
Social exclusion fuels extremism in young men - jseliger
https://neurosciencenews.com/social-exclusion-extremism-14691/
======
mettamage
Personal data point: I imagined vividly to be socially excluded at points in
my life since that would be my plan B (great plan, I know, I gamble a bit with
my life from time to time as I don’t see a better option).

And I did notice a few things:

\- I have nothing to lose anymore

\- I suddenly have a lot of free time to devote my energy to

\- My mental state is slightly unstable

\- I am in a shitty mood

I am not religious and do not know much about extreme views (I only know a bit
about Buddhism) but I can imagine that extremist religious or ideological
views would hyper charge the 4 things I talked about.

On another note, if this study would state that these people would become
workaholics then I would also believe that. I feel it is the opposite side of
the same coin.

~~~
gonzo41
You are totally right about the workaholics. I have energy, destructive or
constructive. My environment chooses which way that energy flows. I'm lucky I
have a 100 year old house that steals all my time with needing to be fixed
otherwise I'd be finding trouble on the weekends. I think a lot of men exist
lacking hard physical and mentally demanding work, like working in a factory
or on a farm, that can act as an outlet and as a thing to be proud of.

~~~
johnchristopher
While I agree I want to add, for the sake of the conversation only, that it
somehow paints a picture of men as beasts to be tamed (by work, by enrolling,
etc.).

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Humans are animals after all, no matter how highly we think of ourselves.

~~~
mettamage
We are indeed. But I'd argue that some animals are more civilized than you
think. Primal behavior is simply partially out of ignorance (that's how it
seems to me).

Humans are relatively unique in:

1\. Language

2\. Tool use (thanks to being land-dwellers, two legged, and having opposable
thumbs)

3\. Having a prefrontal cortex that allows us to inhibit any other instinct we
have

Other animals have this as well to some degree or another, even all 3 of them.
These 3 things combined allow us to sometimes escape our primal nature. But I
wonder whether we're alone in that: how about dolphins, elephants and other
animals of that sort?

~~~
nicoburns
I find that out capacity to override behaviours using our prefrontal cortex is
strongly affected by the extent to which our base needs are met.

Obvious example: hangry people.

I think social exclusion is another case where people's base needs aren't
being met.

~~~
mettamage
Fair point, our prefrontal cortices do not have that much power on their own
without such conditions being met.

------
swiley
Many people here say that "People shouldn't expect to be able to afford to
live in populated areas, poorer people should just move to the country side."
I grew up homeschooled in rural America, most people would be better off
moving to a different country than moving there. People shouldn't be surprised
when isolation (either because of where someone lives or because everyone
around them is telling them to stay away) creates horrible people, leaving for
university and being around people there is what kept me from going to a
pretty horrible place.

~~~
r3bl
I couldn't agree more. I can't help but feel like the Venn's diagram between
people who suggest "move to a more rural area" and people who never lived in a
rural area for a prolonged period of time is a full circle.

It sure doesn't help that there's a bunch of articles about people who "found
happiness" by moving to a rural area like a year ago. You may see some benefit
in the short term (yes, one year is a short term), but on a long term it will
fuck you up.

~~~
sethammons
I grew up and lived in a small mountain community. 63 houses. The "big city"
nearby was population 50k. That is where we went to school. I lived there for
30 years, and commuted to a coastal city two hours away for several years.
I've since started being fully remote.

Can you explain on how being rural will fuck you up? Do I count as rural as
described above?

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
What was your commute time to the big city? Being in a small community but
being within a daily commute of a big city seems to make you a bedroom
community, not an isolated community.

~~~
sethammons
About 20-30 minutes into town. That town was traditionally agricultural but
became what was considered the bedroom community for going another hour out to
where a lot of people worked, or one more hour out to where more people
worked. All that aside, rural means relating to the countryside rather than in
town. We were out of town for sure.

------
pferde
The world at large doesn't care what you need, only what you can offer.
Realizing this (and acting on it) would help vast majority of these "socially
excluded young men" to be included instead.

There is an excellent article detailing the idea here:
[https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-
make-y...](https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-
better-person/)

I wish it was mandatory reading for all youth.

~~~
growlist
Perhaps it might also help if the media etc. stopped acting as if being born
male (particularly white and male) is some kind of horrendous original sin?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
What circles do you move in that this is considered to be the case?

To me it sounds like a Fox news viewer complaining about caravans of Muslims
coming across the Mexican border to join MS-13.

It says more about your choices in what media sources to use to get a hit of
anger than it does about objective reality.

I mean it sounds like a white nationalist talking point, but it also sounds
like you believe it.

~~~
growlist
The media etc. is absolutely awash with it, to the point where I pretty much
consider dismissals of the evidence of my own eyes as gaslighting. I've given
up on all contemporary TV and film because the virtue signalling is obnoxious
and incessant.

And the response to someone pointing it out is usually accusations of racism,
misogyny etc. I'd say this pretty much describes your response to me...

~~~
DFHippie
Well, here's another white male from North America who has lived here for many
decades but who lives in a very different world from you. I urge you to
consider dispassionately how this could be. Don't dismiss it immediately as
"virtue signaling" or "gaslighting". Assume that I am sincere in my beliefs
and accurate in my observations -- maybe you are accurate as well; I have
observed North America and different times and places. Now consider how it is
that you and I perceive the same place so differently.

------
Animats
Way too broad a conclusion from a small, specialized sample. This is the kind
of study that needs to be replicated in different environments to be useful.
It's also not clear, even if this is real, that this effect comes from
individual exclusion from a peer group or exclusion of the peer group from the
larger society.

------
keiferski
It continues to amaze me that narrow scientific studies are used to make
extremely broad statements that apply to literally hundreds of millions of
people [1]. This study was conducted on 500 people of a very specific
background in a very specific city and country. Drawing any sort of universal
conclusion from that is highly unlikely.

This clickbait style of interpreting scientific studies only contributes to
the already decreasing public trust in the scientific method.

1\. According to this link, there are 600 hundred million men between the age
of 15 and 24.
[https://www.indexmundi.com/world/demographics_profile.html](https://www.indexmundi.com/world/demographics_profile.html)

~~~
chapium
The news site is the one making broad claims. The research paper notes that
there is a correlation which also supports previous research on the topic.

------
mjfl
This finding is in line with my intuition. Social exclusion triggers an
instinct in the male brain: become something, something higher status, or die.
It is “evolutionarily accurate” - socially excluded males do not reproduce.
Men who are okay with being excluded literally died out. This instinct
probably drives productivity around the world, causes men to be startup
founders as well as terrorists and school shooters.

~~~
xwdv
I have found myself socially excluded most of my life. I see the world mostly
as a hostile place, and easily get a feeling that people do not like me.
Though I have obtained a good status in life by some metrics, what good is it
if the world is so toxic to me?

~~~
hutzlibu
Try to put it in perspective, do you think, it is possible, that other people
view you as toxic as well? I skimmed through some of your recent comments and
it seems to be the case. You don't seem to give a shit about other peoples
feelings, so why should they care about you?

Now it is of course a chicken egg thing. If you became that way, because
others did not really care about you, .. then it might not be "just", but it
still does not change the outcome. You experienced toxic and now you spread
toxic.

Money does not change that and there is no easy solution. It would require a
inner change in you to adopt to your surroundings, and/or a change of the
surroundings, if they are bad to you, until you are at a place where you want
to be, with people you like and who like you.

~~~
plutonorm
This is seriously unhelpful. The correct answer is go see a therapist for
several years to a decade.

~~~
hutzlibu
Ah yes, the modern solution to loneliness. Go and pay someone professional to
listen to your problems.

Seriously, I know people in that place and they did see a therapeut for some
years and then got seriously depressed, after they realized, that they were
just a client to the person who they thought, they had a deep connection with,
who in reality, also did not like them and just did their job for money.

Now sure, a good therapeut can help certain people, but I don't know the
poster, so I would not dare to know the "correct" answer for him and if it is
really a therapist. Might help, might also kill him. Hyperbole? Well, I wish.
But a close family member got along (miserable) on his own, then went with the
pressure to get "professional" help and now he is dead.

Oh and he is not the person from the first example, this person is probably
still alive, but that can change any day. So I have some reason to not see
therapists as the magic solution.

~~~
majos
I mostly disagree.

A good therapist can be very helpful in helping you unpack why and how you
think about things, and how you might change both for the better. That can be
a valuable professional service. Especially for people who might otherwise
have few or no relationships where they can talk about those things.

It is tragic that your family member did not get enough out of therapy, or
perhaps was actively harmed by it. But I think therapy has helped enough
people that I find it strange to blanket recommend against it.

Perhaps we can at least agree that short-scale (a few months, not years),
deliberate therapy has a place?

~~~
hutzlibu
"I find it strange to blanket recommend against it."

Where did I do that? I wrote:

"Now sure, a good therapeut can help certain people, but I don't know the
poster, so I would not dare to know the "correct" answer for him and if it is
really a therapist. "

"So I have some reason to not see therapists as the magic solution."

Psychoanalytical therapy definitely has its place. Also for years, if
necessary, I never advised against that per se. I just blanket recommend
against the "just go see a therapist" solution, as it really depends on the
therapists and the person and the situation.

Edit: maybe to elaborate a bit more: the op said he views the world as
hostile. So he does not trust people. So why would he trust "a therapist"? And
if he finally do seek one and that one is a bad one .. or even a really bad
one who tells his friends in the bar at night about his nutcases and they all
laugh and the op finds out, because he is paranoid and has bugged his
therapists mobile or have him followed (he has money) ... then the
consequences can be fatal. As then he has proof, "yes, the world is indeed
hostile to me"

------
chpmrc
Purely my opinion but can it be that the main issue is just plain old
generalization? When someone says "Straight white men still hold the majority
of political, economic and social power in the world" they are excluding the
vast majority of straight white men.

I'm straight, I'm white and I just have a job, like most of us. My boss is a
woman. Why shouldn't women (and people in general) worry about hurting my
feelings just because there are other straight white men with a lot of money
and power? That's just dumb.

~~~
igorkraw
>I'm straight, I'm white and I just have a job, like most of us. My boss is a
woman. Why shouldn't women (and people in general) worry about hurting my
feelings just because there are other straight white men with a lot of money
and power? That's just dumb.

Which is why no serious feminist (or gender-egalitarian or menslibber or
whatever) should excuse women being bitches. But it doesn't change the fact
that

>(...) When someone says "Straight white men still hold the majority of
political, economic and social power in the world" they are excluding the vast
majority of straight white men.

they are still, well,correct. It'd be more precise to say "rich straight
white...", but the sentiment is true.

The "main issue" probably isn't singular, but my take is that

a) the dissolution of "soft" power structures (men over women, _social_ view
of whites over blacks, straight over LGBTQ+...) will take time to be
culturally processed

b)activists need to embrace and push the difference between "problematic" and
"bad", and push the idea that "good people" can and should be criticized for
bad stuff they do, without immediately crucifying them - and the rest of the
world will need to learn and embrace that difference, and also learn how to
actually listen to people who might be oppressed, the difference between being
publicly criticized and "having their life ruined" (there is much more to
this, but this would get too long)

c) hard structures (job expectations, economic incentives) need to be changed
to accommodate the (assumed as desired) new social structures. E.g. the
"google memo" guy had a very good point which was very positively received in
the (german) feminist circles I hung out in online at the time, namely that
maybe we need to enforce "work life balance" in the fields where women are
underrepresented, because if the job expectation is to forego a family life,
that makes it drastically more likely for women to nope out than men.

~~~
luckylion
> It'd be more precise to say "rich straight white...", but the sentiment is
> true.

Wouldn't it be more precise to just say "rich", and to replace "rich" with
other attributes that aren't good predictors is just (intentionally) leading
away from precision?

------
malvosenior
The rise of excluded male extremism has been predicted for some time, but
sadly anyone who mentions it usually gets blasted online. I think the “I drink
male tears” coffee mugs as sipped by journalists at global media publications*
look particularly dangerous and distasteful in this age of mass shootings.
Alienating and ostracizing people will only further push them into extremism.

It feels like _maybe_ the tide is turning a bit, but so much damage has
already been done to our society. At some point people need to stop painting
all men with the same brush used to describe the very worst of the worst of
them.

* [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/13/femini...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/13/feminists-do-not-hate-men)

~~~
growlist
Establishment: let's attack men for decades, undermine their position in
society and the structures they value

Also establishment: why are men so angry?

~~~
youareostriches
Incredibly, you seem to consider the process of granting equal rights to women
“undermining the position [of men] in society”.

If this isn’t what you intended to imply, then the only other reading of your
statement suggests that you think men have _not_ historically held almost all
positions of power in society—which, demonstrably and obviously, they have.
[https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/america-
is...](https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/america-is-still-a-
patriarchy/265428/)

~~~
christophilus
That’s an uncharitable interpretation. There are plenty of other plausible
interpretations of the op’s statement: the Homer Simpsonization of male
characters in TV comes to mind (dumb husband paired with super smart, capable
wife describes a whole lot of sitcoms, or see all male characters in the
recent Star Wars flicks), the undermining of works of literature simply due to
the author being white and male, etc.

It’s subtle, but it’s out there. I suspect that there is plenty of subtle and
not so subtle bias all over the place against all sorts of people. We should
be working to eliminate all such biases.

Often the gender role issue is treated as zero-sum, which it isn’t. A strong
male role model doesn’t detract from a strong female role model.

------
buboard
Take any fMRI study with a bucket of salt. Especially when the press release
generalizes from "frontal cortex imaging of a ball game" to "extremism in
young men", with p values near the significance limit. That said, it's an
interesting topic for wider discussion.

------
jimbob45
>in a group of young Moroccan men living and schooled in Catalonia and
vulnerable to radicalization.

No one should apply anything from these findings to the US. Although there may
be some similarities, those are based on your own experiences and not backed
up by a study conducted on boys half a world away.

~~~
hombre_fatal
No man should relate to men in other geographic locations? I don't understand.
Plenty of us here have encountered some degree of social destitution and know
what kind of places that can leave you mentally.

Why would this only be limited to a specific group value like jihad and not a
broader thread that runs through male psychology? Seems like a perfectly
reasonable mount point for HN discussion and empathy.

For example, consider social exclusion's role in radicalizing men to adopt
these group values:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Going_Their_Own_Way](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Going_Their_Own_Way)
\-- doesn't seem like a stretch. That's basically the next rung on the same
ladder I started climbing when I joined PUA usergroups when I was 15, though
thankfully some social windfall (meeting my first girlfriend) snapped me out
of it.

------
nabla9
Muslim extremism in the Europe is mostly 2nd generation problem. Those who
move to EU are not drawn to extremism and neither is the third generation.
It's those young men whose parents still live in the old culture who are
alienated.

The old school Muslim radicalism, like MB, was truly ideological and
religious/political and so was the first version of AQ.

New breed or radicalism rebels against the modernism, but the form it takes,
the nihilism and alienation in it indicates that it's too late. They are
already internalised the western individualism.

------
luord
Not precisely rigorous, but the finding doesn't seem that shocking: ostracize
people and they become resentful (so the conventional wisdom goes).

------
grabarz
I'm curious if there is a correlation between online dating apps popularity
and rise of extremism. Any studies?

------
druvisc
Just like unfulfilled gorillas.

"Determined to get some attention from the others, Antwary bites into an
unedible plant."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvxDZGMc-
Fs&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvxDZGMc-
Fs&feature=youtu.be&t=1537)

------
Millennium
This is true as far as it goes, and yet, there are people in this world who
will not grow up and function except in the face of overwhelming social
pressure. They will not be taught, nor learn on their own -they must be
broken- and if they are not, well, this kind of thing is what happens. The
answer isn't to stop excluding them, but to strip away the new enablers.

------
im3w1l
> Vulnerability was considered to exist among those who expressed willingness
> to defend the sacred values promoted by jihadist terrorist groups, either by
> engaging in violent protest and actions, financially supporting nonstate
> militant groups, joining a nonstate militant group, or fighting and dying on
> their own. The 38 participants who met this criteria and were interested in
> participating in the study while maintaining their anonymity were invited to
> a neuroimaging session.

> In this online exclusion game, participants pass the ball to three virtual
> players, who were given typical local names: Dani, Javi and José.

Wonder if the result would have been the same if the virtual players were
named Ahmed, Mustafa and Mahmod. Or a mix.

------
jiberwarrior
Wouldn't this imply that excluding places like T_D and more recently, 8chan,
further continue to fuel further extremism in groups that already feel
marginalized?

~~~
scotty79
It's a tough one. On one hand 8chan is a source for stupid values to
sacralize, on the other it lessens social exclusion and staves off extremist
behavior.

~~~
XorNot
Anonymous internet message boards with a vague "large" audience are _not_
substitutes for actual social interaction.

It's the same problem as Facebook and other social media: people present a
curated persona, and ignore that they're only seeing everyone else's curated
persona as well.

Ad marketing is already well into figuring out how to manufacture
"authenticity".

~~~
scotty79
It is a social interaction and it has effects of one albeit weak.

You can have bits of social satisfaction from hearing 'hello, how are you'
from a store clerk or from watching people interact on TV. Definitely you can
get it from getting responses to you anonymous or curated speach on the
internet. Of course its not the same thing as honest interaction with your
friend or loved one but it doesn't mean it does nothing for you.

Please notice they made people feel isolated by not passing a ball to them in
a computer game.

Social circuits in the brain are so low level they can be activated by most
superficial stimuli.

------
chansiky
If you are struggling with social exclusion, and for no good reason, there is
a manipulator in the ranks and for whatever reason the people in the group
have no capacity to think for themselves. There are billions of people on this
earth, many of whom have developed brains. Make your friends with those
people, not the ones without the ability to formulate their own opinion.

------
okusername
... in muslims who sympathize with jihadist terror groups and play a computer
game. No control group.

Btw its scary that they asked 500 morrocan muslims in Spain and were able to
recruit 38 extremists.

~~~
Animats
Not surprising. 18% of the US population thinks the sun rotates around the
earth.

~~~
55555
And would you classify that 18% as astrologically extremist or poorly
educated?

~~~
Cthulhu_
iirc at least 4% of those are trolls - I read about that on HN the other day,
forgot what the effect was called and can't find it in my history. But the
gist of it is that these numbers are done via polls online and the statistics
are poisoned by people filling stuff like "I believe in flat earth" for the
lulz.

~~~
sbierwagen
Lizardman constant. [https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-
and...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-
reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/)

------
EGreg
Reminds me of this:
[https://psy.fsu.edu/~baumeisterticelab/goodaboutmen.htm](https://psy.fsu.edu/~baumeisterticelab/goodaboutmen.htm)

Women have reactions to social exclusion too, but different ones

------
baud147258
I'm pretty sure that social exclusion fuels extremism across all sex and age
groups

~~~
buboard
that's probably closer to the truth, and society is structured to exclude men
more often.

------
lunias
Seems pretty intuitive to me. If you can't join them, beat them.

------
sysbin
Ahh the Red Queen and the Black Queen hypothesis. We meet again. :)

~~~
qtplatypus
What is the Red Queen and the Black Queen hypothesis?

~~~
prawn
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_hypothesis)

------
wintorez
Social exclusion and alienation fuels extremism and violence, period.

~~~
Cthulhu_
CAN fuel that, it can also cause depression, isolation, etc. You can't just
make an absolute statement like that without looking at the reality - the
reality is that while there are a ton of socially excluded and isolated
people, only a very small fragment of those become violent.

------
patientplatypus
Just as a side note it's always made me extremely sad when we demonize the
shooters and terrorists. _Of course_ what they did is terrible. But we should
have sympathy with them because they are sick. Love is cheap if it only
matters on Hallmark cards and corporate holidays.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I think the meme that 'all murderers are sick' has been thoroughly debunked?
Real ordinary people can decide to do horrific things if they get in the wrong
state of mind.

~~~
sdinsn
I think the difference is that mass murderers kill people just to kill people.
While other 'traditional' murderers kill for more material reasons (money,
drugs, etc.)

~~~
CompanionCuuube
"Traditional" murders were are not necessarily for material reasons.

"Introduction: Theory of the Culture of Honor is one of the few models in
criminology specifically geared toward homicide. It proposes that, in certain
societies, men must never show weakness and are required to react violently to
any perceived threats to their reputation, thereby increasing their
probability of committing a homicide. This has been suggested as the main
explanation for the high rates of this type of crime in Brazil, particularly
in the Northeast. Underlying this explanation there are complex mechanisms and
processes that have yet to be clarified."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5672109/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5672109/)

~~~
sdinsn
Of course there is a cultural aspect, but Brazil is seriously impacted by
organized crime syndicates which operate for _money_

------
jstewartmobile
[https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0246...](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02462/full)

"Extremism" is a value-judgement, not a pathology. Abolitionists were also
called "extremists".

This is psychology in service of staziism--using questionnaires and fMRI to
identify serfs with higher wrongthought potential--rather than diagnosing and
treating illness.

------
cannedslime
Just in men? I recall a young woman here (15 years old at the time) not so
long ago, who converted to islam and made a batch of TATP with her boyfriend,
planning to bomb her school dance.

Don't tell me you get that idea by being the popular girl in school!

[http://nyheder.tv2.dk/krimi/2017-11-24-kundby-pigen-kendt-
sk...](http://nyheder.tv2.dk/krimi/2017-11-24-kundby-pigen-kendt-skyldig-i-
planlaegning-af-terror)

