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Using Emotional Cues to Predict Acts of Terror or Political Aggression

File photograph of Osama Bin Laden
© 1998 Reuters

New research entitled “Emotions expressed in speeches by leaders of ideologically motivated groups predict aggression” was recently published in the journal of Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression.

The research suggests that when leaders use rousing speeches to evoke powerful emotions, those emotions may predict when a group will commit an act of violence or terrorism.

Dr. David Matsumoto, along with Drs. Hyisung Hwang and Mark G. Frank analysed speeches delivered by government and found that activist and terrorist leaders’ expressions of anger, contempt and disgust spiked immediately before their group committed an act of violence.

“When leaders express a combination of anger, contempt and disgust in their speeches, it seems to be instrumental in inciting a group to act violently”

As part of a five-year project funded by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Minerva Initiative, Matsumoto and colleagues studied the transcripts of speeches delivered by the leaders of ideologically motivated groups over the past 100 years. The analysis included such speeches as Osama bin Laden’s remarks leading up to the bombings of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The researchers analyzed the pattern of emotions conveyed when leaders spoke about their rival group and examined speeches given at three points in time before a specific act of aggression. They compared the results with the content of speeches delivered by leaders whose groups engaged in nonviolent acts of resistance such as rallies and protests.

Among leaders of groups that committed aggressive acts, there was a significant increase in expressions of anger, contempt and disgust from 3 to 6 months prior to the group committing an act of violence.

For nonviolent groups, expressions of anger, contempt and disgust decreased from 3 to 6 months prior to the group staging an act of peaceful resistance.

Matsumoto says the findings suggest a leader’s emotional tone may cause the rest of the group to share those emotions, which then motivates the group to take part in violent actions.

“For groups that committed acts of violence, there seemed to be this saturation of anger, contempt and disgust. That combination seems to be a recipe for hatred that leads to violence,” Matsumoto said.

Anger, contempt and disgust may be particularly important drivers of violent behavior because they are often expressed in response to moral violations, says Matsumoto, and when an individual feels these emotions about a person or group, they often feel that their opponent is unchangeable and inherently bad.

“Understanding the preceding factors that lead to terrorist attacks and violent events may help predict these incidents or prevent them occurring in the first place…studying the emotions expressed by leaders is just one piece of the puzzle but it could be a helpful predictor of terrorist attacks.”

This study was one of the first seven projects funded by the U.S. Department of Defense Minerva Initiative. The Initiative was established in 2008 to fund social science research on areas of strategic importance to U.S. national security policy.

Reading Faces

NBC News.com has purported that they may have the reason why it’s harder for younger generations to mind their P’s and Q’s when interacting with their elders.

New research has revealed that younger people can’t read emotions on wrinkled faces.  There might be a scientific reason afterall of why there is such a divide between the younger and older generations.

The findings revealed that facial expressions of emotion such as anger, are perceived differently when seen on an older face (76-83 years old) in comparison to a younger face (19-21 years of age).   The expressions are seen less clearly due to facial wrinkling.

65 college students were screened in this study and asked to rate the intensity of the emotion not just the emotion itself. The results were that younger people were least likely to recognize sadness in older faces and were most likely to recognize anger.

 ”In the case of the older expresser, the anger is seen as mixed with other emotions.  Clearly it makes a difference whether you think someone is just angry or someone is both angry and sad.”  says lead author Dr. Ursula Hess, a professor of psychology at Humboldt-University in Berlin, Germany.

There are many other factors that should be taken into account for future research such as if the amount of regular interaction between groups makes a substantial difference in the ability to recognize facial expression of emotions in spite of wrinkles on the face.

In related news Times Colonist has some positive news in the realm of facial recognition.

Children with autism who have trouble recognizing and labeling facial expressions of emotion often find it difficult to discern if a person is happy, sad, or even frightened.  The solution that was proposed was to go digital.

What does that mean?  Well, a new computer program can help children with autism understand social cues of emotions via facial expressions.

The goal of the project, undertaken by  UVic’s Centre for Autism Research and Technology, is to use pictures of familiar figures such as loved ones and friends and put them into a database that can be accessed by the child.   This will be an individualized therapy session that a child can do anywhere.

 What are your thoughts on these facial expression recognition studies/developments?  
If you have personal insight that relates to one of these topics, we welcome you to share it with our readers !

Honesty Linked to Better Health

According to a “Science of Honesty” study presented at the American Psychological Association’s 120th Annual Convention, lying less is linked to better health.

Kelly and co-author Lijuan Wang, PhD, both of Notre Dame, conducted the honesty experiment over 10 weeks with a sample of 110 people, of whom 34 percent were adults in the community and 66 percent were college students.

Approximately half the participants were instructed to stop telling major and minor lies for the 10 weeks. The other half served as a control group that received no special instructions about lying. Both groups came to the laboratory each week to complete health and relationship measures and to take a polygraph test assessing the number of major and white lies they had told that week.

The results?

The researchers found that in the “no lies” group, the fewer lies the study participants told, the better their health. For example, telling fewer white lies was associated with fewer feelings of tension or melancholy, as well as fewer health problems like headaches and sore throats, the researchers found.

And overall, telling fewer lies over the study period was linked with feeling more honest and having improved relationships.

Moral of the story? Honesty seems to always be the best policy, even when it comes to your health!