(Stillness in the Storm Editor) The following neuroscience study analyzed the effect of social exclusion on young men, specifically looking for what effect “sacred values and isolation” had. In my view, the finding suggests that unlike what many anti-male proponents suggest, men are biologically programmed to protect aspects of society deemed sacred. Comprehending why men are driven to defend their values with violence reveals insights that we can use to better shape society for all people.
There are differences between men and women. Socially, these differences affect the social strata of society, through the individual’s value system.
Value systems are both biologically informed as well as individually discovered and socially reinforced.
The sexual and pair-bonding aspects of human life provide a mechanism for the social proliferation of values.
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Here’s how it works, according to accepted sociology.
Women are biologically encouraged to choose mates (men) based on their personal competence and social prowess. Women look to the herd, other women, and ideologues to understand what values should be active within a mate. This means that cultural trends greatly influence a woman’s value system, with respect to choosing a mate. We can understand this by looking to what type of men are regarded as high value within any given society, across history.
For example, in countless wartime examples, invading tribes or armies overcame a defensive force, which almost always results in some population of women finding the invaders sexually valuable in some capacity. This is because one way women assess the social viability of men is through feats of strength, through contest, with the victor identified as the highest value candidate.
These processes are not conscious, they are biologically impressed through ancient animalistic mechanisms embedded directly on to the body’s systems.
In summary, this means the cultural trends operating within female social strata act as a guiding mechanism for females. This means that women effectively are the keepers and promulgators of cultural values within a society because the men they chose becomes an exemplar of those values. Men who fail to embrace the values recognized by women in this regard are doomed to suffer genetic extinction—they won’t find a mate.
“He’s such a loser. What was he thinking when he did that. I know me and my friends find that kind of guy creepy, weird, or unacceptable” These are some examples of phrase women use in social circles to reinforce cultural values, within the female strata.
In response to this mechanic, men play the role of protecting the value system of a culture, the very value system that once embraced, gives them social status that translates into sexual coupling with desired female mates. In dating circles, these are called “white knights.”
For example, within some dating circles, through the influence of mass media, overly infantile, shallow, and materialistic women are regarded as high value. These values are embraced by women, who feel they must embody these things in order to climb the female social hierarchy, giving them access to the highest status males. In turn, men notice that only other males who cater to this population are able to have sex with these women. As such, the male social hierarchy, which is itself highly competitive, orients itself to meet the values of the female system. Given this, a man who’s climbed this shallow social hierarchy will engage in competitive behavior (make fun of and shame) men who don’t, thereby pushing inferior males to the bottom of the pile.
This social mechanism has operated throughout history in essentially the same way. The big difference is that today, perceived cultural values are manipulated by mass media.
Mass media promotes values in such a way that it is presumed everyone else accepts them. As a result, a kind of mass FOMO (fear of missing out) takes place—media consumption compels individuals to assume if they don’t accept these values, they’ll be socially ostracized. Therefore, the fear of loss of social status causes an artificial reorganization of individual values, which creates a positive feedback loop, reinforcing the entire system.
A sacred value, in this respect, is a value that cannot be changed or violated. More precisely, it is the perception that it can’t be violated, because to do so is to go against the grain, thereby making it socially taboo. A sacred value, for the individual, is something you better damn well protect, because if you don’t, you could be forced into the outgroup.
Hence, people defend sacred values as a method of ensuring they are indeed within a social group founded on these values. This is one reason why so much “virtue signaling” takes place online and in social arenas in general.
Men are compelled to violence and radicalization to defend these values, likely because doing so implicitly establishes them as being within the socially valuable group. For, to shame and attack those who don’t accept sacred values is to immediately establish yourself as someone who does.
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What happens when social exclusion takes place?
Both men and women are adversely affected by social exclusion. But men in particular can develop anti-social coping strategies, when there is no perceived way to regain acceptance.
Male social hierarchies are different from female in that men tend to incorporate the whole of the male population into the social strata, for the most part. That is, within a male population, the higher status males need the lower status ones around so they appear socially valuable to other men and, specifically, women.
In social systems where male hierarchies provide a mechanism for the low-status males to climb back up the ladder, radicalization is reduced. Conversely, as is demonstrated in the study below, male hierarchies that lack this total inclusion mechanism create outcasts, which results in radicalization of men.
A man who can’t find a way to get back into the most socially valuable group is doomed to suffer social exclusion. In response, extremely intense social defense mechanism kick into gear, governed by the amygdala, often resulting in a mephistophelian tragedy. In simple terms, this means that men who have been outcast have no choice but to destroy the social hierarchy altogether, as a way to regain social standing.
“If you can’t beat them, smash them to dust so you can replace them.”
From a Jungian perspective, this might be called a kind of anima possession because women are more likely to engage in total destruction methods to climb the social strata.
Evolutionarily, women need to attach themselves to a male who has social status, providing them support from the community, access to resources, and protection during child-rearing—at least this is the accepted theory in the research community of anthropologists. This theory appears to be accurate when examining the methods women employ to appear the most valuable, as compared to other women in their social group.
From a purely evolutionary perspective, women appear to maintain population balance with men and the society that supports them. That is, if there are too many women in a society, resources (social, material, communal) are limited. And therefore, other women are considered a threat, of which, total removal of the competition ensures secure access to resources.
This is why, interestingly enough, women tend to be extremely toxic and hateful to other women they perceive as social threats, as an honest examination of history will reveal.
In conclusion, these insights and findings paint a somewhat clearer picture of what an ideal society looks like.
Men, need to feel included in their society. If they don’t, they become radicals, attacking the very system that maintains order.
Women, need access to resources, and society should take great care in making the sacred value system open and inclusive, so that many different forms and varieties of social competence can be embraced, by both men and women.
DISCLAIMER: The points and opinions herein discussed draw from many sources of research and information. All is presented for your consideration. No subtle or unspoken agenda is at work. The existing beliefs about male and female roles in society, as influenced by modern-day thought, seek to pit men against women, and vice versa. My mission is to carefully examine all perspectives to see what the truth actually is. The preceding is a small slice of research in this regard, not meant to be taken as a complete picture. These topics are vast and complex, requiring a great deal of openness and intellectual honesty so as to not come to inaccurate halfcocked conclusions.
What do you think?
– Justin
(Neuroscience) A study led by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), in collaboration with other international institutions, explored the neural and behavioral relationships between sacred values, violent extremism and social exclusion in a group of young Moroccan men living and schooled in Catalonia and vulnerable to radicalization.
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by Staff Writer, August 11th, 2019
Summary: Sacred values and social isolation contribute to extremism in young men.
Source: Frontiers
Sacred values are those perceived as non-negotiable, those which must be upheld at all costs. They also contain an identity component related to perceiving the person as a member of their reference group.
The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, examined the neural substrate of sacred values in relation to ideological adherence, as well as those related to religious or national/group identity. This neural activity associated with the will to fight and die defending sacred values, as well as the effects social exclusion has over this activity, occurs in the left inferior frontal gyrus, a region previously associated with sacred values and rule retrieval.
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The study used neuroimaging to confirm the relationship between this region of the brain with the will to fight and die for these values. “Alongside other studies, these findings suggest that sacred values are processed through an ethical reasoning based on duty or ‘what must be done,” and not an evaluation of costs and benefits, while nonsacred values are more flexible and subject to negotiation,” says research coordinator and UAB and IMIM researcher Òscar Vilarroya.
The study also shows how social exclusion, manipulated through an online toss ball game, had notable effects at both neural and behavioral levels. By comparing a sub-group subject to social exclusion with a control sub-group, researchers were able to confirm an increase in willingness to fight and die for values considered nonsacred before the social exclusion occurred, as well as a parallel increase in the activity within the brain region examined.
According to postdoctoral researcher at the UAB and first author of the paper Clara Pretus, “this leads us to think that social exclusion can lead to the sacralization of group values, making them more similar to sacred values, both in the neural activity observed and in a greater expressed willingness to fight and die defending them.”
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Researchers measured neural activity associated with the will to fight and die defending sacred values, as well as the effects social exclusion on this activity. The image is in the public domain.
Until now, only one neuroimaging study with university students from the United States had identified neural activity associated with sacred values in the left inferior frontal gyrus.
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This study is the first to find this activity among individuals vulnerable to radicalization and it is also the first to demonstrate the effects social exclusion have on identified brain activity.
“The study was conducted with a group of young Moroccan men, but the results could be applied to any other group of young men vulnerable to be radicalized,” Vilarroya points out.
“The results could serve when dealing with groups upholding sacred values, given that knowing about these values and managing them as something not subject to material incentives can help to make an approach effective,” Pretus highlights.
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A Two-Phase Study
The study was conducted in two distinct phases. The first phase consisted in extensive fieldwork with surveys conducted with over 500 young Moroccan men in Barcelona and surrounding areas with the aim of detecting those with greater vulnerability for radicalization. Vulnerability was considered to exist among those who expressed willingness to defend the sacred values promoted by jihadist terrorist groups, either by engaging in violent protest and actions, financially supporting nonstate militant groups, joining a nonstate militant group, or fighting and dying on their own. The 38 participants who met this criteria and were interested in participating in the study while maintaining their anonymity were invited to a neuroimaging session. At the beginning of the session, they were asked to name the values considered sacred by jihadists and the degree to which they were willing to fight and die defending them.
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Participants were later divided into two sub-groups and assigned to one of two different versions of the online game Cyberball: one under the condition of social exclusion and the other as part of the control group. In this online exclusion game, participants pass the ball to three virtual players, who were given typical local names: Dani, Javi and José. In the exclusion version, these three players pass the ball to the participant only twice right at the beginning of the game. In the control group, the three players pass the ball to the participant with the same frequency as they do the rest of players.
At the end of the game, the neural activity of all participants was measured using a magnetic resonance imaging scanner while they responded about their willingness to fight and die to defend one of their sacred or nonsacred values mentioned at the beginning of the session.
Source:
Frontiers
Media Contacts:
Clara Pretus – Frontiers
Image Source:
The image is in the public domain.
Original Research: Open access
“Neural and Behavioral Correlates of Sacred Values and Vulnerability to Violent Extremism”. Clara Pretus et al.
Frontiers in Psychology. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02462
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Abstract
Neural and Behavioral Correlates of Sacred Values and Vulnerability to Violent Extremism
Violent extremism is often explicitly motivated by commitment to abstract ideals such as the nation or divine law—so-called “sacred” values that are relatively insensitive to material incentives and define our primary reference groups. Moreover, extreme pro-group behavior seems to intensify after social exclusion. This fMRI study explores underlying neural and behavioral relationships between sacred values, violent extremism, and social exclusion. Ethnographic fieldwork and psychological surveys were carried out among 535 young men from a European Muslim community in neighborhoods in and around Barcelona, Spain. Candidates for an fMRI experiment were selected from those who expressed willingness to engage in or facilitate, violence associated with jihadist causes; 38 of whom agreed to be scanned. In the scanner, participants were assessed for their willingness to fight and die for in-group sacred values before and after an experimental manipulation using Cyberball, a toss ball game known to yield strong feelings of social exclusion. Results indicate that neural activity associated with sacred value processing in a sample vulnerable to recruitment into violent extremism shows marked activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus, a region previously associated with sacred values and rule retrieval. Participants also behaviorally expressed greater willingness to fight and die for sacred versus nonsacred values, consistent with previous studies of combatants and noncombatants. The social exclusion manipulation specifically affected nonsacred values, increasing their similarities with sacred values in terms of heightened left inferior frontal activity and greater expressed willingness to fight and die. These findings suggest that sacralization of values interacts with willingness to engage in extreme behavior in populations vulnerable to radicalization. In addition, social exclusion may be a relevant factor motivating violent extremism and consolidation of sacred values. If so, counteracting social exclusion and sacralization of values should figure into policies to prevent radicalization.
Stillness in the Storm Editor: Why did we post this?
Psychology is the study of the nature of mind. Philosophy is the use of that mind in life. Both are critically important to gain an understanding of as they are aspects of the self. All you do and experience will pass through these gateways of being. The preceding information provides an overview of this self-knowledge, offering points to consider that people often don’t take the time to contemplate. With the choice to gain self-awareness, one can begin to see how their being works. With the wisdom of self-awareness, one has the tools to master their being and life in general, bringing order to chaos through navigating the challenges with the capacity for right action.
– Justin
Not sure how to make sense of this? Want to learn how to discern like a pro? Read this essential guide to discernment, analysis of claims, and understanding the truth in a world of deception: 4 Key Steps of Discernment – Advanced Truth-Seeking Tools.
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Source:
https://neurosciencenews.com/social-exclusion-extremism-14691/
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