Prevention of Youth Radicalisation Through Self-Awareness of Cognitive Biases Toolkit for teachers with ready-to-use materials Authors Catherine Bouko (Ghent University, Belgium) Alena Krempaská (Human Rights Institute, Slovakia) Anna Kucińska (Institute of Social Safety, Poland) with special thanks to Pauline Gillet and Françoise Project n.: 867186 Viellevoye Acknowledgements We would like to warmly thank the following teachers who have helped us consult and test the resources and whose contributions have been invaluable in the development of this toolkit: Vladimír Antonín Bláha Jehanne Bruyr Hana Harenčárová Petra Hubinská Martine Mabille Tomasz Matraszek This toolkit is part of the project, co-funded by the European Commission, entitled “Prevention of Youth Radicalisation Through Self-Awareness on Cognitive Biases” (PRECOBIAS). TABLE OF CONTENTs FOREWORD Our pedagogical approach to cognitive biases and their role in radicalisation pag. 4 01 02 03 Introduction to Ingroup- Authority automatic thinking outgroup bias bias and cognitive biases p. 9 p. 39 p. 64 04 05 Confirmation Rosy bias retrospection p. 101 p. 127 06 07 08 Negativity Bandwagon Hostile bias effect media effect p. 142 p. 167 p. 189 09 10 Picture Humor superiority bias p. 210 p. 234 11 Sleeper effect p. 258 Cognitive biases and radicalisation - Toolkit for teachers PRECOBIAS Foreword: our pedagogical approach to cognitive biases and their role in radicalisation What is ‘radicalisation’? ‘Radicalisation’ is defined by the European Commission¹ as a phased ¹ European Commission: https://ec.europa.eu/ and complex process in which an individual or a group embraces a home-affairs/what-we- radical ideology or belief that accepts, uses or condones violence, do/policies/counter-ter- including acts of terrorism, to reach a specific political or ideolog- rorism/radicalisation_en ical purpose. During this process, the dominant political order is ² Young H., Holsappel rejected, as well as dialogue, compromise and tolerance as means J., Rooze M., de Wolf to bring change. Instead, violence is more and more adopted as an A., Russel J., Hasan U., (2014), “TerRa Toolkit. appropriate method to attain certain goals. Thus, at some point, Community Approach radicalisation can (but does not necessarily) lead to violent extrem- to Radicalisation”, p. 3, https://terratoolkit.eu/ ism or terrorism.² ³ Ibidem, p. 4 There are many paths that may lead to radicalisation, including ⁴ Purski J., “Radicalisation” social exclusion, polarisation of views in society, stigmatisation of (2019), International diversity and difference, conspiracy theories, hate speech and hate Institute of Civil Society, crimes. The radicalisation process is similar for all extremisms: reli- https://camiso.org.pl/ gious, nationalist, fascist, and some leftist currents. The choice de- pends largely on the environment in which an individual is brought up or meets extremists on a daily basis. One of the most widely recognised models explaining radicali- sation is the “Staircase to Terrorism Model” proposed by Fathali Moghaddam, an Iranian-born psychologist with expertise in culture and intergroup conflict, with a particular focus on the psychology of globalisation, radicalisation, human rights and duties and terror- ism, in 2005. According to Moghaddam’s model, there are five stag- es a person goes through before reaching the top floor, which is actually committing a terrorist act. This concept focuses on the idea that an individual in the process of radicalisation seeks options to overcome (perceived or genuine) injustices. If they do not see oth- er legitimate options or choices offered or available to them, they climb further to the next stage of radicalisation, even if that means causing harm to themselves and to others.³ Radicalisation can take many forms. From ideological extremism, through crimes, to religious fundamentalism. The final stage of radicalisation may be an act of violence or even terrorism. At each stage it is possible to react and prevent an individual or a group from being further radicalised.⁴ For this reason it is crucial to raise awareness of this phenomenon and develop resilience to radicali- sation, particularly in young people. 4 Cognitive biases and radicalisation - Toolkit for teachers PRECOBIAS Why talk about cognitive biases and radicalisation in class? ⁵ Bécuwe, N., Goudet, S. Contact with extremist or radicalised content is a pretty wide-spread & Tsoulos-Malakoudi, phenomenon in our society. According to a European survey⁵, 77% D. (2018) Survey report of adolescents have already been confronted with invocations to ‘European youth and radicalisation leading to violent behaviour on online platforms. This points out how the violence’, analysis and radicalisation process today is closely interconnected with online recommendations for policy-making purposes. media. Paradoxically, while the content-reviewing techniques have https://efus.eu/ been increasingly sophisticated, the presence of extremists on so- files/2019/03/D2.3-Sur- cial media is still a key issue. For example, after analysing how far- vey-PRACTICIES-Pd- fLIGHT.pdf right and anti-EU groups were spreading false and hateful content, the US-based non-profit organisation Avaaz reported over 500 sus- ⁶ https://secure.avaaz. org/campaign/en/disin- pect pages and groups to Facebook, which were followed by nearly fo_network_report 32 million people, before the EU elections in May 2019. While some extreme content falls between the cracks of social media’s content ⁷ Waldron J (2012) The Harm in Hate Speech. reviewers’ net, others remain online given their strategic implicit Cambridge, MA: Har- content. These mainstreaming strategies indicate how much the vard University Press, boundaries between what is considered to be acceptable or not are p. 4 not static, sometimes like “a sort of slow-acting poison, accumulat- ⁸ Magnus Ranstorp and ing here and there, word by word, so that eventually it becomes Peder Hyllengren, Före- byggande av våldsbeja- harder and less natural for even the good-hearted members of so- kande extremism I tred- ciety to play their part in maintaining this public good.” jeland (Swedish Defence Social media can play a major role in online radicalisation. Human University 2013) in: Magnus Ranstorp, “RAN brains, too. Scientists agree that humans have limited cognitive Issue Paper: The Root abilities. Our brains are constantly flooded with tons of informa- Causes of Violent Ex- tremism”, Radicalisation tion, and we are simply unable to process every piece of it in a thor- Awareness Network, 4 ough and extensive manner. Instead, our brains often take men- January 2016 tal shortcuts that make it easier to process information and make ⁹ Tobena, A., Marks, I., & judgements in a fast, efficient and effortless way. This allows us to Dar, R. (1999). Advantag- avoid the cognitive effort of analysing every piece of information es of bias and prejudice: An exploration of their elaborately. And that’s where cognitive biases come in; they may neurocognitive tem- be regarded as yet another important factor in the “kaleidoscope of plates. Neuroscience factors”, creating infinite individual combinations which may con- and Biobehavioral Re- views, 23(7), 1047–1058. tribute to radicalisation and lead to violent extremism.⁸ Cognitive (page 1084) biases are seen as “distortions of reasoning”⁹ and they cause our ¹⁰ https://ritholtz. brains to deviate from rationality. In taking the shortcut, our brains com/2016/09/cogni- skip the part where they have to treat the information elaborately tive-bias-codex/ and consider all its aspects, which has a negative impact on the quality of our decisions. And the danger lies in the fact that we, humans, are largely unaware of these cognitive biases. Further- more, cognitive biases are not exceptional phenomena: more than 200 different biases have been listed so far.¹⁰ Social media, where ideas are mostly reduced to some words and expressed through (emotional) visual content, particularly trigger some cognitive bi- ases. This toolkit comprises activities for ten of them, applied to extremist content. 5 Cognitive biases and radicalisation - Toolkit for teachers PRECOBIAS With this toolkit, we aim to help teachers increase their students’ self-awareness by revealing the mental processes and cognitive bi- ases that underlie their interpretations and analyses of the (social) media content they come across. This user-centred approach aims to prevent radicalisation in the long term. Of course, this toolkit will not change and fix everything in a jiffy. But we firmly believe in the key role that can be played by teachers. They are vital actors in networks of other practitioners who can collaboratively contribute to the prevention and countering of radicalisation and violent ex- tremism, such as social and youth workers, law enforcement, com- munity and religious leaders, and local and national policy makers. Teachers have the capacity to offer, on a daily basis, a counter-dis- course to young people who may be trapped, consciously or un- consciously, in filter bubbles on social media that impregnate them, day after day, with this slow-acting poison. How does this toolkit work? Teachers in secondary schools, working with pupils aged 15-18 years, are the target users of this toolkit. We also created another toolkit for social workers, which is also available on www.precobias. eu. With these two toolkits, we sought to provide specific activities to professionals. To help our users feel comfortable with cognitive