Advances in Modeling Conflict Interaction Using Social Psychology

• In Event: Methods for Race, Ethnicity and Politics

Abstract

Using social psychology, we model the interactions between protests and gatherings and security forces, including tactics utilized by the forces and reactions to them. Using an agent-based model we distill social psychological insights and the behavior of individuals in groups. Our model is distinct in its inclusion of individual characteristics and motivations interacting in a social context, including emotional cascades and what has been viewed as violent contagion. We use social identity to bridge this gap, generating a stochastic model that demonstrates emergent behavior during a protest run. Through this, we seek to answer why some individuals become radicalized to violence in a crowd while others do not. Crowd madness theories have rightfully been discredited, but neither does individual self-maximizing rationality capture the complex behavioral changes in antagonistic group settings. With this framework we can understand when protest cascades and emotional contagion will or will not follow from the actions of a minority. Our case studies include BLM protests and the Capital siege.

Author

• Anne Marie Baylouny, Naval Postgraduate School