Just as there’s no single reason that leads a person to believe in
white supremacy, there’s also no one tool that can be used to study and
explain that person’s attitudes and behavior, said University of
Delaware social neuroscientist Jennifer Kubota.
“Scholars agree that not one life event (situational factor) or a
single personality or psychological characteristic (dispositional
factors) defines individuals who engage in white supremacy or who leave
white supremacy,” she wrote in a research proposal. To support the
research she proposed, Kubota has been awarded a prestigious Ford
Foundation Senior Fellowship offered through the Ford Foundation and the
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, allowing her
to focus entirely on that work for a full year beginning in September.
This award is aimed at increasing the diversity of college and
university faculty in the United States, and Kubota’s selection marks
the first time it has been given to a neuroscientist.
Kubota, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences
and of political science and international relations, described her plan
to use the time focusing on a new avenue of research examining the
drivers of race-based hate, radicalization and deradicalization. She
will use an assortment of techniques — including biological measures,
behavioral measures, life history interviews and focus groups — to
examine what drives people to become radicalized or de-radicalized about
the ideology of white supremacy.
“We want to use neuroscience to peek inside people’s minds and
discover what makes them think and behave in certain ways,” she said.
During the fellowship, she will examine drivers of extreme hate
toward racial groups with individuals who have not yet joined extremist
organizations. This work will serve as a foundation for future
collaborative research that will focus on radicalization and
deradicalization into the white supremacy movement.
The research will use neuroscience and social science methods to
investigate how individuals come to either join or leave such
organizations and examine such factors as their response to propaganda.
Her collaborative, interdisciplinary approach will seek to identify
characteristics of three groups: those not yet engaged in the white
supremacy movement, those currently engaged and those who have left the
movement.
The research stems from Kubota’s longtime work involving equity in intergroup relations and drivers of social injustice.
“I think a lot about how we behave with people who are different from
us,” she said. “We all have these underlying assumptions about groups,
no matter how well intentioned we are, because we all grew up in a
certain culture.”
Kubota hopes that her research may provide insights into how to
better combat hate and violence. She cited the numerous incidents of
racially based violence that have occurred recently in American
churches, synagogues and other settings and the reports that, since
Sept. 11, 2001, white supremacists and other far-right extremists have
killed more people than any other domestic extremists in the U.S.
“It’s become easier in the past 10 years to find people who hold
extreme views, as they become more open about it,” Kubota said. “Our
question is: When do those views tip over into wanting to be part of a
group that shares those views.”
