Neuroimaging ‘will to fight’ for sacred values: an empirical case study with supporters of an Al Qaeda associate
Abstract
Violent intergroup conflicts are often motivated by commitments to abstract ideals such as god or nation, so-called ‘sacred’ values that are insensitive to material trade-offs. There is scant knowledge of how the brain processes costly sacrifices for such cherished causes. We studied willingness to fight and die for sacred values using fMRI in Barcelona, Spain, among supporters of a radical Islamist group. We measured brain activity in radicalized individuals as they indicated their willingness to fight and die for sacred and non-sacred values, and as they reacted to peers' ratings for the same values. We observed diminished activity in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), inferior frontal gyrus, and parietal cortex while conveying willingness to fight and die for sacred relative to non-sacred values—regions that have previously been implicated in calculating costs and consequences. An overlapping region of the dlPFC was active when viewing conflicting ratings of sacred values from peers, to the extent participants were sensitive to peer influence, suggesting that it is possible to induce flexibility in the way people defend sacred values. Our results cohere with a view that ‘devoted actors’ motivated by an extreme commitment towards sacred values rely on distinctive neurocognitve processes that can be identified.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2019
- Source ID
- 10.1098/rsos.181585
Entities
People
- Adolf Tobeña
- Clara Pretus
- Hammad Sheikh
- Jeremy Ginges
- Molly J. Crockett
- Nafees Hamid
- Oscar Vilarroya
- Richard A. Davis
- Scott Atran
- Susanna Carmona
- Ángel Gómez
Organizations
- ARTIS International
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Arizona State University
- Autonomous University of Barcelona
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental
- Institut Jean Nicod
- National Science Foundation Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
- National University of Distance Education
- The New School for Social Research
- University College London
- University of Michigan
- University of Oxford
- Yale University