Understanding and preventing hate crimes. When people face a crisis, they often revert to an unfortunate human tendency to protect their own while finding a scapegoat to blame the problem on. These propensities emerged full blown in the days following the Sept. New York and the Pentagon. Arab Americans who had previously blended into the crowd suddenly became targets of suspicion, prey to verbal bullying, e mail harassment, store lootings and even murder. Arab students, fearing for their safety, fled the United States and returned home. Were in a mode where we feel like we have to protect ourselves, where we feel that everyone who is clearly not us needs to be scrutinized, says Ervin Staub, Ph. D, professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an expert on helping, altruism and the origins and prevention of ethnopolitical conflict. When people are victimized as individuals or as a group, it creates a diminished sense of self, a view that the world is a more dangerous place. Most Americans would never overtly act on the feelings of mistrust that may have developed since the attacks. But a small proportion of Americans have participated in incidents ranging from name hurling to full blown hate crimes, like the much publicized murder of a Sikh gas station owner by an Arizona man or another persons attempt to run over a Pakistani woman in a Huntington, N. Y., parking lot. Its hard to say how many of these incidents have occurred nationwide since Sept. Sept. 3. 0, the FBI was investigating about 9. Social and clinical psychologists who study these phenomena note important distinctions between people who commit hate crimes and those who may experience a newfound suspicion of Arab Americans and act on it in lesser ways. Hornstein, Platt and Associates Counseling, Therapy, Psychiatry, Nutrition, Weight Loss, Acupuncture, Organizing and Coaching Services for Individuals, Couples. The Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine PCOM is a private, nonprofit graduate college, with a main campus located on 17 acres in Philadelphia, in the US. But its also important, Staub and others believe, to view bias reactions on a continuum and in a cultural and political context. Its possible, they say, that a deeper education about Arab American citizens may help prevent hate crimes against them. Understanding perpetrators. University of California, Los Angeles psychologist Edward Dunbar, Ph. D, is examining from a clinical and forensic perspective what drives hate crime perpetrators. Professional%20Development%20Seminar%20-%20GGSM.jpg' alt='Bryn Mawr Psychology Graduate Program' title='Bryn Mawr Psychology Graduate Program' />With a team of graduate students, hes spent the last year at the Los Angeles Police Department profiling about 5. Those who commit hate crimes are not mentally ill in the traditional sense theyre not diagnosably schizophrenic or manic depressive, Dunbar is finding. What they do share, however, is a high level of aggression and antisocial behavior. These people are not psychotic, but theyre consistently very troubled, very disturbed, very problematic members of our community who pose a huge risk for future violence, Dunbar notes. Childhood histories of these offenders show high levels of parental or caretaker abuse and use of violence to solve family problems, he adds. People who commit bias crimes are also more likely to deliberate on and plan their attacks than those who commit more spontaneous crimes, Dunbar adds. Gay bashers, for instance, commute long distances to pursue their victims in spots theyre likely to find them, suggesting a strong premeditative component to these crimes. In addition, those who commit hate crimes show a history of such actions, beginning with smaller incidents and moving up to more serious ones, Dunbar notes. Unfortunately, the current social climate may give such individuals a chance to act out their feelings in ways that are more socially acceptable than usual, comments Staub. A crisis such as this may give them permission to have and express these feelings, he says. People who have had painful experiences and no opportunities to heal tend to be more hostile in general, and they more easily channel their hostility toward groups the society is also against. Why we act as we do. Research by University of Colorado at Boulder psychologists Bernadette Park, Ph. D, and Charles Judd, Ph. D, helps explain why some people came to so rapidly mistrust Arab Americans after the Sept. Drew University is located in Madison, New Jersey, a borough approximately 25 miles west of New York City. Known as the Rose City because of its rosecultivating. Alabama. Alabama AM University, Employment Alabama AM University, Graduate Admission Alabama AM University, Psychology Counseling Employment. Bryn Mawr College Offices. Contact Us Bryn Mawr College 101 N. Merion Ave. Bryn Mawr. PA 190102899 Phone 6105265000 infobrynmawr. There are 7,000 languages in the world, and were interested in studying all of them. Linguistics is the scientific study of languagewe develop techniques to. FacultyStaff Directory. Contact Us Bryn Mawr College 101 N. Merion Ave. Bryn Mawr. PA 190102899 Phone 6105265000 infobrynmawr. The Lewis and Clark Fund encourages exploratory field studies for the collection of specimens and data and to provide the imaginative stimulus that accompanies direct. Longstanding research by the team and by the other social psychologists shows that people tend to see groups theyre not a part of as more homogeneous than their own group, a phenomenon known as the outgroup homogeneity effect. When you meet a person whos a member of an outgroup, youre less likely to individuate them, to pay attention to individual characteristics, than when you meet members of your ingroup, Judd explains. Thats because stereotypes concerning outgroup members are stronger than those of ingroup members people are therefore more willing to ignore individuating information about members of outgroups, lumping them all into a single disliked category, he says. The less you know about a group, the stronger this effect will be which is certainly the case in the current crisis, adds Clark Mc. Cauley, Ph. D, professor of psychology at Bryn Mawr College and co director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania. Americans were ignorant about their Arab American neighbors before the Sept. Arab American communities are concentrated in only a few spots in the United States. And when people dont know much about a group, theyre likely to ascribe to them the notion of a cultural essence, a sort of innate temperament they erroneously believe defines the entire culture. In the case of Arabs, that essence may be seen as militant and extremist The thinking is, you can take away a tigers stripes, but its still a tiger, Mc. Bryn Mawr Psychology Graduate Program' title='Bryn Mawr Psychology Graduate Program' />Cauley says. That view is compounded by the fact that many Americans only other concepts of Arabs come from their incorrect view of them as hostage takers in the 1. Iranian hostage debacle many Iranians are in fact not Arabs, Mc. Cauley notes and as anti Israeli terrorists. How To Install Tally Erp 9 Multi User Crack on this page. Mc. Cauley also takes issue with the term hate crimes, noting that little is known about the emotion of hatred. Explore and get your Associates Degree in Nursing, ADN, is a great way of entering the nursing profession and making money quickly. Find a nursing program near youInstead, he thinks of them as crimes fueled by anger, and probably fear and ignorance as well. Social psychologist Russell Fazio, Ph. D, of Ohio State University, has been examining a related phenomenon he calls automatically activated attitudes toward those of different races. He was the first to develop a measure estimating whites positive or negative associations to and evaluations of blacks, without having to directly ask them for this information. The technique tests the extent to which briefly flashed pictures of black or white faces influence the speed at which participants identify the meaning of a positive or negative adjective. The research shows that many whites automatically react more negatively to blacks than to whites, even though they claim they dont consciously hold such views. Because the current crisis has led many Americans to develop negative associations about Arabs, the attitudes automatically activated on meeting an Arab American are likely to be negative and to influence the tone of the interaction, Fazio suggests. One effect of these phenomena may be avoidance. In an unpublished study under review, Fazio and Tamara Towles Schwen of Indiana University asked white subjects to respond to different posed social scenarios involving blacks. Whites showed no negative reactions to interacting with blacks in nonintimate or highly scripted situations, such as relating to a waiter in a restaurant. Bryn Mawr Psychology Graduate Program' title='Bryn Mawr Psychology Graduate Program' />The Department of Psychological Sciences combines the areas of study found in many psychology departments with those typically found in communication sciences.