The narratory principle states that humans, think, perceive, imagine and make moral choices according to narrative structures. This principle can resolve the analytic problem of linking mind and society.

Narrative refers to the sensible organization of thought through language, internalized or externalized, which serves to create a sense of personal coherence and collective solidarity and to legitimize collective beliefs, emotions and actions.

Narrative provides access to the current structure of identity, revealing the ideological and experiential content of memory and the motivational anchor for a set of social practices. Narrative engagement refers to the fact that members of a society engage with collective stories of what it means to inhabit a particular political entity (e.g. Dutch). This means that identity is rooted in texts that individuals construct to make sense of their lives.

Narrative can be defined at two levels:

1. Proximal level
   Narrative describes a cognitive process of meaning-making and represents an organizing principle for human action. It consists in the mind for the individual.
2. Multilevel definition of narrative (e.g. history of a nation).
   Narrative reveals the relevance of narrative at the collective level. This consists in the material world for the collective and the individual engages with this narrative.

Narrative is anchored in four principles:

1. Language, politics and thought
   The mind is subject to received discourse and the nature of word meanings and storylines affect the way people think about the world.
2. Personal coherence
   The mind seeks order in time and place and seeks for continuity which can be achieved through story-making.
3. Meaning in solidarity
   An individual is not a self-contained psychological entity but the need for continuity also exists within the community of shared practice.
4. Mind in action
   Story-making and narrative engagement are not passive endeavours. Mental processes occur through social practice.

Meaning of words form concepts and categories which are understood through narrative. Language guides thought and behaviour. The form and content of narratives are arbitrarily constructed as the meaning of the narrative is relative and constituent of a particular way of thinking.

The discursive approach states that conversation is a mechanism through which individuals create reality and legitimize their positions within it. There are two relevant research methods that make use of this approach:

1. Political discourse analysis
   This type of research studies the way in which leaders use stories to frame particular political issues and to motivate adherence to a particular political agenda. A weak point of this type of study is that it does not empirically link narrative analyses to individual minds (i.e. the individual responses to these narratives are not known).
2. Social categories as rhetoric
   This type of research studies how social categorization is a narrative process. It involves the discursive aspects of social categories and its impact.

How and what people think is rooted in a particular set of meaning-saturated signs and symbols they inherit in a given political setting.

People tend to construct personal narratives of identity

There are three limitations to theory and research in intergroup relations:

1. There is a tendency to focus on feelings and perceptions rather than behaviour.
   There are a lot of theories that attempt to predict strong negative feelings in groups of disadvantaged people. This is not focused on the behaviour as a result of the strong negative feelings.
2. There is a failure to study a full array of behavioural options.
   There is often only one form of action measured, rather than the full array of behavioural options.
3. There is a reductionist nature of dominant theories of intergroup relations.
   There is often an extrapolation from intergroup relations to intergroup context.

A group member engages in collective action anytime that the person acts as a representative of the group and the action is directed at improving the condition of the entire group. Individual action is behaviour that is directed at improving one’s personal condition. Normative actions are actions that conforms to the norms of the existing social structure. Non-normative actions are actions that do not conform to the norms of the existing social structure.

There are five categories of behaviour:

1. Apparent acceptance of one’s disadvantaged position.
2. Attempts at individual upward mobility through normative channels made available by the system.
3. Individual action outside the norms of the system.
4. Instigation of collective action within the prescribed norms of the existing system.
5. Instigation of collective action outside the prescribed norms of the existing system.

The presence of dissatisfaction or the intensity of negative feelings does not predict the type of action. The presence of alternatives to the disadvantaged situation leads to collective action to improve the position of the disadvantaged group. The absence of alternatives to the disadvantaged situation leads to individual attempts at upward mobility or acceptance of the disadvantaged position. However, it is unclear when group members perceive a situation as unstable or illegitimate, meaning that there are alternatives.

The five-stage model states that the perception of intergroup situation determines the response of disadvantaged group members. A person will start with individual, normative actions. However, if constant attempts for individual progression are blocked, then the social system will be questioned, accompanied by increased dissatisfaction with the disadvantaged position and more interest in collective action. This model holds that collective action will only be initiated if the advantaged group is perceived as closed.

People use individual, normative action if the advantaged group is perceived as open. However, this might only be true for individuals who are near meeting the criterion for entrance into the advantaged group. If the advantaged group is partially open, people tend to show little endorsement of collective action and will prefer individual actions.

People accept their position if the group is perceived as open but they are not near the entry requirement.

Collective, non-normative action may only be used when

The risk of collective action is polarization between groups. Muslim immigrants are expected to assimilate in the host culture which makes it more difficult to use collective action. Social embeddedness might provide individuals with the resources needed to invest in collective action.

Grievances refer to a sense of indignation about the way authorities are treating a social or political problem. The general assumption of collective action is that people engage in collective action as a response to being aggrieved.

The relative deprivation theory states that feelings of relative deprivation result from a comparison of one’s situation with a certain standard. There is a distinction between individual relative deprivation and group relative deprivation and group relative deprivation is important for engagement in collective action.

Distributed justice refers to the fairness of outcome distributions. Procedural justice refers to the fairness of decision-making procedures and the relational aspects of the social process. Procedural justice appears to be more important.

It appears as if not everyone who is aggrieved engages in collective action while everyone who engages in collective action is aggrieved.

There are several factors that play a role in whether people who are aggrieved engage in collective action:

1. Efficacy (i.e. instrumental pathway)
   The availability of resources and the presence of opportunities might play a key role as groups with more resources and opportunities are more likely to succeed in mobilizing collective action. It also helps redress grievances at an affordable cost.
2. Identity (i.e. identity pathway)
   People engage in collective action to fulfil collective identity needs. The more a person identifies with a group, the more likely that person is to take part in collective action with that group.
3. Emotions
   Emotions can be approach or avoidance orientated. Emotion is related to efficacy. Fear is associated with feeling less efficacy and anger is associated with feeling more efficacy. Anger is an important stimulant of protest participation and emotions amplify already existing motivations.
4. Social embeddedness
   This can provide the resources necessary for opposition movements and collective action. Embeddedness in social networks seems to foster conventional and unconventional political participation.

Dual identity refers to the multiple identities a person can simultaneously have. The identification with a subordinate entity does not necessarily exclude the identification with a supraordinate entity. A dual identity (i.e. integration) might provide more satisfaction with one’s situation than other forms of cultural adaptation.

Assimilation (1), integration (2), separation (3) and marginalization (4) are four possible forms of cultural adaptation. Integration stimulates sub-group mobilization and thus some form of identification with a nation is needed to mobilize for political action.

It is possible that people learn how political institutions work by engaging in voluntary associations. Social capital consists of social networks and trust and loyalty.

Identification with exclusive categories is stronger than identification with inclusive categories. People with dual identities felt more satisfaction about the way

In crowds, loss of identity (1), loss of rationality (2) and a loss of morality (3) are thought to occur. Mass society theory states that physical and social divisions between classes makes social order difficult to maintain as people might become vulnerable to manipulation and especially powerful in one single group when freed from a rigid hierarchical order.

This theory however, attempts to maintain the status quo and sees the crowd member as barbarians who are mindless. This takes away responsibility from the elite in violence of crowds. This theory legitimises repression.

In politics, crowd are generally seen as unable to properly reason and the collective should be guided and feared. The idea is that individual judgement is always better than collective judgement. This idea might stem from the inherent idea that individual’s reasoning is flawed but extrapolated to the collective.

In studying crowds, there is a large focus on methodologies which do not reflect the empirical reality and explanations for failed hypotheses will be sought for in methodological flaws rather than empirical flaws. It mostly relies on internal referentiality, the question of how an experiment relates to previous experiments. External referentiality, the question of how an experiment relates to the external world would be more important. The focus of studying crowds is too much on testing hypothesis rather than generating and validating hypotheses.

Crowd actions are mostly interpreted in the terms and norms of the external observer and when this does not make sense it is put aside as irrational. However, an internal actor might make sense of it and this account can be useful for generating and validating hypotheses.

The social identity model of crowds states that crowd members shift from personal identity to social identity and do not lose their identity in the crowd. The elaborated social identity model of crowds (ESIM) states that conflict escalates because the outgroup (e.g. police) treats everyone in the ingroup as the same, leading to the notion in the ingroup that the outgroup is a threat and people in the ingroup will feel more connected to one another.

This theory has three general implications for social psychological theorising:

1. The theory suggests a more dynamic paradigm for understanding group processes.
2. The theory suggests that the transformation that are wrought when intergroup dynamics create new forms of common fate and new social identities are more extensive than previously thought.
3. The theory challenges the dominant perceptualism of social psychology for which understanding and action derive from the ways we look at and process information in the social world.

The ESIM theory states that people do not make sense of their experience alone but are confronted with multiple influence sources who interpret this experience in different ways. People are mostly influenced by sources who share identity, values and perspective.

Crowds play an important role in producing the social relations which constitute society. Some

Radicalisation refers to the process by which people come to support violent extremism and in some cases join terrorist groups. Risk refers to the processes by which the world is ordered in terms of danger, rather than objective threat.

The UK PREVENT strategy of terrorist attacks is focused on protection against major disruptive events. There is an emphasis on the value of anticipation and the value of investing in national resilience.

It is unclear why some people who radicalize resort to violence whilst others do not. Furthermore, it is not clear what is meant by radicalization. There is little empirical evidence for the existence of a radicalization process.

It is possible that radicalisation knowledge is salient because it produces a possible counterfactual to terrorism by inventing a narrative about transitions to militancy. This allows security mechanisms to perform interventions in the supposed production of terrorism.

Radicalisation emphasises the individual as driven by persuasive ideology which becomes salient through social networks. Religious terrorist organizations are seen as more dangerous than other terrorist organizations.

Competing demands of rival cultures sharpen the lines of division and lead to insecurity and rage. This can be part of radicalization. It is often thought that radicalization is ‘contagious’ and that some environments are more ‘ideal’ for radicalization (e.g. prison).

The British counter-terrorism programmes (e.g. PREVENT) state that the British Muslim population is both at risk and risky. This leads to securitising them concerning what they might produce. There is no distinction between risky and vulnerable.

Naming a population both risky and at risk blurs the actions of risk-management and securitising governance. This turns vulnerability into potential dangerousness.

It is unclear when a person is at risk, risky or fully radicalized. The distinction between the groups is unclear. Fear of the unknown tends to create a will to knowledge and when this knowledge is produced, constitutes a governable entity. The self-segregation of Muslim communities is largely seen as problematic.

Significance loss occurs in situations that make one feel ashamed, humiliated or demeaned. These situations are inconsistent with the desire for a positive self-image and instil a sense of uncertainty about the self. This leads to motivation for people to seek certainty and closure that affords the restoration of personal significance. This can lead to increased interest in extremist ideologies as they offer a clear-cut strategy for this restoration.

Circumstances that lower one’s sense of significance induce self-uncertainty. This activates a need for closure. There is a relationship between feelings of insignificance and endorsement of extremism. This relationship may be mediated by a need for closure.

The significance quest theory (SQT) highlights the role of individual motivation in radicalization. The theory states that extreme behaviour is a mean to gaining or restoring an individual’s sense of personal significance, importance or effectiveness.

The pathway to radicalization often begins with a triggering event that activates the significance motive (e.g. a situation involving humiliation). There are two forms of significance loss; humiliation directed at one’s social group (1) and humiliation directed at personal circumstances (2). Humiliation directed at a social group is especially powerful for individuals who strongly identify with their group.

The need for cognitive closure refers to a desire for a quick and decisive answer and an aversion to ambiguity as a result of the circumstances that led to significance loss. Extremism refers to deviancy from a general pattern of behaviour or attitude that prevails in a given social context. Deviancy is relative to a specific standard. Extremism is context dependent.

Deviancy is typically costly and difficult to sustain. Individuals committed to extreme views tend to protect their deviancy from majority pressures by holding these views with considerable certainty because of the difficulties to sustain extreme views with majority pressures. Extreme views are thus often embedded in confidence-affording and clear-cut ideologies consensually supported by others who share the minority opinion.

The experience of personal humiliation is positively correlated with a need for closure. The experience of shame is positively correlated with a need for closure.

Significance loss can lead to extreme attitudes, regardless of participants’ political orientation. Worldview defence refers to increased endorsement of one’s cultural beliefs.

Extreme beliefs are specifically suited to fulfilling the need for closure induced by feelings of insignificance because it is non-normative. Self-uncertainty increases the appeal of extreme groups. Anxious uncertainty increases extremism.

The uncertainty-identity theory states that individuals are drawn to more extreme groups because identification with these groups provides a strong mechanism for uncertainty reduction. Extreme groups are adept at reducing uncertainty because they have clear defined group structures (1), a high internal homogeneity (2) and a common goal that has consensus (3).

Restoration of significance is a good method of rehabilitation of radicalization.

Hatred, anger and fear are central in intractable conflicts. Members of a society involved in an intractable conflict share and repeatedly experience these emotions. These emotions also play an important role in shaping the societal context and in guiding group members’ behaviour in response to conflict events.

Group-based hatred helps to interpret events (i.e. appraisal) and direct behaviour in a way that contributes to the continuation of the conflict.

Emotions consist of recognition of the existence of the stimulus (1), an appraisal of the potential effect (2), feelings we have in regard to the stimulus (3) and readiness to take action toward it (4). Emotion refers to an individual’s affective response that develops in reaction to a cognitive appraisal of an environmental stimulus or change and subsequently creates a motivation to take action until there is a return to the balanced relationship between the individual and her environment.

Group-based hatred is experienced by individuals in the name of their group and as a corollary of their membership in the group. It is directed toward generalized social groups Hatred is a very powerful negative emotion that motivates and may lead to negative behaviours with severe consequences.

Fear is more dominant in the stage that leads to hatred while anger plays a more central role in the stage of the experience of hatred itself. Common actions as a response to hatred are complete detachment to the object of hatred (1), delight at the expense or failure of the hated other (2) and political action taken against the other (3).

Hatred refers to a powerful, extreme and persistent emotion that rejects the group toward which it is directed in a generalized and totalistic fashion. Group-based hatred is provoked in consequence to recurrent offenses committed against the individual or one’s group. The offenses are perceived as intentional (1), unjust (2) and threatening (3). Group-based hatred includes cognitive elements that make a clear ideological, moral and cultural differentiation between the in-group and the out-group while delegitimizing the out-group.

Fear is ruled by the appraisal of low coping potential with future harm. Anger is ruled by the appraisal of out-group actions as non-legitimate or unjust. Hatred is ruled by the appraisal of the harm as intentional and the appraisal of the out-group members having a stable, evil character.

A perception of high capability to cope with future harm is not an essential precondition to the development of anger in an intractable conflict. In the first stage of the development of group-based hatred, individuals perceive that members of the out-group have caused significant offense to them or members of their group. Anger is developed as individuals from the group conclude that they do not deserve this treatment. Fear is sometimes developed if the future ability to cope with this type of offense is seen as weak. These appraisals, accompanied by the appraisal of intention to harm by the out-group and the

It is often thought that during the Rwandan genocide, the radio conditioned, facilitated and legitimized violence and became a tool for the mobilization of genocide. It is also often thought that the radio was a voice of authority.

The claim that the radio indirectly instilled ideas that led to violence and issued orders that directly led to mobilization have three primary weaknesses:

1. The claims are incompatible with mainstream political communication research.
2. The literature on Rwanda imply a simplistic and improbable model of agency.
3. The discussions of media violence are often not situated in a broader discussion of the dynamics of violence or of an assessment of rival explanation.

The claims of the effect of the radio on the genocide in Rwanda reflect the hypodermic needle theory. There is often no attribution of agency to the listeners of the radio. The dynamics of violence are often simplified in the account that the radio is accountable for the genocide.

However, it is not clear what the effects of the radio were exactly and it is possible that the radio did not reach all areas where violence against Tutsis occurred. The onset of violence in Rwanda was not simultaneously.

The broadcast range of the radio cannot account for the time of onset of the violence, meaning that the radio cannot be the sole trigger of the genocide. It might have been the case that the radio served to bolster and encourage those who were committing violence.

Perpetrators often claim that the radio was not the primary cause of joining in actions to commit genocide. Face-to-face mobilization and social ties were the primary factors through which ordinary citizens joined the genocide. However, it is possible that the radio catalysed the more hard core among the broader pool of perpetrators. The radio, most likely, had conditional and marginal effects.

The war in Rwanda led to legitimization of the killings (1) and created a sense of uncertainty and fear (2). This led some people to become radicalized and led others to believe killing was necessary.

The media effects were probably catalysing hard-liners (1), reinforcing messages (2) and framing public choice (3).

Intergroup apologies have increased significantly since the second world war. A failure to acknowledge transgressions of the past can breed intergroup conflict in the future. High levels of collective guilt promote greater intentions to compensate for an historical transgression.

For the victim, intergroup apologies represent an acknowledgement of past harm (1), an affirmation of shared moral standards (2), a recalibration of power and status relationships (3), a bestowment of dignity (4), a symbolic gesture of intent for the future (5) and a chance to move forward (6).

For perpetrators, intergroup apologies represent an opportunity to unshackle the collective memory from guilt (1), a removal of a moral stain (2) and an investment in reconciliation and intergroup harmony in the future (3).

Apologies refer to communications in which offending parties acknowledge responsibility or guilt for an offence and express regret or remorse for this offence to an offended party. It requires the expression of responsibility. Apologies often contain promises of forbearances and offer of repair. Forgiveness refers to the belief that it involves a change in emotion and attitude away from the negative states regarding the offender towards more positive states. Forgiveness of the conflict does not equal forgetting the conflict.

People are more willing to forgive transgressions committed by their own group members than by similar transgressions attributed to the outgroup. Seeing the perpetrator as part of a common, inclusive social category (e.g. humans) promotes forgiveness.

Apologising appears to lead to a reduced desire for retribution and increased forgiveness. The desire for retribution is mediated by anger. Forgiveness is mediated by respect. Generally, people seem to be more willing to forgive when there is an apology. However, some research shows that there is no evidence for an apology-forgiveness link.

There is research that suggests that there is potential for interpersonal apologies to produce interpersonal forgiveness but intergroup apologies have no observable effect on intergroup forgiveness.

Process models emphasise the temporal evolution of forgiveness. Apologies and other gestures of reconciliation plant a seed of forgiveness that may bloom after a period of emotional and cognitive processing. People’s representation of apology histories appeared to be largely unfitting with reality.

Historical victimhood may offer a rallying point for solidarity and defending the group from accusations of moral transgression. The more people believe that an apology is sincerely offered, the greater their expectations that the apology would improve intergroup relations. The link between an apology and forgiveness appears to weaken over time. It is possible that this occurs because expectations are not being met.

The offer of compensation with an apology is seen as insulting but less so when the apology is based on shame rather than guilt.

Primary emotions refer to primitive, basic emotions experienced by both humans and other animals (e.g. fear, anger). Secondary emotions refer to higher-order emotions, presumed to be experienced only by humans (e.g. shame, guilt). The capacity to experience secondary

A truth and reconciliation committee (TRC) are temporary non-judicial institutions where perpetrators and victims can express themselves in order to increase understanding and empathy after a conflict (e.g. civil war, genocide).

Durkheim’s model of collective rituals states that collective rituals involve both at a time group symbols (e.g. flags) and collective expression (e.g. singing). The simultaneous activation of shared beliefs and emotions enhances perceived similarity among participants. The more an event provokes an emotion, the more it elicits social sharing. The coordinated interaction and reciprocal stimulation enhances empathy and emotional contagion. A climate of emotional communion takes place by boosting reciprocal attraction. The participant’s shared beliefs are put to the foreground and the self becomes less salient. This would lead individuals to leave the collective situation with enhanced self-confidence and renewed faith in life.

There is no good evidence that TRCs heal. Increases in negative antagonist emotions are strongly related to empowerment effects from participation in TRC for victims. TRCs can be seen as expiatory rituals that aim at restoring harmony and social cohesion by reasserting a community’s norms and values.

According to the self-categorization theory (SCT), social identification results from a cognitive self-categorization process due to the particular salience of social categories in the collective situation.

The need of victims is recovering some level of control and power. The need of perpetrators is regaining a positive image. Reconciliation attitudes will be reinforced if victims receive a message of empowerment and perpetrators receive a message of social acceptance. The victim’s self-esteem also needs to be increased.

Victims will be empowered by receiving information (1), apologies (2), reparation (3) and having the possibility to accept or reject the apology (4). Perpetrators will be able to erase past negative facets of their self by manifesting pro-social behaviours (1), apologizing (2) and accepting punishment (3). The perpetrators accept shame whereas the victims reduce shame and increase pride in their social identity.

Participation in a transitional ritual (e.g. TRC) reactivated negative emotions in both victims and perpetrators. Participation in Gacaca increased negative resignation emotions (1) and improved social integration (2).

Two consequences of participation to a collective ritual are triggering a strong reactivation of the emotions associated with the commemorated event (1) and contributing to the reconstruction of participants’ collective identity by boosting group cohesion and social integration (2).

The mere expression of emotions in a collective situation does not have healing effects.

The Gacaca had several effects:

• It strengthened participants’ self-definition in non-ethnic terms.
• It increased out-group perceived heterogeneity.
• It led to participants expressing more positive stereotypes of outgroup members.
• It led victims (but not perpetrators) to perceive the emotional climate as more positive and involving more cohesion.

The theory of affective intelligence states that an individual’s emotions help govern a reliance on political habits or govern deliberation and attention to new political information. A dispositional system of emotion incorporates people’s normal feelings about things. Dispositions are guided by enthusiasm and aversion.

A surveillance system of emotion manages attention. It relies on anxiety, fear or uncertainty. It requires emotions that notify that conscious attention is necessary. Partisanship becomes less powerful when the surveillance system is active. Citizens stimulated by anxiety will vote in accord with their sense of which candidate promises the best policy package.

A one-dimensional conceptualization of affect misses much about human experience. There are three dimensions of emotion that have distinctive effects on political attention:

1. Enthusiasm
2. Aversion
3. Anxiety

Enthusiasm drives active participation. Aversion pushes avoidance and the defensive reactions of motivated reasoning. Anxiety triggers attention and learning.

The bandwagon effect refers to voters increasing their support for the ‘winner’ in election polls. The underdog effect refers to voters increasing their support for the ‘loser’ in election polls.

Emotional excitement (1), enthusiasm of the crowd (2) and defection to avoid disappointment (3) are causes for the bandwagon effect. Media messages may evoke emotions which mediate the effects these messages have on attitudes.

The bandwagon effect consists of three effects:

1. Voters previously intending to vote for a losing party will be more likely to change their intention and vote for a winning party.
2. Voters intending to vote for a winning party will less likely to change their intention.
3. The bandwagon effect could occur for undecided voters who crystallize their intention due to poll exposure.

The bandwagon effect refers to a voter’s increased likelihood to vote for a party after exposure to more positive poll coverage about that party. The journalist interpretation of polls may be important for the bandwagon effect. The amount of polls a person is exposed to is also important for the bandwagon effect. The more polls are reported in a media outlet and the more frequent an individual uses this outlet, the higher the chances are for this individual to observe these polls.

Enthusiasm reinforces existing attitudes and beliefs. Anxiety leads to reconsideration of previously held beliefs which makes voting for the initially favoured party less likely. It might also be that vote choice is altered as a result of unexpected enthusiasm and anxiety (i.e. expectancy violation theory). This means that unexpected emotions make a vote switch more likely.

The effect of poll exposure on vote choice is positive. The effect of poll exposure on enthusiasm and party ratings is positive. The effect of enthusiasm and party ratings on vote choice is positive.

The effect of anxiety on party ratings and vote choice is negative. Emotions do not explain the bandwagon effect entirely.

Anxiety and enthusiasm are mediators between poll exposure and vote choice. If aversion does not play a specific and prominent role in an election campaign, then consecutive events are likely to trigger multiple negative emotions about a loathed party rather than just aversion. Emotions might become blended over time and could occur consecutively.

The influence of polls on vote choice relies more on the descriptions of journalists than on the bare poll figures by themselves. The amount of exposure to poll evaluations in the media contributes to individuals changing their vote intention over the course of the electoral campaign.