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Psychological Aspect of Religious Terrorism in Japan
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 86 (2013) 146 – 150
V Congress of Russian Psychological Society
Psychological Aspect of Religious Terrorism in Japan Raevskiy Alexander * Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Psychology
Abstract
Terrorism has become recently a subject to research in many fields of knowledge, and psychology is no exception. Happening in different parts of the world, terrorist acts are very difficult to predict, and also difficult to analyze because every terrorist organization differs in its social, cultural and psychological background. It means, that terrorism should be considered not as a common phenomenon with the same number of features, but as a complex problem depending much on the individual and cultural distinctive features. Current paper analyzes one of the most famous terrorist acts of previous century happen only in Japan, and the analysis of the Japanese mentality and of the time the accident took place (Cultural-historic approach by L.S. Vigotskiy) can be a key to the understanding of this case. Click here and insert your abstract text. © 2013 2013 The Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open TheAuthors. Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. access under CC BY-NC-ND license. Selection and/or under responsibility of Russian Psychological Society Society. Selection and/orpeer-review peer-review under responsibility of Russian Psychological Keywords: Religious terrorism; Social psychology; Japan; Individualism-Collectivism; Conformity
1995, is the most terrific and psychologically effective terrorist act in Japanese history, and likely to be one of the is known as a terrorist organization, although from another point of view it was a popular among the young Japanese, prosperous religious cult with more than 10000 followers. Based in 1984 as a small yoga club in the suburbs of Tokyo, in 10 years Aum Shinrikyo became a powerful cult owning a hospital, several restaurants and foreign offices. This phenomenal success was possible mainly because of one man, the founder and the guru (sonshi in Japanese) of Aum born afflicted at birth with infantile glaucoma, in a large, poor family at the remote island of Kyushu. After
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +7-903-714-0623 E-mail address: [email protected]
1877-0428 © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Russian Psychological Society doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.08.540
Raevskiy Alexander / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 86 (2013) 146 – 150
moving to Tokyo, he looked for different ways to earn money, was arrested for selling fake Chinese medicine, buddhist-oriented cult of 1980-s then decided to open a yoga club after onein Japan) and, surprisingly even for Asahara himself, his idea about yoga club was a success. In several next charismatic leader or a good enterpreneur, in fact, didn't know much about yoga practices and religion in general [1]. A turn to violence occurred in 1992, when Aum elections in Japan. After that Asahara gave an order to his disciples, many of whom were specialists in physics, chemistry and biology, to produce VX-gas for the terrorist attack against Tokyo. However, the background for these destructive actions, which led to sarin attack, was laid earlier, in 1989. more paranoiac. Together with his closest disciples, they decided to conceal the information about this case and burn the body [2]. From that moment we can speak about the forming of the terrorist organization: it was a small group of people planning illegitimate activities. young and talented graduates from the best Japanese universities were attracted by a strange religious cult and why were they able to commit violent and terrorist actions against their own state. The answer to these questions lies in the sphere of the Japanese mentality. First of all, according to the Cultural-historic approach, introduced to psychology by L.S. Vigotskiy [3], every event should be analyzed not as a certain independent case, but in the connection with the specific cultural features of the region and the time it took place. If we take a look at the situation in Japan in 1980-cultural background can be definitely seen as one of the main
history Emperor admitted, that he was not a God (kamisama), but an ordinary man. Some historians argue that it had a more psychological impact on people, then the defeat itself [4]. Anyway, Japan had to build a new country under the supervision of the USA, and for the post-war generations, a work on the sake of their country was the only and greatest value. The next generation, born in 1960-s, was much less idealistic in its aims: money for them was not an ultimate goal, but just a way to provide their living; young people were seeking spiritual enlightenment more than economical welfare. Some Japanese sociologists invented a new term for the post-war generation: they call them [5]. shinjinrui We must also remember that religion in Japan plays a role, different from our culture. Initially, the can be tran ) and it indigenous faith of ancient Japanese is called Shinto ( greatly influences modern-day culture and traditions in Japan. In VI century Buddhism was adopted, and the Japanese religion became more complicated, still being more a number of practices and rituals than a belief. For there was a situation, which was described by an American historian and religious scholar D. Metraux [6] as recompose themselves, but couldn't find anything in their religion that could have helped them. In 1980-s, a lot of New religions (shinshukyo) appeared as a response to the needs of the Japanese [6]. hierarchic and strict: one must follow the necessary rules from the early childhood. Even in school, society begins to control the individual, and being a collectivistic culture [7];[8], Japan has a strong influence of the society on from society is not allowed in Japan; one can get a good job, a career and earn a lot of money only being a part of
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Raevskiy Alexander / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 86 (2013) 146 – 150
good alternative in fact. While leading a normal life, it would take years to take a good post in a company or a -budget investigations, the becoming, for example, a Minister of Science Japanese was that a religious cult could become an alternative to their built-by-centuries social system. maybe in leading an interested unusual life, turn themselves to terrorism, commiting violent acts against their own country. An american psychologist and specialist in terrorism, N. Smelser [9] writes about the - a moment after which the group begins to act violently. mark the beginning of the terrorist activity, but it doesn't help to understand the motivation of the terrorists [10]. The key to its understanding lies in social psychology. selfa common characteristic which differ them from the others, and this characteristic is very important for them. Any criticism or attacks against it and it can be called among the reasons for the sarin attack. In his later sermons and books (beginning from 1991) was wrong only by fact of its existence. Waller [13] writes that the dehumanization of victims is a very important step to the moral approvement of the killing. the main reason to commit terrorist act and the main motivation for it was Asahara's order. Only guru's approval made it not a murder of innocent people, but a sacred act, good for Aum and for their karma [14]. Here we come close to the phenomena of obedience to authority figures, which became a subject for a notable social psychology experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram [15]. The experiment measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. The results showed that people were able to harm others seriously, simply own analysis was the existence of a discontinuous, altered cognitive state that he called the agentic state; it occurs inner conflict is reduced through the abrogation of personal responsibility. American ps to do evil, while the main self remains pure. He even ar emotions as extreme or demonic as would seem appropriate for such a malignant project. Or to put the matter some professional groups (for example, doctors, biologists, generals, artists etc.) and some cultures (like Germany or Japan) have a special capacity for doubling. The explanations mentioned above cannot fully explain the evildoing, and there are certainly some more aspects that should be taken into consideration. One of the most important is connected with the mentality of the Japanese. Using the cross-cultural approach, especially those studies, which compare the Japanese with the Americans or the Europeans, we can find out some features helpful in understanding this case. First of all, as it was mentioned above, Japan is a collectivistic culture. The main difference between individualistic and collectivistic cultures, according to many authors [18]; [19]; [7]; [8]; etc., lies in the value system. Collectivist orientations stress the importance of cohesion within social groups (such as an "in-group", in what specific context it is defined) and in some cases, the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivistic cultures are most likely to found in the East, in the more traditional societies, like China, India,
Raevskiy Alexander / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 86 (2013) 146 – 150
Japan. Individualistic cultures like USA and France (and other European countries) are more self-centered and emphasize mostly on their individual goals. People from individualistic cultures tend to think only of themselves cultures. Comparing Japan with many other cultures, we should keep in mind that it is one of the most collectivistic societies. Different studies of collectivism showed that it is connected to conformity. In other words, the more collectivistic a culture is, the higher will be the level of conformity in it. For example, Prunty et al. [20] found out that students from Japan argued less and try to keep harmony inside the group, then the American students. Ohbuchi et al. [21] had an experiment showing that in the conflict situation the behavior of Japanese and Americans is also different. Japanese always tend to find a way to keep good relations with the opponent, while Americans would easier escalate to a conflict [22]. Conformity plays a great role not only in the Japanese mentality in general, but in the case of any violent acts. It was a situation that made them to commit acts they have committed, and in the situation of moral choice, turning to terrorism was just a best way to find harmony with the others. As a conclusion, we would like to point one important feature about religious terrorism in Japan, as well as about many violent acts in other regions: many evil doings are committed not by t quite seldom, but in these situations anyone can become a terrorist, - argue some psychologists [20 - 24]. Still, according to the above mentioned cross-cultural studies, we can suppose, that the Japanese, being very polite and peaceful in their everyday life, can easier, than some other cultures, commit violent acts, if someone told them to do so. References: [1] Reader Ian. Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan: The Case of Aum Shinrikyo. Richmond and Honolulu: Curzon Press and University of Hawaii Press; 2000. [2] Kaplan David E., Marshall A. The Cult at the End of the World: The Incredible Story of Aum. London: Arrow Books Ltd.; 1996. [3] Vigotskiy L.S. Psihologiya razvitiya cheloveka. [Psychology of Human Evolution]. Moscow: Eksmo; 2005. [4] Mesheryakov A.N. Bit' yapontsem [To be a Japanese]. Moscow: Natalis; 2009. [5] Tanaka Yukiko. Contemporary Portraits of Japanese Women. Wesport CT: Praeger; 1995. [6] Metraux Daniel A. Aum Shinrikyo and Japanese Youth. New York: University Press of America; 1999. [7] Triandis H. Culture and Social Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2004. [8] Matsumoto David, Juang Linda. Culture and Psychology. 5th edition. Cengage Learning, 2012. [9] Smelser N.J. The Faces of terrorism: Social and Psychological Dimensions. Princeton University Press; 2007. [10] Tkhostov A.Sh., Surnov K.G. Needs of Terrorist // Psychology in Russia: State of the Art v. 2, Lomonosov -491. Moscow State University; Russian Psy [11] Fromm Erich. Anatomy of human destructiveness. Henry Holt and Company; 1992. [12] Asahara Shoko. Hissutsu zuru kuni, wazawai chikashi. Tokyo: Oumu Shuppan; 1995. [13] Waller, James. Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing. Oxford Univ. Press; 2007. [14] Egawa Shoko. Oumu Shinrikyo tsuiseki 2200 nichi. [2200 days after Aum]. Tokyo: Bungei Shunshu; 1995. [15] Milgram, Stanley. Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York: Harper and Row; 1974 [16] Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors: Medical killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York: Basic Books; 1986.
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[17] Lifton R.J. Destroying the world to save it. Aum Shinrikyo, apocalyptic violence and the new global terrorism. N.Y.; 1999. [18] Bruner, J. S. Beyond the Information Given: Studies in the Psychology of Knowing. New York: George Allen & Unwin; 1973. . Beverly Hills, CA: Sage; 1980. [19] Hofstede G. [20] Prunty, A.M., Klopf, D.W. & Ishii, S. Argumentativeness: Japanese and American tendencies to approach and avoid conflict. In: Communication Research Reports, 7, 1990; pp. 75-79; [21] Ohbuchi, K., Fukushima, O. & Tedeschi, J.T. Cultural values in conflict management: Goal orientation, goal attainment, and tactical decision. In: Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (30), 1999; pp. 51-71; [22] Matsuda, N. (1985). Strong, quasi-, and weak conformity among Japanese in the modified Ash procedure // Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. Vol. 16. 1999; pp. 83-97; [23] Potapov M.V., Kipiani A.Y. Psychology of Safety and Resistance to Terrorism // Psychology in Russia: State of the Art v. 4, Lomonosov Moscow State University; Russian Psychological Soci 371- 382. . [24] Terestchenko M. Recherches: Mauss; 2005.
ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 86 (2013) 146 – 150
V Congress of Russian Psychological Society
Psychological Aspect of Religious Terrorism in Japan Raevskiy Alexander * Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Psychology
Abstract
Terrorism has become recently a subject to research in many fields of knowledge, and psychology is no exception. Happening in different parts of the world, terrorist acts are very difficult to predict, and also difficult to analyze because every terrorist organization differs in its social, cultural and psychological background. It means, that terrorism should be considered not as a common phenomenon with the same number of features, but as a complex problem depending much on the individual and cultural distinctive features. Current paper analyzes one of the most famous terrorist acts of previous century happen only in Japan, and the analysis of the Japanese mentality and of the time the accident took place (Cultural-historic approach by L.S. Vigotskiy) can be a key to the understanding of this case. Click here and insert your abstract text. © 2013 2013 The Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open TheAuthors. Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. access under CC BY-NC-ND license. Selection and/or under responsibility of Russian Psychological Society Society. Selection and/orpeer-review peer-review under responsibility of Russian Psychological Keywords: Religious terrorism; Social psychology; Japan; Individualism-Collectivism; Conformity
1995, is the most terrific and psychologically effective terrorist act in Japanese history, and likely to be one of the is known as a terrorist organization, although from another point of view it was a popular among the young Japanese, prosperous religious cult with more than 10000 followers. Based in 1984 as a small yoga club in the suburbs of Tokyo, in 10 years Aum Shinrikyo became a powerful cult owning a hospital, several restaurants and foreign offices. This phenomenal success was possible mainly because of one man, the founder and the guru (sonshi in Japanese) of Aum born afflicted at birth with infantile glaucoma, in a large, poor family at the remote island of Kyushu. After
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +7-903-714-0623 E-mail address: [email protected]
1877-0428 © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Russian Psychological Society doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.08.540
Raevskiy Alexander / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 86 (2013) 146 – 150
moving to Tokyo, he looked for different ways to earn money, was arrested for selling fake Chinese medicine, buddhist-oriented cult of 1980-s then decided to open a yoga club after onein Japan) and, surprisingly even for Asahara himself, his idea about yoga club was a success. In several next charismatic leader or a good enterpreneur, in fact, didn't know much about yoga practices and religion in general [1]. A turn to violence occurred in 1992, when Aum elections in Japan. After that Asahara gave an order to his disciples, many of whom were specialists in physics, chemistry and biology, to produce VX-gas for the terrorist attack against Tokyo. However, the background for these destructive actions, which led to sarin attack, was laid earlier, in 1989. more paranoiac. Together with his closest disciples, they decided to conceal the information about this case and burn the body [2]. From that moment we can speak about the forming of the terrorist organization: it was a small group of people planning illegitimate activities. young and talented graduates from the best Japanese universities were attracted by a strange religious cult and why were they able to commit violent and terrorist actions against their own state. The answer to these questions lies in the sphere of the Japanese mentality. First of all, according to the Cultural-historic approach, introduced to psychology by L.S. Vigotskiy [3], every event should be analyzed not as a certain independent case, but in the connection with the specific cultural features of the region and the time it took place. If we take a look at the situation in Japan in 1980-cultural background can be definitely seen as one of the main
history Emperor admitted, that he was not a God (kamisama), but an ordinary man. Some historians argue that it had a more psychological impact on people, then the defeat itself [4]. Anyway, Japan had to build a new country under the supervision of the USA, and for the post-war generations, a work on the sake of their country was the only and greatest value. The next generation, born in 1960-s, was much less idealistic in its aims: money for them was not an ultimate goal, but just a way to provide their living; young people were seeking spiritual enlightenment more than economical welfare. Some Japanese sociologists invented a new term for the post-war generation: they call them [5]. shinjinrui We must also remember that religion in Japan plays a role, different from our culture. Initially, the can be tran ) and it indigenous faith of ancient Japanese is called Shinto ( greatly influences modern-day culture and traditions in Japan. In VI century Buddhism was adopted, and the Japanese religion became more complicated, still being more a number of practices and rituals than a belief. For there was a situation, which was described by an American historian and religious scholar D. Metraux [6] as recompose themselves, but couldn't find anything in their religion that could have helped them. In 1980-s, a lot of New religions (shinshukyo) appeared as a response to the needs of the Japanese [6]. hierarchic and strict: one must follow the necessary rules from the early childhood. Even in school, society begins to control the individual, and being a collectivistic culture [7];[8], Japan has a strong influence of the society on from society is not allowed in Japan; one can get a good job, a career and earn a lot of money only being a part of
147
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Raevskiy Alexander / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 86 (2013) 146 – 150
good alternative in fact. While leading a normal life, it would take years to take a good post in a company or a -budget investigations, the becoming, for example, a Minister of Science Japanese was that a religious cult could become an alternative to their built-by-centuries social system. maybe in leading an interested unusual life, turn themselves to terrorism, commiting violent acts against their own country. An american psychologist and specialist in terrorism, N. Smelser [9] writes about the - a moment after which the group begins to act violently. mark the beginning of the terrorist activity, but it doesn't help to understand the motivation of the terrorists [10]. The key to its understanding lies in social psychology. selfa common characteristic which differ them from the others, and this characteristic is very important for them. Any criticism or attacks against it and it can be called among the reasons for the sarin attack. In his later sermons and books (beginning from 1991) was wrong only by fact of its existence. Waller [13] writes that the dehumanization of victims is a very important step to the moral approvement of the killing. the main reason to commit terrorist act and the main motivation for it was Asahara's order. Only guru's approval made it not a murder of innocent people, but a sacred act, good for Aum and for their karma [14]. Here we come close to the phenomena of obedience to authority figures, which became a subject for a notable social psychology experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram [15]. The experiment measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. The results showed that people were able to harm others seriously, simply own analysis was the existence of a discontinuous, altered cognitive state that he called the agentic state; it occurs inner conflict is reduced through the abrogation of personal responsibility. American ps to do evil, while the main self remains pure. He even ar emotions as extreme or demonic as would seem appropriate for such a malignant project. Or to put the matter some professional groups (for example, doctors, biologists, generals, artists etc.) and some cultures (like Germany or Japan) have a special capacity for doubling. The explanations mentioned above cannot fully explain the evildoing, and there are certainly some more aspects that should be taken into consideration. One of the most important is connected with the mentality of the Japanese. Using the cross-cultural approach, especially those studies, which compare the Japanese with the Americans or the Europeans, we can find out some features helpful in understanding this case. First of all, as it was mentioned above, Japan is a collectivistic culture. The main difference between individualistic and collectivistic cultures, according to many authors [18]; [19]; [7]; [8]; etc., lies in the value system. Collectivist orientations stress the importance of cohesion within social groups (such as an "in-group", in what specific context it is defined) and in some cases, the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivistic cultures are most likely to found in the East, in the more traditional societies, like China, India,
Raevskiy Alexander / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 86 (2013) 146 – 150
Japan. Individualistic cultures like USA and France (and other European countries) are more self-centered and emphasize mostly on their individual goals. People from individualistic cultures tend to think only of themselves cultures. Comparing Japan with many other cultures, we should keep in mind that it is one of the most collectivistic societies. Different studies of collectivism showed that it is connected to conformity. In other words, the more collectivistic a culture is, the higher will be the level of conformity in it. For example, Prunty et al. [20] found out that students from Japan argued less and try to keep harmony inside the group, then the American students. Ohbuchi et al. [21] had an experiment showing that in the conflict situation the behavior of Japanese and Americans is also different. Japanese always tend to find a way to keep good relations with the opponent, while Americans would easier escalate to a conflict [22]. Conformity plays a great role not only in the Japanese mentality in general, but in the case of any violent acts. It was a situation that made them to commit acts they have committed, and in the situation of moral choice, turning to terrorism was just a best way to find harmony with the others. As a conclusion, we would like to point one important feature about religious terrorism in Japan, as well as about many violent acts in other regions: many evil doings are committed not by t quite seldom, but in these situations anyone can become a terrorist, - argue some psychologists [20 - 24]. Still, according to the above mentioned cross-cultural studies, we can suppose, that the Japanese, being very polite and peaceful in their everyday life, can easier, than some other cultures, commit violent acts, if someone told them to do so. References: [1] Reader Ian. Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan: The Case of Aum Shinrikyo. Richmond and Honolulu: Curzon Press and University of Hawaii Press; 2000. [2] Kaplan David E., Marshall A. The Cult at the End of the World: The Incredible Story of Aum. London: Arrow Books Ltd.; 1996. [3] Vigotskiy L.S. Psihologiya razvitiya cheloveka. [Psychology of Human Evolution]. Moscow: Eksmo; 2005. [4] Mesheryakov A.N. Bit' yapontsem [To be a Japanese]. Moscow: Natalis; 2009. [5] Tanaka Yukiko. Contemporary Portraits of Japanese Women. Wesport CT: Praeger; 1995. [6] Metraux Daniel A. Aum Shinrikyo and Japanese Youth. New York: University Press of America; 1999. [7] Triandis H. Culture and Social Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2004. [8] Matsumoto David, Juang Linda. Culture and Psychology. 5th edition. Cengage Learning, 2012. [9] Smelser N.J. The Faces of terrorism: Social and Psychological Dimensions. Princeton University Press; 2007. [10] Tkhostov A.Sh., Surnov K.G. Needs of Terrorist // Psychology in Russia: State of the Art v. 2, Lomonosov -491. Moscow State University; Russian Psy [11] Fromm Erich. Anatomy of human destructiveness. Henry Holt and Company; 1992. [12] Asahara Shoko. Hissutsu zuru kuni, wazawai chikashi. Tokyo: Oumu Shuppan; 1995. [13] Waller, James. Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing. Oxford Univ. Press; 2007. [14] Egawa Shoko. Oumu Shinrikyo tsuiseki 2200 nichi. [2200 days after Aum]. Tokyo: Bungei Shunshu; 1995. [15] Milgram, Stanley. Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York: Harper and Row; 1974 [16] Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors: Medical killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York: Basic Books; 1986.
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Raevskiy Alexander / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 86 (2013) 146 – 150
[17] Lifton R.J. Destroying the world to save it. Aum Shinrikyo, apocalyptic violence and the new global terrorism. N.Y.; 1999. [18] Bruner, J. S. Beyond the Information Given: Studies in the Psychology of Knowing. New York: George Allen & Unwin; 1973. . Beverly Hills, CA: Sage; 1980. [19] Hofstede G. [20] Prunty, A.M., Klopf, D.W. & Ishii, S. Argumentativeness: Japanese and American tendencies to approach and avoid conflict. In: Communication Research Reports, 7, 1990; pp. 75-79; [21] Ohbuchi, K., Fukushima, O. & Tedeschi, J.T. Cultural values in conflict management: Goal orientation, goal attainment, and tactical decision. In: Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (30), 1999; pp. 51-71; [22] Matsuda, N. (1985). Strong, quasi-, and weak conformity among Japanese in the modified Ash procedure // Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. Vol. 16. 1999; pp. 83-97; [23] Potapov M.V., Kipiani A.Y. Psychology of Safety and Resistance to Terrorism // Psychology in Russia: State of the Art v. 4, Lomonosov Moscow State University; Russian Psychological Soci 371- 382. . [24] Terestchenko M. Recherches: Mauss; 2005.