern country. You’ve

just received word via radio that there’s a bank robbery taking place a few blocks from

your current location. When you arrive on the scene, you enter the bank and ﬁnd a

group of people including some middle-aged men and women, and an elderly man, in

the process of a robbery. Upon showing your weapons, the robbers surrender, and you

begin to remove the men from the bank one-by-one, ﬂexicuff them, and place them on

the sidewalk face-down. With each robber you bring out, you notice a crowd of onlookers

growing outside the bank. At ﬁrst the crowd appears relatively small, quiet, and curious.

Yet it becomes larger and more vocal as you continue to bring out the robbers ...

W.R. Sieck et al.12

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

particularly when you bring out the women and the elderly man. By the time you’ve

brought out all the prisoners, there are several crowd members ﬂailing their arms and

yelling. But you can’t make out what they’re saying.

After reading a scenario, participants were asked questions about their perceptions of

the security force actions and goals, crowd member actions and goals, and actions

that would calm or inﬂame the crowd. The purpose of these questions was to elicit

the participants’ expectations about the causal linkages between security force

actions and crowd member behavior. The interview guides varied slightly for military

and civilian interviews. Once the scenario-based interviews were completed, partici-

pants responded to a questionnaire about causal linkages. The structured interview

guide was constructed by reviewing the incidents from Study 1 to identify speciﬁc

security force actions and crowd member responses. This initial list of security force

actions was reduced to the following 12 actions:

.negotiate with crowd leaders;

.entertain crowd members;

.remove helmets and armor;

.speak some amount of arabic;

.answers their questions;

.stand by and monitor the crowd;

.yell at the crowd members;

.ﬁre a warning shot;

.strike a member of the crowd with a blunt weapon;

.push the crowd members back;

.create a barrier or a blockade;

.remove certain crowd members from the scene.

Five types of crowd member responses were also included:

.crowd dispersal or advancement;

.changes in the level of crowd member violent actions;

.changes in the level of crowd member agitation;

.changes in crowd member attitudes towards the United States;

.changes in the level of destruction.

Each security force action was paired once with each crowd member response. For each

pair, the participant was asked whether the crowd member behavior or attitude will

increase, decrease or stay the same. Two example questions are:

.If US security forces strike a member of the crowd with a blunt weapon, are the

other crowd members more likely to

(a) increase their level of violence;

(b) decrease their level of violence;

.If US security forces speak some Arabic to the crowd members, are they more

likely to

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 13

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

(a) have favorable attitudes towards the United States;

(b) have unfavorable attitudes towards the United States;

Procedure

The US military participants were interviewed during a break in a training exercise

being held at the Joint Readiness Training Center, Ft Polk, LA, USA. The Middle

Eastern civilian participants were interviewed individually in a focus group facility

in Dearborn, MI, USA. The structured interviews lasted for approximately 1 hour.

Analysis and results

Scenario interview

We concentrated analysis on security force goals and actions, and crowd responses to

those actions to identify differences between US security forces and Middle Eastern

crowd participants. We focused on these areas as they were most relevant to our

hypotheses concerning the effects of the value of honor on causal beliefs. Also, note

that the ﬁrst category pertains to simple ﬁrst-order beliefs, whereas the second category

explicitly addresses beliefs about a particular causal relationship (i.e. actions 

inﬂammation). We analyzed the interviews in several phases, moving from a very

qualitative examination of the data that preserved the individual structure of each par-

ticipant’s utterances to an increasingly quantitative characterization of the data. The

phases of analysis were as follows:

1. We reviewed each interview in depth and created a graphical representation of

each interviewee’s causal belief structures in a format that preserved their own

language and ideas.

2. We abstracted a common set of categories to capture the ideas across individuals.

We used the complete set of categories to develop a single graphical framework

to represent the causal belief structures.

3. Each of the interviews was coded in terms of the common categories using the

graphical framework to represent their causal beliefs.

The descriptions of security force goals and actions were especially rich and complex,

and we wanted to ensure adequate inter-rater reliability. Hence, we employed multidi-

mensional scaling methods to the set of descriptions so as to reduce the complexity in a

meaningful way for the quantitative analyses. In particular, we ﬁrst reduced each rel-

evant statement to a several-word phrase (e.g. stop people from getting hurt). Many

of these naturally mapped onto the same descriptors (e.g. stop tire burning, end tire

burning in a safe way), but others differed from one another to a greater or lesser

extent. Doing this produced a total of 46 unique phrases to categorize. We then

wrote each phrase on a separate slip of paper, and gave the slips to four independent

raters with familiarity with the topic area. Raters were instructed to sort these slips

into categories of descriptors that had the same or highly similar meanings. Based on

these groupings, we computed a similarity matrix for the descriptors that described

how many raters placed each pair of descriptors in the same category. We then per-

formed a hierarchical clustering analysis to determine whether or not the two

W.R. Sieck et al.14

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

descriptors tended to be placed in the same category across raters. The ﬁnal set of cat-

egories resulting from this analysis is presented in Table 2.

US security force (US SF) and Middle Eastern crowd participants (ME CP) differed

in their expectation of security force goals in some interesting ways (see Figure 1). For

US security forces, 25% of their expected goals and actions focused on controlling the

situation and securing the safety of the US security forces. They would accomplish

these goals by keeping the crowd at a distance or dispersing them, and enlisting the

help of the local police so the security force can leave the scene. Next, US security

force goals and actions had to do with crowd emotion (15%) and keeping the

crowds calm. In contrast, Middle Eastern crowd participants expected the security

force to focus on crowd safety (20%), and increasing understanding of why the

crowd was forming (14%).

In addition to the differences in goals, we also found differences in causal beliefs

about the actions that might backﬁre and unintentionally inﬂame the crowd. Figure 2

clearly shows that US security forces and Middle Eastern crowd participants have

different ideas regarding actions that can unintentionally inﬂame a crowd. US security

forces are worried about communicating with the crowd in a way that would inﬂame

them (56%), such as drawing attention by using an interpreter to ask questions, not

answering a question or comment, or having a translator make a command. In contrast,

Middle Eastern crowd participants were most worried about escalation of physical force

Table 2. Categories of security force goals/actions resulting from multidimensional scaling

methods analysis.

Category

number Category name Speciﬁc security force goals/actions

1 Remove instigators Stop tire burning; end tire burning in a safe way;

protect bank; deal with robbers; remove robbers

2 Increase understanding

of situation

Talk to families; understand why gathering;

understand culture

3 Secure situations/forces Secure location; control situation; control own

forces; keep crowd at a distance; punish them;

security of forces; leave the scene; do not get

separated; get Iraqi police involved; disperse

crowd

4 Improve long-term

attitudes

Peace in area; prevent negative attitudes; do not

increase anti-United States attitudes; help

population; maintain credibility

5 Protect safety of crowd Safety; keep onlookers safe; protect women and

children; keep everyone safe; stop people from

getting hurt

6 Manage crowd emotion Keep crowd calm; calm crowd; do not get crowd

angry

7 Diffuse tension Minimize threat; reduce destruction; no hostility;

diffuse tension; maintain peace

8 Reduce violence Reduce violence; decrease violence; quell violence;

prevent violence

9 Prevent escalation Prevent joining; keep mob from forming; prevent

escalation; no escalation; avoid escalation; prevent

riot

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 15

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

inﬂaming the crowd (52%), such as hitting innocent people, pushing crowd members or

ﬁring a warning shot.

Questionnaire

In order to analyze expectations based on the questionnaire responses, we ﬁrst calcu-

lated (for each participant) the proportion of times the participant reported an expected

Figure 1. US Security Force (US SF) and Middle Eastern crowd participant (ME CP) expec-

tations about security force goals.

Figure 2. US Security Force (US SF) and Middle Eastern crowd participant (ME CP) expec-

tations about security force actions that unintentionally inﬂame crowds.

W.R. Sieck et al.16

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

increase or decrease in conﬂict, given that security personnel engaged in force escala-

tion behaviors or behaviors signifying understanding and restraint. We then used t-tests

to compare each of these subject-level measures between the Middle Easterners and

Americans. Middle Eastern participants were more likely, on average, to expect

decreases in conﬂict following behaviors signifying understanding or restraint than

the American participants, t(28) ¼2.54, p,0.05 (M

¼0.56; M

¼0.38, respect-

ively). No other effects were signiﬁcant. In particular, expectations for increases in con-

ﬂict following force escalation did not differ signiﬁcantly, with both groups tending to

expect such increases (M

¼0.54; M

¼0.60, respectively).

As described earlier, Study 2 was motivated in part by a conception of culture as

comprising shared meanings. From this perspective, it is useful to consider analyses

that can inform us directly about various clusters of shared meaning that exist within

the data, enabling us to examine ‘cultures’ directly, rather than relying on demographics

as a proxy for culture. Hence, we employed a statistical technique called ‘ﬁnite mixture

modeling’ to further analyze the questionnaire data (McLachlan & Peel, 2000). Finite

mixture modeling is an approach that permits direct segmentation of cultural groups

based on clusters of consensus (Mueller & Veinott, 2008; Sieck & Mueller, 2009;

Sieck, Rasmussen, & Smart, 2010). Mixture models have been applied in many scien-

tiﬁc ﬁelds. In cultural modeling applications, the distinct segments resulting from the

analysis represent cultural groups, i.e. groups deﬁned by the similarity of their ideas,

and hence the technique has sometimes been referred to as ‘cultural mixture modeling’

in this application area.

Cultural mixture modeling begins by deﬁning a statistical likelihood model (i.e. a

generative model) by which we assume data and errors arise. It then asks the question,

‘How many groups of people with shared beliefs generated the observed data’. Along

with the ability to test whether a consensus exists among a set of respondents, the pro-

cedure can also determine if multiple shared beliefs exist, and identify the different

groups or clusters of respondents.

We investigated two distinct models for this analysis: a binomial model and a strong

agreement model. The binomial model used one parameter to account for each

response, which was the place value of a binomial distribution with N¼2. The

strong consensus model simply assumed that the ‘correct’ response was given with p

¼1–2

, and each of the incorrect responses was given with p¼

. By applying cul-

tural mixture modeling, the binomial response model determined that there was a con-

sensus among the different groups of respondents (2BIC ¼5588). For all numbers of

groups investigated, the solution defaulted to a single group containing 30 respondents

and the remaining groups were empty. This was achieved because the binomial

response model is quite forgiving and able to account for fairly wide variability

among respondents. We applied the strong consensus model with three values of

In contrast, the strong consensus model found no consensus in any of the conditions,

with the number of obtained groups varying from 10 (for

¼0.01, 2BIC ¼6373)

to 5 (for

¼0.05; 2BIC ¼4901) to 3 (for

¼0.1, 2BIC ¼4331). Across the

set of models, the smallest BIC value was obtained for the weakest strong consensus

model (

¼0.1) for three groups (see Figure 3). Each group represents a set of consen-

sus beliefs that is distinct from the other two groups. Hence, we refer to these emergent

groups from the analysis as cultural groups.

Table 3 shows how the US security force and Middle Eastern civilian populations

are distributed among the three cultural groups. Table 3 implies that there is a partial

consensus in causal beliefs about security force interactions with crowds that includes

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 17

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

both US security force and Middle Eastern crowd members (about 50% of the members

of each population). The remaining members of the populations appear to form two

‘splinter’ groups that are formed primarily of Middle Eastern or US participants, and

that hold ideas that diverge from the overall consensus.

With the cultural groups identiﬁed, the next step in the analysis was to characterize

the consensual beliefs for each group, and to examine the differences between them. A

summary of the strong consensual beliefs for each group is presented in Table 4. As

shown, the members of the ‘mixed consensus’ group believe that striking crowd

members will most likely result in increased violence, destruction and agitation

(VDA), whereas communication in various forms is likely to decrease VDA or increase

positive attitudes towards the United States. The primary difference between the

‘Middle Eastern splinter’ group is the inclusion of a slightly broader set of escalated

force actions as likely to increase VDA, and the shared belief that more of the forms

of communication will lead to a reduction in VDA. More strikingly different is the

‘US splinter’ group, who share beliefs that communicating with the crowd in various

ways is unlikely to have beneﬁcial effects, either in reducing VDA or in generating

positive attitudes towards the United States. In general, this group appears to hold

fairly pessimistic beliefs about successfully managing crowds; they tend to see

actions as increasing VDA, decreasing positive attitudes or having no effect on the

situation.

Summary

The purpose of Study 2 was to identify differences between American security force

members and Middle Eastern crowd participants with respect to how they interpret

Figure 3. Fit and number of groups from cultural mixture modeling.

Table 3. Distribution of country of origin across three groups.

US security force Middle Eastern civilian

A8 7

B3 6

C5 1

W.R. Sieck et al.18

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

Table 4. Strong consensual beliefs for each cultural group.

Group

Dominant

population

Increase violence/

destruction/agitation

(V/D/A)

Decrease

V/D/A

No effect on

V/D/A

Increase positive

attitude towards

United States

Decrease positive

attitude towards

United States

No effect

on attitudes

A Mixed Strike Answer

questions

Remove CM Speak

Arabic

Negotiate

Warning shots

B Middle

Eastern

Strike

Yell

Remove CM

Speak

Arabic

Negotiate

Answer

questions

Entertain

Remove

helmet

Stand by

C US Remove helmet

Push

Yell

Barriers

Warning

shots

Entertain

Negotiate

Warning

shots

Barriers

Yell

Push

Strike

Speak

Arabic

Answer

questions

Note: CM - crowd member

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 19

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

crowd situations. The scenario interview portion of Study 2 indicated several differ-

ences in beliefs about security force goals, and security force actions that would

inﬂame the situation. Speciﬁcally, the Americans tended to believe that security

force goals should be to control the situation and disperse the crowd, whereas the

Middle Eastern crowd participants expected that primary security force goals should

be to keep the crowd safe. Also, the Americans tended to expect that communication

with the crowd would be most likely to lead to unintentional violent responses,

whereas the Middle Easterners tended to expect that force escalation would be the

most likely unintentional cause of hostile crowd responses. In Study 2, we also used

mixture modeling to quantitatively assess American and Middle Eastern causal

beliefs as reported in a questionnaire. Consistent with the scenario interviews, the

results revealed important differences in how American security force and Middle

Eastern crowd members understand crowd situations. A primary point of divergence

is in US and Middle Eastern understanding of the effects of communicating with the

crowd. In particular, there was a consensus among Middle Easterners that US security

force communication with crowd members is beneﬁcial, whereas the Americans tended

not to expect useful effects from attempts to communicate with Middle Eastern crowd

members.

Discussion

In this paper, we examined the Social Identity Model of crowd behavior, as compared

with notions of de-individuation and ‘mindless violence’, and showed that it can be use-

fully extended to apply to Middle Eastern crowds (Reicher, 1996). In the past, it has

only been applied in cases where all actors originate from a single Western culture.

Here, we elaborated the model to account for the role of honor in social identities

and relations, and examined the correspondence between key assumptions of the elabo-

rated model and experiences from Middle Eastern crowds.

The Social Identity Model assumes that crowd participants are rational decision-

makers focused on shared goals who consider actions as possible and legitimate

based in large part on their perceived position in a set of social relations. Honor rep-

resents a shared value that accompanies tangible goals, and tends to weigh heavily in

those decision processes. At the group level, accomplishment of crowd goals leads

to increased self-efﬁcacy among crowd members that is closely associated with gains

in group honor. At the individual level, honor involves the assertion of one’s public

image, and that image becomes highly accentuated among the in-group of fellow

crowd members. Hence, crowd membership affords an important opportunity to

prove oneself and accrue honor, particularly in cases involving social relations that

are construed as hostile between in-group crowd members and security forces.

Further, the degree of honor gained increases with the extent of risk to physical

safety, such as by crowd members aggressively confronting heavily armed security

who take an adversarial position. Finally, rational assessment combined with the

value of honor implies that direct displays of respect towards crowd members can

reduce tension and prevent violence. In such situations, crowd members are provided

with the opportunity to gain honor without having to trade-off risk.

Study 1 drew on actual experiences of crowd members in the Middle East to test

assumptions of the elaborated model. The results showed that Middle Eastern crowd

members made rational assessments, exhibited goal-directed behavior and were

willing to accept considerable risk to achieve goals shared by the crowd. Experiences

W.R. Sieck et al.20

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

also indicated increased self-efﬁcacy after accomplishing crowd goals. The results

revealed important linkages between peoples’ dynamic models of social relations

and ensuing permissible actions in the crowd context. For example, we found that

Middle East crowd members and security forces actively discussed and debated the

nature of their social positions and relations, and relied on the resulting construals to

deﬁne appropriate actions. Finally, quantitative coding of crowd reactions to security

force actions showed that escalation of force against crowds led to an increase in the

level of conﬂict more often than not, whereas attempts to understand and communicate

with crowds or exhibit restraint tended to decrease conﬂict.

Study 2 compared reactions with crowd scenarios cross-culturally to test the

hypothesis that Middle Easterners tend to interpret crowd events in a manner consistent

with honor considerations. The results showed that American soldiers and Middle

Eastern civilians hold differing beliefs and expectations about social roles and crowd

reactions to security force actions. The American soldiers reported that the aim of secur-

ity forces would be to establish control over the situation, a stance that does not reﬂect

sensitivity to honor and that would probably lead to acts that tend to diminish it. Middle

Eastern civilians instead expected security forces to focus on crowd safety, which

would not clash with honor considerations. In addition, Middle Eastern crowd partici-

pants felt that security force communication with crowd members would reduce vio-

lence and aggression. In contrast, the American soldiers felt that attempting to

communicate with the crowd could unintentionally inﬂame them, and was unlikely

to reduce violence and destruction. However, both groups did tend to expect some

level of violent responses to force escalation. Overall, the Middle Eastern civilian

expectations were congruent with considerations of honor, as well as with the patterns

of actual experience reported in Study 1. American expectations diverged in ways

suggesting interpretations based on a different frame of reference.

The results from Study 2 also have implications for the conduct of crowd manage-

ment in peacekeeping and stability operations. As a number of authors have suggested,

an important objective in such cases is to gain the support of the populace, as well as to

ensure that civilians feel like they have a stake in the success of free, stable govern-

ments (Kilcullen, 2009). Crowd participation can provide an opportunity for civilians

to develop a collective sense of efﬁcacy, as well as conﬁdence in authorities who

support their efforts to be heard. Providing appropriate support is nontrivial,

however, and includes special challenges when security forces represent international

coalitions. Speciﬁcally, an implication of the present research is that crowd member

action depends on how the relevant social identities are construed by themselves as

well as by security forces. Knowing this can be especially difﬁcult if the crowd

members and security personnel come from different cultural backgrounds, such as

in international peacekeeping situations. In order to understand the behavior of

crowd members, one must ﬁrst be able to see the situation as the crowd members do

(Sieck, Grome, Smith, & Rababy, 2010). The difﬁculty is that a person’s construal

of a social situation and resulting expectations depend on culture-speciﬁc beliefs and

knowledge. The identiﬁcation of potential differences in interpretations that could

lead to conﬂicts in intensive intercultural crowd situations, such as described in

Study 2, provides a basis for educating international security forces on how to more

effectively support public collective action.

For such applications to be truly effective, a better understanding is required of the

extent to which the key pattern of effects should be expected to generalize. Results from

Study 2 suggest that the pattern would not be culturally universal. For example, it may

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 21

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

be that groups of protestors in the West tend to be more ideologically driven than

honor-focused, as well as guided by more well-deﬁned and rehearsed action scripts

that are less sensitive to honor affronts or appeasements. If so, we would expect to

ﬁnd that crowd reactions depend less on security force actions in Western countries

than in the Middle East. Clearly, such speculation requires empirical testing. Another

question related to the generality issue that deserves further exploration pertains to

other contextual factors that moderate crowd reactions to security force actions,

whether in the Middle East or other regions. In Study 1, for example, there were

cases where escalation of force reduced conﬂict and vice versa. Do such cases

simply attest to an inherent level of unpredictability in human behavior, or are other

aspects of the context at work, as well? A related issue is that there are likely to be

differences regarding the role of honor in crowd behavior depending on the local cul-

tures or segments of society that exist within broader regional cultures. In order to

understand locations where honor may or may not play a signiﬁcant role, it is useful

to consider a recent theory concerning the origins of cultures of honor (Henry,

2009). Henry investigated status as a key mediator linking cultures of honor to

herding subsistence patterns, which have been previously associated with honor

(Nisbett & Cohen, 1996). Speciﬁcally, Henry found that herding societies tend to be

associated with relatively large and ﬂuctuating status disparities, as well as the low-

status members of an area being especially at risk of stigma. Low-status people in

such areas thus become especially vigilant in psychological self-protection as a way

of compensating for their low status, and are especially willing to react violently to

threats to their self-esteem. If this account is essentially correct, we expect the level

of status disparity in geographic areas to indicate the likely importance of local cultures

of honor, and the extent of honor-effects on crowd behavior to vary with the local

degree of status disparity. Again, this presents an area for further investigation and

empirical testing.

Perhaps the most important ﬁndings of the current study are the results indicating

that direct displays of respect can reduce conﬂict in Middle Eastern crowd situations.

According to the theory, such displays enable rational crowd members to accrue

honor while avoiding risks associated with violent confrontation. The idea that interper-

sonal violence might be defused by imparting intangible values of respect, worth and

dignity has been explored in broader contexts (Henry, 2009; Kelman, 2007). In addition

to the supporting incidents and other ﬁndings reported here, it is also useful to consider

contemporary events that point towards the same conclusion. The popular uprisings

that have been spreading across the Middle East during the writing of this article

yield many illustrations of reduced tensions following signs of mutual respect, as

well as violent confrontation in response to attempted suppression (Fahim & Stack,

2011; Kulish & Mekhennet, 2011). The Egyptian protests, for example, are remarkable

in remaining fairly peaceful, relative to the sheer size, magnitude of the goals, and

intensity of commitment displayed to those goals on all sides.

The ﬁndings of the

current study indicate that respectful, afﬁrming gestures between protestors and sol-

diers, such as giving ﬂowers, sharing water and taking pictures, were extremely impor-

tant in fostering (relatively) peaceful protests. Such small moments occurred several

times in between ﬁghting early on, even before the largest afﬁrmation on the part of

the military, in their declaration that the protestors had a right to peaceful, free

expression (Kirkpatrick, 2011).

In the Egyptian case, the protests ultimately resulted in regime change and the

detainment of the former leader, Mr Mubarak, giving some other governments in the

W.R. Sieck et al.22

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

region considerable incentive to violently repress the popular uprisings they are facing

(Slackman & El-Naggar, 2011). At the moment, it remains unclear as to how such

tactics will play out in individual countries. The studies reported here suggest the

value of an alternative approach for the long term, however. The current ﬁndings

have served to validate the application and elaboration of the Social Identity Model

of crowd behavior to Middle Eastern populations. The model implies that successful

crowd participation gives rise to an increased sense of self-efﬁcacy that persists

beyond the speciﬁc event. Supporting the right to organize and participate in peaceful

demonstrations and protests, along with ensuring that security members proactively

treat crowd members with respect, is thereby expected to reduce the chance and mag-

nitude of violence over the long term, as well as in the immediate moment. Such a strat-

egy increases stability by enabling more frequent, lower-intensity collective actions to

provide some measured level of reform to moderate governments, rather than resisting

the public voice until rare, yet devastating, revolutionary strife ensues with far more

drastic consequences.

Acknowledgments

This research was sponsored by the US Air Force Research Laboratory under contract FA8650-

05-C-6549. The studies reported here were approved by an Independent Review Board. The

authors would like to thank Mohit Gohr, Rob Hutton, Helen Altman Klein, David Rababy

(and his family), Louise Rasmussen and Tom Theaux for assistance with the research, as well

as Małgorzata Kossowska, Justin Sinclair, Daniel Antonius and two anonymous referees for

their feedback on an earlier version of the article.

Notes

1. A study of Afghan values attests to some of the complexities inherent in the concept and in

its associated effects on decision-making (Sieck, Javidan, Osland, & Rasmussen, 2011).

Although honor was found to be a fundamental Afghan value with widespread importance,

there were subtle differences in interpretation of honor between groups within Afghanistan.

Furthermore, honor was sometimes ‘trumped’ by other values in speciﬁc contexts,

especially by the second most important reported value of status. The semantic relationships

between honor and other values were found to be quite complex.

2. The many political intricacies inﬂuencing these demonstrations are beyond the scope of the

current paper.

Notes on contributors

Winston R. Sieck is founder and president of Global Cognition, a research and training devel-

opment organization located in Yellow Springs, OH, USA. His areas of specialization include

culture and cognition, metacognition, cross-cultural competence and cognitive skills/expertise.

He received his PhD in cognitive psychology from the University of Michigan, and MA in stat-

istics from the same university.

Jennifer L. Smith is a doctoral candidate in the Applied Social Psychology Program at Loyola

University Chicago, and holds an MA from the same program. She received a BA in Psychology

from Kenyon College, Gambier, OH, USA. Her research focuses on self-regulatory processes,

including strategies used to defend the self against threatening information.

Anna P. Grome is a cognitive scientist at Applied Research Associates. She conducts applied

research in the areas of multinational teamwork, cross-cultural collaboration, performance

improvement and organizational change. Ms Grome has signiﬁcant experience collecting data

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 23

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

from a variety of populations using Cognitive Task Analysis interviews. She received her MS in

industrial and organizational psychology from Wright State University.

Elizabeth Veinott is a cognitive scientist at ARA. Her research areas include trust, inﬂuence

across cultures, communication, social interaction, group cohesiveness, social media and

decision-making. She received her PhD in cognitive psychology from the University of Michi-

gan, and an MS in industrial/organizational psychology from San Francisco State University.

Shane T. Mueller is a professor of psychology at Michigan Technical University. He investi-

gates human cognitive, perceptual, and memory systems using empirical, computational, math-

ematical and statistical techniques. He developed cultural mixture modeling, a method to

identify cultural consensus and multiple cultures of belief within a population. He received

his PhD in cognitive psychology from the University of Michigan.

References

Abou Zeid, A. (1965). Honour and shame among the Bedouins of Egypt. In J.G. Peristiany

(Ed.), Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (pp. 244 –259). London:

Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Atran, S., Medin, D.L., & Ross, N.O. (2005). The cultural mind: Environmental decision

making and cultural modeling within and across populations. Psychological Review,

112(4), 744–776.

Bourdieu, P. (1965). The sentiment of honour in Kabyle society. In J. Peristiany (Ed.), Honour

and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (pp. 193 –241). London: Weidenfeld and

Nicolson.

Cohen, D., Nisbett, R., Bowdle, B., & Schwarz, N. (1996). Insult, aggression, and the Southern

culture of honor. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,70(5), 945 –960.

Couch, C.J. (1968). Collective behavior: An examination of some stereotypes. Social Problems,

15(3), 310–322.

Drury, J., & Reicher, S. (1999). The intergroup dynamics of collective empowerment:

Substantiating the social identity model of crowd behavior. Group Processes &

Intergroup Relations,2, 381–402.

Drury, J., & Reicher, S. (2000). Collective action and psychological change: The emergence of

new social identities. British Journal of Social Psychology,39, 579 –604.

Fahim, K., & Stack, L. (2011, January 27). Protesters in Egypt defy ban as government cracks

down. The New York Times, p. A10.

Feghali, E. (1997). Arab cultural communication patterns. International Journal of Intercultural

Relations,21(3), 345–378.

Flanagan, J.C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin,51, 327 – 358.

Garro, L.C. (2000). Remembering what one knows and the construction of the past: A compari-

son of cultural consensus theory and cultural schema theory. Ethos,28(3), 275–319.

Gregg, G.S. (2005). The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology. New York: Oxford University

Press.

Henry, P.J. (2009). Low-status compensation: A theory for understanding the role of status in

cultures of honor. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,97(3), 451 –466.

Hoffman, R.R., Crandall, B.W., & Shadbolt, N.R. (1998). Use of the critical decision method to

elicit expert knowledge: A case study in cognitive task analysis methodology. Human

Factors,40(2), 254–276.

Kelman, H.C. (2007). The Israeli –Palestinian peace process and its vicissitudes: Insights from

attitude theory. American Psychologist,62, 287–303.

Kilcullen, D. (2009). The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One.

Oxford: Oxford Univesity Press.

Kirkpatrick, D.D. (2011, February 1). Mubarak’s grip on power is shaken. The New York Times,

p. A1.

Kulish, N., & Mekhennet, S. (2011, January 29). In Alexandria, protesters rout the police, for

now. The New York Times, p. A12.

Le Bon, G. (1947). The crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. London: Ernest Benn.

McLachlan, G.J., & Peel, D. (2000). Finite Mixture Models. New York: Wiley.

W.R. Sieck et al.24

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

Moracco, J. (1983). Some correlates of the Arab character. Psychology: A Journal of Human

Behavior,20, 47–54.

Mueller, S.T., & Veinott, E.S. (2008). Cultural mixture modeling: Identifying cultural consen-

sus (and disagreement) using ﬁnite mixture modeling. Paper presented at the Cognitive

Science Society, Washington, DC.

Nisbett, R., & Cohen, D. (1996). Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South.

Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Patai, R. (2002). The Arab Mind. Long Island: Hatherleigh Press.

Peristiany, J.G. (Ed.). (1965). Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society.

London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Prentice-Dunn, S., & Rogers, R.W. (1982). Effects of public and private self-awareness on dein-

dividuation and aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,39, 104 –113.

Reicher, S. (1996). Social identity and social change: Rethinking the context of social psychol-

ogy. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Social Identity: Developing the Legacy of Henri Tajfel. London:

Butterworth.

Rohner, R.P. (1984). Toward a conception of culture for cross-cultural psychology. Journal of

Cross-Cultural Psychology,15(2), 111 –138.

Sieck, W.R. (2011). A cultural models approach for investigating the cognitive basis of terror-

ism. Journal of Terrorism Research,2(1), 3 –15.

Sieck, W.R., Grome, A.P., Smith, J., & Rababy, D.A. (2010). Expert cultural sensemaking in the

management of Middle Eastern crowds. In K.L. Mosier & U.M. Fischer (Eds.), Informed by

Knowledge: Expert Performance in Complex Situations. Abingdon: Taylor and Francis.

Sieck, W.R., & Mueller, S.T. (2009). Cultural variations in collaborative decision making:

Driven by beliefs or social norms? Proceedings of the International Workshop on

Intercultural Collaboration (pp. 111 –118), Palo Alto, CA.

Sieck, W.R., Javidan, M., Osland, J., & Rasmussen, L.J. (2011). Honor and integrity in Afghan

decision making. Manuscript in preparation.

Sieck, W.R., McHugh, A.P., & Smith, J.L. (2006). Use of cognitive ﬁeld research methods to

investigate cultural groups. In R. Sun & N. Miyake (Eds.), Proceedings of the 28th

Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2164 – 2168). Mahwah, NJ:

Lawrence Erlbaum.

Sieck, W.R., Rasmussen, L.J., & Smart, P. (2010). Cultural network analysis: A cognitive

approach to cultural modeling. In D. Verma (Ed.), Network Science for Military

Coalition Operations: Information Extraction and Interaction (pp. 237 – 255). Hershey,

PA: IGI Global.

Slackman, M., & El-Naggar, M. (2011, April 28). Embattled Arab leaders decide it’s better to

ﬁght than quit. The New York Times, p. A11.

Stott, C., & Drury, J. (2000). Crowds, context and identity: Dynamic categorization processes in

the ‘poll tax riot’. Human Relations,53(2), 247 –273.

Worth, R.F. (2006). Kurds destroy shrine in rage at leadership. The New York Times. p. A1.

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 25

Downloaded by [Winston Sieck] at 22:06 19 October 2011

Training for sociocultural forecasting

Chapter

Full-text available

Sep 2014

Winston R. Sieck

Scientific disciplines across the board have struggled with the challenge of anticipating the future. From early predictions of the positions of planets to modern meteorological forecasting systems, humans have witnessed ongoing improvements in the ability to foresee events. Forecasting within the sociocultural sphere is no exception. Although many scientists are highly skeptical about the ultimate prospects of forecasting phenomena in the area of human social cultural behavior with any quantification or precision, others continue to plod along, making small gains along the way. Research programs that make any attempt to improve forecasting are highly susceptible to being labeled as failures, at least in part because they are plagued from the outset by unrealistic expectations of what they can accomplish in the short term. There is, however, a large difference between only being able to make a measured amount of real progress in the short term, and being unable to achieve anything at all. This chapter describes the current state of the science and technology related to training in sociocultural forecasting, and identifies gaps that research should address to develop capabilities for application in operational settings.

Effects of deindividuating situational cues and aggressive models on subjective deindividuation and aggression

Article

Full-text available

Jul 1980

Demonstrated that a subjective state of deindividuation mediates the effect of deindividuating situational cues on aggression displayed by small groups of coacting aggressors. 72 male university students were instructed to administer shocks to another person in what they thought were studies of biofeedback and behavior modification. The deindividuated state was composed of 2 factors, Self-Awareness and Altered Experiencing, both of which had a causal influence on aggressive behavior. These data are interpreted in terms of deindividuation theories that assume that certain input variables reduce self-awareness and concern about social evaluation and thereby weaken the restraints against expressing antisocial behavior. As predicted, compared with a no-model control condition, a high-aggressive model disinhibited overt displays of aggression, whereas a low-aggressive model inhibited aggression among both individuated and deindividuated group members. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

A Cultural Models Approach for Investigating the Cognitive Basis of Terrorism

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2011

Winston R. Sieck

Terrorists attempt to communicate specific aspects of their ideological frameworks to shape the common perspective of their intended audiences. For the approach to be successful, the ideas they are promoting must fit within the cultural meaning systems shared across the population they are addressing. Knowing what messages will effectively persuade their constituents is likely intuitive for terrorists operating within their own cultural environment, but not necessarily for researchers who come from distinct cultural backgrounds. A method is thus described for studying in detail the common perspective that members of a culture bring to a situation. The method results in models of the culture that provide a basis for outsiders to begin to frame events from the cultural-insider point of view. The cultural models can then be used as an aid to anticipate how messages will be interpreted and evaluated by terrorists and their audiences.

Crowds, context and identity: Dynamic categorization processes in the 'poll tax riot'

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2000

Reicher has recently developed the social identity model of crowd behaviour based on self-categorization theory (SCT). This model begins to tackle the thorny theoretical problems posed by the dynamic nature of crowd action (Reicher, 1996b). The present paper describes an ethnographic study of a crowd event in which there were changes in the inter-group relationships over time. It is suggested that the laboratory evidence in support of SCT is complemented by ethnographic research of this type. By exploring situations in which definitions of context and/or categories are not purposefully manipulated, we can demonstrate the explanatory power of a dynamic and interactive approach to social categorization.

Toward a Conception of Culture for Cross-Cultural Psychology

Article

Full-text available

Jun 1984

Ronald Preston Rohner

The concept "culture" in cross-cultural psychology remains largely unexamined theoretically, and is often undifferentiated from other core behavioral science concepts such as "social system" and "society." As a result, the theoretical usefulness and research value of these constructs have been diminished seriously. In order to provide the beginnings of a theory of "culture" for heuristic use in cross-cultural psychology, an attempt is made in this article first, to differentiate conceptually, and second, to interrelate the packaged variables of "culture," "social system," and "society." The intent of this article is to promote the framework for shared understanding about culture and its relation to the other core concepts discussed here, and hence to initiate a dialogue within cross-cultural psychology about the utility of the conceptualization.

The Intergroup Dynamics of Collective Empowerment: Substantiating the Social Identity Model of Crowd Behavior

Article

Full-text available

Oct 1999

Recent accounts of collective action highlight the importance of psychological empowerment, but conceptualize it simply as a precondition for such action. By contrast, the social identity model (Reicher, 1996, 1997; Stott, 1996) suggests that empowerment is a product as well as a precondition of collective action. However, existing research on the social identity model has merely inferred the emergence of feelings of power rather than shown it empirically. This paper describes a study of a town hall anti-poll tax demonstration, using interviews, written accounts, newspaper accounts, and video evidence. The principal source consisted of interviews with 29 protesters which were subjected to thematic analysis to identify (i) whether and to what extent empowerment took place in the crowd; (ii) features of the intergroup relationship responsible for any such empowerment; and (iii) any normative limits to empowered behavior. The analysis suggests that feelings of power increased among crowd members due to the more inclusive categorization among them brought about by their perceived wholesale illegitimate exclusion from the town hall. Moreover, the empowered action of crowd members was limited by shared definitions of proper practice. The implications of these findings are discussed for studies of collective action, and it is suggested that further research along the present lines is necessary to shed more light on factors leading to the endurance and generalization of the types of empowerment found here.

Cultural variations in collaborative decision making: Driven by beliefs or social norms?

Conference Paper

Full-text available

Feb 2009

We describe a study intended to determine whether cultural variations in collaborative decision making are due to differences in beliefs about ideal collaboration processes, or are a reflection of distinct social norms. The results of a web-based survey study that included respondents from India, S. Korea, Turkey, and the U.S. were obtained using a recent statistical technique, Cultural Mixture Modeling that treats culture as an outcome of the analysis based on patterns of consensus in belief. The findings suggested that beliefs about effective collaborative decision processes have spread fairly widely among business professionals, but that typical practice rarely matches the ideal in some countries. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The Critical Incident Technique

Article

Jul 1954

John C. Flanagan

Through the use of the critical incident technique one may collect specific and significant behavioral facts, providing "… a sound basis for making inferences as to requirements… " for measures of typical performance (criteria), measures of proficiency (standard samples), training, selection and classification, job design and purification, operating procedures, equipment design, motivation and leadership (attitudes), and counseling and psychotherapy. The development, fundamental principles, present status, and uses of the critical incident technique are discussed, along with a review of studies employing the technique and suggestions for further applications.

The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology

Article

Oct 2007

Mandy Terc

Description: JMEWS is the official publication of the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies. Its purpose is to advance the fields of Middle East women’s studies, gender studies, and Middle East studies through contributions from multiple disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. Located at the cutting edge of the new scholarship in Middle East women’s studies, JMEWS provides a forum in which area-specific questions are discussed and debated among authors from the global north and south. It reflects the explosion of knowledge production about Middle Eastern women and gender over the past several decades and publishes research informed by transnational feminist, masculinity, and modern historical studies, new forms of ethnography, and the emergent intersections of science, technology, and philosophy. JMEWS provides a forum in which area-specific questions can be discussed and debated among authors from around the globe, through scholarly articles, book and film reviews, and other forms of communication. Join AMEWS and become a member, with the added benefit of a subscription, by selecting Join Society or purchase a subscription alone.

Collective Behavior: An Examination of Some Stereotypes

Article

Jan 1968

Carl J. Couch

Current conceptualizations of the acting crowd are heavily influenced by LeBon, particularly those aspects of LeBon's formulation that emphasized the pathological and bizarre nature of crowd behavior. An examination of the characteristics imputed to the crowd indicates that many of them are not empirically valid. Further, many of the characteristics assigned to crowd behavior do not differentiate it from the behavior of other social systems. Sociologists have overstressed the “cultural” factors, and de-emphasized interaction in their studies of social conduct. One consequence of this emphasis has been to look to the characteristics of crowd members to account for the behavior of crowds. It is suggested the crowd be studied as a social system.

Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South

Article

Aug 1997
J South Hist

Violent and peaceful crowd reactions in the Middle East: Cultural experiences and expectations

Abstract and Figures

Recommended publications

Turkey's Power in the Middle East and North Africa: An Assessment of the Potential and the Limits of...

The Peace Canal Project: A Multiple Conflict Resolution Perspective for the Middle East

Turkey in Search of Relevant Foreign Policy Strategy (2002-2016)

The American Vision on the Settlement of the Arab (Israeli) Conflict Under President Trump Administr...