Psychology and Critical Security Studies
Diala Hawi
One of psychology’s main concerns is that of wellbeing. The conventional notion of wellbeing oftentimes falls within the critical study of global health security, but wellbeing encompasses more than individual health. As a concept, it is subjective, and has been defined and measured in several ways, such as experiencing a sense of autonomy and environmental mastery and has consistently been linked with feelings of certainty. At the group or societal level, political psychological research explores questions of ontological security, social stability, activism and social change, perceptions of threat and (un)certainty, and other issues related – directly or indirectly – to overall subjective wellbeing (SWB). One of the ways that psychology contributes to the study of critical security is through learning more about how the everyday person understands and seeks security, and in turn, SWB.
I recently conducted a national survey examining a wide range of attitudes and experiences among people currently living in Qatar (Hawi, Yogeeswaran, and Albustami, forthcoming). Preliminary analyses found that a wide range of variables linked to security – e.g., security over maintaining one’s residency, certainty about one’s future, perceived threat of one’s values, perceived discrimination, subjective Socioeconomic Status (SES), or job security – directly predicted levels of psychological distress and anxiety, providing further support to the link between wellbeing and security concerns. The story, however, is more complex. These self-reports vary, especially when compared across ethnic communities, and reflect distinct experiences and subjectivities – the criteria for security and wellbeing are not consistent or straightforward across groups.
For social psychologists, more important than state-based or so-called objective definitions of security is the understanding of how perceptions of security are formed, what they are impacted by, and what their implications may be. These individual differences – in how individuals and/or groups interact with outside factors, how they are affected by, and in turn, affect their surroundings – play a large role in shaping societies.
How we experience and evaluate our security and the extent we feel certain about ourselves, our surroundings, and our future – individually or collectively – determines how we respond and push for (or against) change. For some, achieving security requires maintaining the status quo regardless of one’s own status, while for others, it requires seeking change despite associated risks. While some people can justify a system that offers them very little, others risk their lives fighting for an unknown future. More importantly, the subjectivity of these perceptions can often make them easily malleable and manipulated. In fact, numerous studies have shown how easily feelings of certainty and uncertainty could be experimentally manipulated in a laboratory, and how these then affect various outcomes, such as wellbeing, social identity, radicalization, and outgroup hostility. If an artificial experimental setting can affect uncertainty and its outcomes in such a way, it is not difficult to imagine how certainty could be manipulated by media and politics in the real world as well, and to more catastrophic consequences.
Perceptions go beyond the confines of real facts and have been found to affect numerous outcomes, ranging from intergroup hostility to collective action to reconciliation. History is rife with moments of insecurity and uncertainty, and these current times are no exception. The examples of climate change, migration, and collective action demonstrate how perceptions of security are situated in various contexts. Beliefs about climate change and the extent that it is seen as a threat to environmental security impact behavioral decisions that individuals and communities make in response, including personal sacrifices. However, while information about climate change is readily available, the extent of that information impacting perceived threat, or attitudinal and behavioral change, significantly varies, as a function of framing, social identities, need for certainty, and a number of other psychological factors.
Another global phenomenon that has captured the attention of scholars, politicians, and policy makers alike is that of migration. For the migrant/refugee, their experiences involve escaping perceived (economic/health/political) threats in pursuit of a security that they have been lacking, only to face other concerns – safety, acceptance, equal treatment, permanence – that plague them long after their (re)settlement. On the other side, host communities are influenced by perceived threats of their own, against their group-based identity (national, cultural, etc.), their values, their way of life, their economy, and their physical security. Zahra Babar’s work on migration tackles many of these questions headfirst – examining power inequalities, perceived threat, and the (in)security of statehood.
Finally, what drives one to take part in collective action? It seems that besides a collective identity and ideology, many will engage in analyses of risk, efficacy, and threat to decide whether their actions might lead to a brighter or dimmer future. Ammar Shamaileh addresses these issues in his contribution to this roundtable: When does insecurity – in the present and of the future – compel action or inaction? Ammar highlights “threats to values” as an indicator of insecurity – a notion that social psychological literature has frequently tied to prejudice and outgroup hostility.
A recent series of studies asked people to imagine how things in their lives (ranging from the economy, their health, the government to YouTube) could be different. Almost consistently, people only imagined how all these things could be better, and hardly anyone listed how things could be worse. Perhaps this means we cannot – or should not – try to envision an ideal sense of security; the ultimate goal, it seems, remains at a constant distance away, regardless of where we stand. Indeed, concepts such as “bad” vs “good” or “secure” vs “insecure” are not absolute categorical judgments. We assess whether things are secure, in comparison to other references – other people, other contexts, or past versions of ourselves. And it is a personal process (albeit heavily influenced by outside factors). While one individual is imagining more stability, fulfillment, security for themselves, another is striving to “secure” a fraction of what the former has. The contributions from Ammar Shamaileh and Torsten Menge take these thoughts further to suggest that equitable security for all may be difficult to achieve, reminding us that so long as social categorizations exist, power disparities will remain and will impact how groups and individuals see themselves and respond to these disparities. Is it possible to imagine a context where everyone is secure, without one’s security infringing on someone else’s?
As a social political psychologist, my work examines social issues stemming from power asymmetries and imbalances within intergroup relations. My research explores questions of (in)stability, (un)certainty, and group-based threat (to identity, existence, norms, values, justice, etc.), and how these develop, how they are experienced, and how they influence outcomes. In my latest work, I am investigating the dynamics between citizens and migrants and/or refugees within a highly understudied Arab region. In most Arab countries, refugees and/or migrants might be able to stay under specific conditions but are rarely granted a path toward citizenship. For many migrants who are escaping crumbling economies (Lebanon), conflict (Syria, Yemen), or oppression and persecution (Palestine), trying to establish a sense of stability, while recognizing that their stay is conditional, creates a life of ongoing insecurity, of realizing that a sense of “settlement” is virtually impossible to attain. And when not obsessively anticipating the day when they may be asked to leave, they struggle – along with that country’s host community – to determine their place in all of this. What does conditional acceptance mean when rights are unprotected, when identities are challenged, when the push and pull of “integration vs. separation” is daily questioned? More importantly, what does a secure society, secure life, mean to all these groups asked to live in these close quarters?
Most struggles are rooted in behavior and human cognition. As a psychologist, I am preoccupied with understanding the various ways that people report about, experience, and react to situations they are placed in. At the center of human thought and behavior, is a drive towards survival, wellbeing, and security, in all their subjective configurations.
references
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Diala Hawi is an assistant professor of Social Psychology at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. Hawi's research focuses on social issues that stem from conflict, such as multiple group dynamics and third-party effects, as well as disadvantaged and oppressed status groups.
citation
To cite: Hawi, D. "Psychology and Critical Security Studies." In Developing Critical Security Studies from Doha, edited by Hermez, S., Doha: #IAS_NUQ Press/Beirut: Arab Council for the Social Sciences, 2024.