Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Collective or Individual Culture?

It is almost a common sense view that people living in the United States are much more individualist than those in Japan, but this view may be deeply flawed.

In a recent article in the Asian Journal of Social Psychology, Drs. Yohtaro Takano and Eiko Osaka contend that there is no solid evidence to support this “common view”, urging future researchers to change their basic paradigms when trying to understand cultural differences.

Initially, Drs. Takano and Osaka contend that the “common view” assumes that cultural effects determine the psychology of the individual. Most notions of individualism vs. collectivism are estimated at the national/cultural level, finding the average of individual responses. This inevitably simplifies the measures and creates a one dimensional spectrum of individualist to collectivist.

This approach is flawed by then assuming that individuals operate based on these norms, and Dr. Takano demonstrates this by breaking down data in previous studies and finding that, if individuals are the basic units of analysis and not countries, research supporting the “common view” falls apart.

While they do not challenge the idea that some cultures tend to be collectivist, they argue that Japan is a poor exemplar of collectivist culture. It isn’t even really on either end of the one-dimensional spectrum! Perhaps unsurprisingly, the United States is listed as one the most individualistic, but Japan does not lean strongly either way.

Moreover, the authors continue to challenge the idea that such notions can even be simplified into one dimensional measures. The individual psyche is incredibly complex, as are cultural norms, so the dichotomy does not hold under academic scrutiny. For instance, the “common view” has often held that individualism and social interdependence are contradictory, but this is often not the case, with individualist cultures still involving significant social interdependence.

Instead, Drs. Takano and Osaka suggest that individuals differ within a broader culture based on the specific ecological context in which they live. In fact, if individuals move between contexts, they will often change their behaviors. There is no reason why these contexts should be based on national boundaries, as the reality is much more complex.

This can all be important at the empirical level, as they argue, because assuming a “common view” runs the risk of confirmation bias. We may assume that a Japanese subculture is collectivist and thus find significant evidence that it is. This is not only bad research but ends up wrongfully stereotyping individuals based on preconceptions about their culture.

Certainly, the implications for reading people across cultures are clear. Many of the common sense views of how different cultures see the world are invalid and contribute to stereotyping which can be both harmful and unscientific.

This underscores the need to contextualize how interactions to both the individual and their culture. Rather than relying on “common sense,” we can instead rely on Humintell’s judgment and expertise in communicating with those from other cultures.

Raising Awareness about Active Shooter Incidents

Active shooter incidents are incredibly frightening events that often have deadly consequences for individuals, and dire consequences for organizations. The term “active shooter” describes a “situation in which a shooting is in progress and an aspect of the crime may affect the protocols used in responding to and reacting at the scene of an incident” (Blair & Schweit, 2014, p. 4). Most government agencies in the U.S. define “active shooter” as an “individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area” (Blair & Schweit, 2014, p. 5). Since they have been studied, active shooter incidents have been steadily increasing over the years (Figure 1), causing increasing numbers of casualties, including many who have been killed or wounded (Blair, Martaindale, & Nichols, 2014; Blair & Schweit, 2014).

Figure 1: Active Shooter Events by Year

Image retrieved from https://leb.fbi.gov/2014/january/image/figure-1.-active-shooter-events-by-year.jpg/image_preview.

 

Unsurprisingly, most of these events have occurred at businesses (Figure 2). Because these data are cause for grave concern for any organization, private or public, it is no wonder that many organizations are coming to grips with the reality of considering ways of dealing with, managing, and preventing these kinds of incidents to occur.

Figure 2: Locations of Active Shooter Incidents

Image retrieved from (Blair et al., 2014).

Obviously there are multitude of ways to approach this very important problem for security professionals. The first step is often raising awareness of this important issue, as many security professionals and organizations unfortunately remain in the dark about the frequency and/or severity of these types of events. Raising awareness alone is not enough; what is equally if not more important is to actively consider, implement, monitor, and refine a comprehensive security plan in order not only to deal with these incidents when they occur – as well as their aftermath – but also how to prevent them in the first place.

By now many security professionals have heard of the current rendition of the “best” response to an active shooter incident, involving the mantra “Run, Hide, Fight.” But let’s dive deeper into how this may actually occur in an active shooter situation. In reality, data on active shooter incidents have shown that 70% of such incidents ended in five minutes or less, with 37% ending in two minutes or less (Blair & Schweit, 2014). At the same time, the average (median) response time by law enforcement officers to the scene is about three minutes. These statistics indicate that civilians often have to make life and death decisions in a very short time, and in a very emotional situation. How to do so?

My many years of training athletes in Olympic judo competition gives us clues about how to approach the problem. These are also highly charged situations in which split second decisions need to be made when one is hyper aroused. In fact we have clocked athletes’ heart rates in competition upwards of 200 beats/minute. Given that that is what is occurring in real life, it becomes very clear very quickly that training in what to do in a very neutral, calm environment (e.g., a classroom lecture or workshop) has little or no bearing on making constructive changes to behaviors in the hyper charged situation. While classroom workshops on active shooter incidents are great for raising awareness, their potential in producing effective behaviors in a hyper charged situation is extremely limited. What is needed is training that simulates, as close as possible, the actual environment in which the desired behaviors need to take place. The most effective training will be that which produces that simulation well.

There are many ways to think about prevention as well. Research has increasingly documented the signs and signals of impending violence (Matsumoto, Frank, & Hwang, 2015; Matsumoto & Hwang, 2013, 2014; Matsumoto, Hwang, & Frank, 2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2016), much of which can be transformed into proactive detection capabilities to intervene before things escalate. Moreover, recent research on lone actors and other actors who perform violent acts against others has documented that many – upwards of 80 – 90% of these individuals – leak their plans and intentions in some way, shape, or form to others (Meloy & Gill, 2016; Meloy, Roshdi, Glaz-Ocik, & Hoffman, 2015). Heightened awareness of these signs and signals, and procedures for reporting these to security professionals may be of interest.

These are just some of the many ways to consider how to deal with, manage, and prevent active shooter incidents. Perhaps the most important factor to consider, however, and perhaps the most difficult, is to find the courage and conviction to truly deal with them in the first place.

References Cited

Blair, J. P., Martaindale, H., & Nichols, T. (2014). Active Shooter Events from 2000 to 2012. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, January. Retrieved from https://leb.fbi.gov/2014/january/active-shooter-events-from-2000-to-2012 website:

Blair, J. P., & Schweit, K. W. (2014). A study of active shooter incidents in the United States between 2000 and 2013. Washington, D.C.: Texas State University and Federal Bureau of Investigation. U.S. Department of Justice.

Matsumoto, D., Frank, M. G., & Hwang, H. C. (2015). The role of intergroup emotions on political violence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24, 369-373. doi: 10.1177/0963721415595023.

Matsumoto, D., & Hwang, H. C. (2013). The language of political aggression. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 32, 335-348. doi: 10.1177/0261927X12460666.

Matsumoto, D., & Hwang, H. C. (2014). Facial signs of imminent aggression. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 1, 118-128. doi: 10.1037/tam0000007.

Matsumoto, D., Hwang, H. C., & Frank, M. G. (2013). Emotional language and political aggression. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 32, 452-468. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0261927X12474654.

Matsumoto, D., Hwang, H. C., & Frank, M. G. (2014a). Emotions expressed by leaders in videos predict political aggression. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, 6, 212-218. doi: 10.1080/19434472.2013.769116.

Matsumoto, D., Hwang, H. C., & Frank, M. G. (2014b). Emotions expressed in speeches by leaders of ideologically motivated groups predict aggression. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, 6, 1-18. doi: 10.1080/19434472.2012.716449.

Matsumoto, D., Hwang, H. C., & Frank, M. G. (2016). The effects of incidental anger, contempt, and disgust on hostile language and implicit behaviors. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. doi: 10.1111/jasp.12374.

Meloy, J. R., & Gill, P. (2016). The lone-actor terrorist and the TRAP-18. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 3, 37-52. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tam0000061.

Meloy, J. R., Roshdi, K., Glaz-Ocik, J., & Hoffman, J. (2015). Investigating the individual terrorist in Europe. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 2, 140-152. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tam0000036.

Out of the Corner of Your Eye

The role of peripheral vision in emotional recognition is crucial to our perception of the world.

This is the conclusion of exciting research by Dr. Fraser Smith of the University of East Anglia. Dr. Smith and his team looked at the ways in which our peripheral vision manages to capture expressions of fear, tying this with central questions related to the evolution of emotional recognition and basic emotions.

In an admittedly small study of fourteen participants, researchers displayed images of various emotions from either directly in front of faces to orientations to the left or right of their face. These images contained a baseline neutral expression as well as images of people demonstrating six basic emotions, and participants were asked to identify the emotion shown.

This set up was intended to see if participants were able to first detect an emotion and then recognize which one it was. Interestingly, there were significant differences between each emotion. Fear was easily detected but less easily recognized, while happiness and surprise were generally well identified.

Moreover, they found that rates of recognition differed significantly when images were moved to peripheral vision. The authors emphasized the implications for individuals who struggle to recognize emotions, such as autism, as this research seeks to better understand those relevant neurological pathways.

Dr. Smith summarized how the paper importantly related to social interactions, stating “We show that it is not just being able to recognise expressions that is important, but being able to detect them in the first place. This gives us a different picture of which underlying systems may be impaired, which has potential implications for treatment of conditions where perception of emotions is affected.”

Moreover, this research furthers our understanding of the evolutionary roots of emotions and emotional recognition. For instance, in a past blog we outlined how our subtle emotional processes creates a type of emotional “landscape.” This is the result of us synthesizing impressions of emotions, such as fear and disgust, and creating a general map of the world as it relates to those emotions.

These sorts of landscapes are fundamental in allowing us to navigate the world around us and are present in many animals besides humans. Similarly, the very notion of universal emotions can be seen as tied into our evolutionary experience with the world around us, and they are certainly shared by many apes and other non-human animals.

Dr. Smith’s research helps tap into these fundamental questions, in addition to questions of social interaction. If we implicitly recognize certain emotions and identify others, our brain is doing some very focused work based on that emotion, and this is likely rooted in the evolutionary importance of each emotion.

Similarly, it is not possible to separate these evolutionary questions from those relevant to social interaction, as Dr. Smith emphasized the fundamental nature of social interaction to our daily lives.

Certainly, we are hardwired to detect and recognize emotions, but these instincts are far from perfect. This is where Humintell comes in: to harness those processes and make you better able to read people and their emotions!