Violent And Peaceful Crowd Reactions In The Middle East: Cultural Experiences And Expectations

Collective honor in Middle Eastern crowds may serve as an important basis for both conflict and conflict resolution between security forces and crowd members. To investigate this issue, we extended a social-cognitive model of crowd behavior to account for the role of honor in social identities and relations, and tested the model in two studies. In Study 1, we collected critical incidents representing crowd experiences in the Middle East. The interview data were coded to include security actions that escalate force and those that generate understanding or exhibit restraint. Study 2 used a scenario-based interview procedure to test the hypothesis that Middle Eastern civilians and Americans with no Middle Eastern cultural experience hold differing beliefs and expectations about crowd reactions to security force actions. The results showed that escalation of force against the crowd led to an increase in the level of conflict more often than not, whereas attempting to understand the crowd or exhibiting restraint tended to decrease conflict. Middle Eastern expectations were largely congruent with these findings, whereas American beliefs diverged. The results have implications regarding the cultural and cognitive determinants of crowd behavior, and for the management of crowds by regional governments and in international peacekeeping situations.