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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Culture Of Violent Talk: An Interpretive Approach, Peter Simi, Steven Windisch Jul 2020

The Culture Of Violent Talk: An Interpretive Approach, Peter Simi, Steven Windisch

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

One of the defining characteristics of extremist movements is the adherence to an ideology highly antagonistic to the status quo and one that permits or explicitly promotes the use of violence to achieve stated goals and to address grievances. For members of extremist groups, talk is one of the most concrete manifestations of how adherents communicate their ideas to each other and the general public. These discussions, however, do not necessarily involve a direct correspondence between words and future behavior. To better understand the culture of violent talk, we investigate how white supremacist extremists use these discussions as a rhetorical …


On The Permissibility Of Homicidal Violence: Perspectives From Former U.S. White Supremacists, Steven Windisch, Peter Simi, Kathleen M. Blee, Matthew Demichele Jan 2020

On The Permissibility Of Homicidal Violence: Perspectives From Former U.S. White Supremacists, Steven Windisch, Peter Simi, Kathleen M. Blee, Matthew Demichele

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Drawing upon in-depth life-history interviews with 91 North American-based former white supremacists, we examine how participants perceive homicidal violence as either an appropriate or inappropriate political strategy. Based on the current findings, participants considered homicidal violence as largely inappropriate due to moral concerns and its politically ineffective nature but also discussed how homicidal violence could be an appropriate defensive measure in RAHOWA (Racial Holy War) or through divine mandate. Capturing how white supremacists frame the permissibility of homicidal violence is a step toward better understanding the “upper limit” or thresholds for violence among members who are trying to construct and …


Thoughts And Prayers, Chloe Kardasopoulos Dec 2018

Thoughts And Prayers, Chloe Kardasopoulos

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Examining the symbolic Gun against its tangible counterpart illuminates abstract attachments of power and superiority this nation associates with the weapon. These elements loaded in the Gun transform the weapon into an object representative of American identity. Analyzing ideological commitments within the Gun guides a critical response to examine disproportionately increasing national gun violence against stagnant federal gun control. The ongoing gun debate must be analyzed in its entirety, beginning at its source - the Second Amendment. Scholars such as Gary Wills dissect the Second Amendment to extract its contextualized intent from modern writers’ manipulated interpretations. It is not the …


Honor And Violence: An Account Of Feuds, Duels, And Honor Killings, John Thrasher, Toby Handfield Sep 2018

Honor And Violence: An Account Of Feuds, Duels, And Honor Killings, John Thrasher, Toby Handfield

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

We present a theory of honor violence as a form of costly signaling. Two types of honor violence are identified: revenge and purification. Both types are amenable to a signaling analysis whereby the violent behavior is a signal that can be used by out-groups to draw inferences about the nature of the signaling group, thereby helping to solve perennial problems of social cooperation: deterrence and assurance. The analysis shows that apparently gratuitous acts of violence can be part of a system of norms that are Pareto superior to alternatives without such signals. For societies that lack mechanisms of governance to …


Understanding The Micro-Situational Dynamics Of White Supremacist Violence In The United States, Steven Windisch, Peter Simi, Kathleen Blee, Matthew Demichele Jan 2018

Understanding The Micro-Situational Dynamics Of White Supremacist Violence In The United States, Steven Windisch, Peter Simi, Kathleen Blee, Matthew Demichele

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

While substantial effort has been devoted to investigating the radicalization process and developing theories to explain why this occurs, surprisingly few studies offer explanations of the micro-situational factors that characterize how extremists accomplish violence. Relying on in-depth life history interviews with 89 former white supremacists, we analyzed the situational, emotional, and moral considerations surrounding white supremacist violence. Overall, we identified a variety of strategies white supremacists utilize for overcoming emotional and cognitive obstacles required to perform violent action. Furthermore, we also identified the callous effect of habitual violence. We conclude this article with suggestions for future research and recommendations for …


Revolution And Education, Lilia D. Monzó, Peter Mclaren Nov 2016

Revolution And Education, Lilia D. Monzó, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Denied the right to recognize patterns of violence and their relationship to class and specifically to the capitalist mode of production through an institutionalized historical amnesia, we live our lives as mere passengers on a train that stops at death’s door. In the self-proclaimed greatest super power, the United States, the mythical alliance to democracy serves to obfuscate its systematic plundering of life and earth in service to the transnational capitalist class. We have been brainwashed through state and corporate-sponsored lies, myth, and a national zealotry to forget and continue to repeat the atrocities of our past. We have been …


Fear And Media: The Relationship Between Crime Related Television Consumption And The Fear Of Crime Among Americans, Timothy Breitfeller, Tatiana Broukhim, Angelina Riccio, Leah Whitenack May 2015

Fear And Media: The Relationship Between Crime Related Television Consumption And The Fear Of Crime Among Americans, Timothy Breitfeller, Tatiana Broukhim, Angelina Riccio, Leah Whitenack

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This paper explores the relationship between crime-related media consumption, shows about actual and fictional crime, internet-related problems, and the fear of crime. Our research proves that there is a direct relationship between crime-related media consumption, internet-related issues, and the fear of crime. The Chapman Survey of American Fears (Bader, 2014) identified fear of crime among various categories and included seventeen questions that were the subject of the key variables and were measured on a four point Likert scale. A series of questions directed at 1,573 respondents regarding the variables resulted in findings of positive correlations between crime-related media consumption and …


Stranger Danger: Parenthood And Child Presence Increase The Envisioned Bodily Formidability Of Menacing Men, Daniel M.T. Fessler, Colin Holbrook, Jeremy S. Pollack, Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook Mar 2014

Stranger Danger: Parenthood And Child Presence Increase The Envisioned Bodily Formidability Of Menacing Men, Daniel M.T. Fessler, Colin Holbrook, Jeremy S. Pollack, Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Due to altriciality and the importance of embodied capital, children’s fitness is contingent on parental investment. Injury suffered by a parent therefore degrades the parent’s fitness both by constraining reproduction and by diminishing the fitness of existing offspring. Due to the latter added cost, compared to non-parents, parents should be more cautious in hazardous situations, including potentially agonistic interactions. Prior research indicates that relative formidability is conceptualized in terms of size and strength. As erroneous under-estimation of a foe’s formidability heightens the risk of injury, parents should therefore conceptualize a potential antagonist as larger, stronger, and of more sinister intent …