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The Networked Mind: Collective Identities and the Cognitive-Affective Nature of Conflict

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Networks and Network Analysis for Defence and Security

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Social Networks ((LNSN))

Abstract

Using a cognitive approach to the study of conflict that conceptualizes the mind as a network of mental representations, we make three arguments about the role of collective identities in the emergence, persistence and resolution of conflict. Collective identities are subsystems of larger networks of mental representations that make up an individual mind. Because they manifest the group within the mind of an individual, but also connect and align the individual mind with that of other group members, collective identities are an essential element of a complex, multilevel process that constitutes the group in the first place—they are necessary for the emergence of the social group phenomenon. Finally, collective identities are “sticky” in the sense that they are more resistant to change and trigger stronger—more emotional—defensive responses than other mental representations when challenged.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This view coincides with the theories of Durkheim [39] and Geertz [40] on the meaning and function of religion in society. In constructivist international relations literature, it could relate to Mitzen’s argument that in addition to physical security, political actors seek “ontological security” in the form of the preservation of rigidly routinized relationships with others to which they have become attached, and that this tendency may contribute to the perpetuation of even dangerous routines such as protracted conflict [41].

  2. 2.

    For example, sociobiologists such as van den Berghe [42] who view nations as extensions of the evolutionary mechanism of kin selection explained by, among others, Dawkins [43]; or culturalists such as Grosby [44], drawing from the works of anthropologists like Clifford Geertz who saw groups as forming around perceived a priori “givens” such as descent, language or religion [40]. From the standpoint of our argument, we could also include in this category the “ethnosymbolist” approach of Smith [45, 46] that frames the nation as a modern social construct nonetheless dependant on continuity with durable pre-modern ethnic communities.

  3. 3.

    A view most forcefully articulated by Brass [47, pp. 40–41], but also evident in the works of Laitin [48]; as well as historians Breuilly’s [49] notion of nationalism as a form of politics geared toward control of the state and Eric Hobsbawm’s concept of nationalism as the product of “invented traditions” engineered by elites to mobilize masses in the age of mass politics [50, 51].

  4. 4.

    Anderson [52], for example, saw the nation a consequence of the decline of universal religions, leading to the formation of territorial states formed around the vernaculars generated by the market demands of print capitalism. Gellner [53] saw them as the product of the social changes needed to maintain a modern growth economy, accelerated by the impacts of industrialization on the relationship between imperial cores and their culturally distinct peripheries.

  5. 5.

    With the stick-figure, borrowed from xkcd.com, standing in for the sum total of remaining mental representations, structures and processes that make up the human individual.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

    Manjana Milkoreit & Steven Mock

  2. Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA

    Manjana Milkoreit

  3. Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

    Steven Mock

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  1. Manjana Milkoreit
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  2. Steven Mock
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Correspondence to Manjana Milkoreit .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom

    Anthony J. Masys

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Milkoreit, M., Mock, S. (2014). The Networked Mind: Collective Identities and the Cognitive-Affective Nature of Conflict. In: Masys, A. (eds) Networks and Network Analysis for Defence and Security. Lecture Notes in Social Networks. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04147-6_7

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