Summary: A neuroimaging study identifies how social exclusion affects brain activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus and shows that exclusion can increase the likelihood of extremist behavior among people vulnerable to radicalization.
Source: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
A team of researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), together with international collaborators, investigated how sacred values, violent extremism and social exclusion are linked at neural and behavioral levels in a sample of young Moroccan men living and schooled in Catalonia and considered vulnerable to radicalization.
Sacred values are beliefs or commitments regarded as non-negotiable and essential to group identity. These values are resistant to material incentives and are often tied to how individuals see themselves as members of a reference group.
The research, published in Frontiers in Psychology, examined the neural basis of sacred values, ideological adherence, and values tied to religious or national/group identity. The study found that neural activity related to the willingness to “fight and die” for sacred values—and the way social exclusion modifies that activity—occurs in the left inferior frontal gyrus, a brain region previously associated with processing sacred values and retrieving rules.
Using fMRI, the researchers confirmed an association between this brain region and the expressed willingness to risk one’s life for sacred values. According to study coordinator and UAB/IMIM researcher Òscar Vilarroya, these results, aligned with prior work, suggest sacred values are processed through ethical reasoning based on duty—“what must be done”—rather than through cost–benefit analysis. In contrast, nonsacred values tend to be more negotiable and flexible.
The study also demonstrates that social exclusion—induced experimentally using an online ball-toss game—produces measurable neural and behavioral effects. By comparing participants who experienced exclusion with a control group, the team observed an increased willingness to fight and die for values that had been classified as nonsacred prior to exclusion, accompanied by increased activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus.
Clara Pretus, a postdoctoral researcher at UAB and the first author of the paper, explains: “These results suggest that social exclusion can lead to the sacralization of group values, making nonsacred values more like sacred values in both brain activity and expressed willingness to defend them at extreme cost.”
Previous neuroimaging work had identified left inferior frontal gyrus activity associated with sacred values in university students in the United States. This study is notable for finding the same neural signature in a population considered vulnerable to radicalization and for demonstrating that social exclusion can change that signature in predictable ways.
Vilarroya notes that although the experiment was carried out with young Moroccan men, the mechanisms observed are likely to generalize to other groups of young men who are similarly vulnerable to radicalization. Pretus emphasizes the policy implications: understanding which values function as sacred and recognizing that they are not responsive to material incentives can inform more effective approaches to engagement and prevention.
A Two-Phase Study
The research unfolded in two distinct phases. Phase one consisted of ethnographic fieldwork and surveys with over 500 young Moroccan men in Barcelona and nearby neighborhoods to identify those most vulnerable to radicalization. Vulnerability was assessed by willingness to take actions promoted by jihadist groups—ranging from violent protest and financial support for nonstate militant groups to joining or fighting for such groups. From that initial pool, 38 participants who met the vulnerability criteria and agreed to participate anonymously were invited to an fMRI session. At the session’s start, each participant listed values they perceived as sacred by jihadists and rated their willingness to fight and die defending those values.
Participants were then assigned to one of two versions of the online Cyberball game: an exclusion condition or a control condition. In Cyberball, players pass a virtual ball among participants. In the exclusion version, the three simulated players pass the ball to the participant only twice at the beginning; in the control version, the ball is passed with equal frequency to all players. Immediately after this manipulation, participants underwent fMRI while reporting their willingness to fight and die for one of the values they had previously named, either sacred or nonsacred.
Funding and contributors: The research team included Clara Pretus, Òscar Vilarroya and Adolf Tobeña from the Department of Psychiatry and Legal Medicine at UAB and IMIM; Nafees Hamid (University College London); Jeremy Ginges (The New School for Social Research); Richard Davis and Scott Atran (Oxford University); and collaborators from Artis International.
Source and publication: María Jesús Delgado, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. The original research article, “Neural and Behavioral Correlates of Sacred Values and Vulnerability to Violent Extremism,” was published in Frontiers in Psychology on January 10, 2019 (doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02462).
Abstract
Neural and Behavioral Correlates of Sacred Values and Vulnerability to Violent Extremism
This fMRI study investigates how sacred values and social exclusion interact with willingness to engage in violent extremism. Ethnographic fieldwork and surveys were conducted among 535 young men from a European Muslim community in and around Barcelona. Thirty-eight individuals identified as vulnerable to recruitment into violent extremism underwent fMRI scanning. Neural activity linked to sacred values showed strong engagement of the left inferior frontal gyrus. Behaviorally, participants reported greater willingness to fight and die for sacred versus nonsacred values. The social exclusion manipulation selectively affected nonsacred values, increasing left inferior frontal activity and the expressed willingness to fight and die for these values, effectively making them more like sacred values. These findings indicate that sacralization of values interacts with extreme pro-group behavior in vulnerable populations and that social exclusion may contribute to the consolidation of sacred values. Addressing social exclusion and preventing sacralization of flexible values could be important components of policies aimed at preventing radicalization.