Instrumental means for identifying personal inclination to protest behavior

Imprint

Elena V. Brodovskaya, Vladimir A. Lukushin, Aleksandr S. Ognev. Instrumental means for identifying personal inclination to protest behavior. Cardiometry; Issue No. 32; August 2024; p. 4954; DOI: 10.18137/cardiometry.2024.32.4954; Available from:

INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

Violent social upheavals are organized by some specific individuals, who are not always aware of the nature of their protest. While recognizing the free will of a man, we nevertheless know that much in the psychological sense is embedded in each of us in the form of subconsciously acting cognitive patterns, attitudes and a kind of the scenario matrices. In some individuals, such components of their orientation are quite peaceful in nature. But in the subconscious of other subjects, some attitudes towards protest or even destructive behavior are already embedded as something that, all other things being equal, will be realized first. Moreover, even their own attempts to realize their far from pragmatic nature are actively hindered by multiple psychological defenses, manifested in the form of self-justification, rationalization or devaluation of their actions. Nevertheless, the postulation of the free will does not lose its meaning in this case. According to our hypothesis, an instrumental identification of such attitudes and demonstration of their influence on the choice of one or another course of action to the subject of protest behavior can be an effective aid in understanding his/her own inclination to non-pragmatic protests. The basis for this assumption is a set of studies we have previously conducted, which demonstrated the fundamental possibility of instrumental recording of manifestations of various unconscious fragments of orientation schemes in terms of mental images that unconsciously prompt a person to various automatic actions [1, 5-7, 9-11, 1619, 21-25]. At the same time, it was shown that demonstration of objective manifestations of the work of such reference points helps a person in enhancing his/her own subjective potential by understanding them and increasing his/her ability to make more balanced decisions [2-4, 12-15, 19-21].

EXPERIMENT MATERIALS

AND METHODS

Taking into account the results we had obtained earlier, the following items were used as stimulus material when testing the above hypothesis:

– simultaneous appearance on the eye tracker screen of images of rows of scenes of violent protests in the form of riots on city streets and rows of police officers ready to suppress such behavior, above which was the phrase “they are right”;

– displaying inscription “closer to me” on the screen, along the edges of which were photographs of faces of some media personalities with a clearly expressed oppositional orientation of their behavior and those with the clearly defined pro-government position;

– pictures from S. Rosenzweig’s picture association test demonstrating clearly provocative behavior of some characters against other persons;

– images with various kinds of symbolic prohibitions such as a red line and inscription “Do not cross the red line”, a person standing on the edge of a cliff, etc.;

– multi-polar visual-verbal semantic differentials with central inscriptions like “it’s better in a conflict” and answer options “to wait”, “to concede”, “to defend”, “to attack”.

The above stimuli were used in the work with the GP-3 eye tracker. The exposure time of each stimulus was 10 seconds. In the intervals between their successive presentations, a single-color blue screen was shown for 2 seconds. This was done in order to exclude an influence of residual eye-motor reactions caused by the previous stimulus on the subsequent results.

All the visual stimuli employed, in addition to their digital form, also had their hard copies, printed and laminated on A5 sheets. In that form, they were presented to the subjects with simultaneous recording of their reactions for 15 seconds employing the PC-assisted Cardiocode cardiograph, as well as the Barrier-14 and KRIS polygraphs. The main reference points for the experimenters in those measurements were the Baevsky stress index and the area under the galvanic skin response graph automatically calculated by the above mentioned devices. The above recording equipment was selected taking into account the high information content of the indicators in relation to the affective component of the respondent’s orientation scheme activated in this way [5-9, 11, 16, 19, 20, 23, 25].

A total of 142 people, whose ages ranged from 17 to 35 years, took part in the experimental study.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Of all the stimuli used, the most sensitive in terms of identifying a tendency toward protest behavior were pictures with elements of forced restrictions. One example of such a response is shown in Figure 1 given herein. The Figure clearly shows the difference in the distribution of attention between those respondents who have a clear tendency toward protest behavior (the first type of response, which corresponds to the image in the second row on the left) and those who do not have such a tendency (the second type of response, which corresponds to the image in the second row on the right).

On average, the specific time the gaze spent above the line with the first type of response is 28%, that on the proper line it is recorded to be 18%, and that under the line (i.e. in the zone that the respondents themselves defined as a place where it is prohibited to stay) is 41%.

Figure 1. Specific distribution of gaze fixation zones of the first type (far right image in the second row) and the second type (far left image in the second row) with a demonstration of the original type of visual stimulus (image in the center in the first row).

Similar indicators of the gaze distribution with the second type of response are recorded as follows: the specific time the gaze spent above the line is 71% of the total time of stimulus demonstration, that spent on the line is 8% and that under the line amounts to 5%.

Translation from Russian in Figure: DO NOT CROSS THE RED LINE!

It is noteworthy that the presentation of hard copy versions of the same stimulus to those who demonstrated the first type of response was usually accompanied by an intensification of their psycho-physiological reactions and pronounced behavioral manifestations of noticeable emotional arousal. In their comments, those respondents, who demonstrated that type of reactions, usually admitted to having an elevated intolerance to various kinds of restrictions. Many of them also noted that restrictions imposed by someone repeatedly in their lives even led to such variants of protest behavior that they often regretted later. In terms of the validity of the hypothesis, it is also important that many respondents have spoken about a more understandable reason for those unpleasant episodes of their own lack of restraint.

Similar data were obtained when working with the visual stimulus shown in Figure 2 herein. In that case, for those respondents who demonstrated the first type of response (the far right image in the second row in Figure 2 herein), the specific time spent examining the drummer’s figure was 45% of the total exposure time of the stimulus. In that case, the specific time spent looking at the outline figure of an adult was 22% of the total stimulus exposure time.

For the respondents who demonstrated the second type of response (the leftmost image in the second row in Figure 2), the specific time spent looking at the outline figure of a drummer was 26% of the total stimulus exposure time. In that case, the specific time spent looking at the outline figure of an adult was 53% of the total stimulus exposure time.

Translation from Russian in Figure: WHERE ARE YOU?

It is also exemplary that those respondents who demonstrated reactions of the second type most often identified themselves with law enforcement officers and justified their behavior in the post-test conversations. They also most often focused their attention on images of pro-government media personalities. When

Figure 2. Features of the distribution of gaze fixation zones of the first type (far right image) and the second type (far left image) with a demonstration of the original type of visual stimulus (image in the center).

working with a stimulus in the form of a multipolar visual-verbal semantic differential with central inscriptions such as “it is better in a conflict”, this group of respondents chose the option “to defend” as their most preferable answer.

The results obtained when presenting the stimulus shown in Figure 3 herein were somewhat unexpected. For those respondents, previously demonstrated the first type of response (the far right image in the second row in Figure 3 herein), the specific time spent looking at the left figure in this stimulus is 28% of the total stimulus exposure time, that at the central figure is 12%, and that at the right figure amounts to 37% of the total stimulus exposure time. When working with the hard copy version of the same stimulus, the group of respondents in question most often demonstrated psycho-physiological reactions characteristic of the dominance of the parasympathetic component of the autonomic nervous system. During the post-test interviews, those respondents said that the scene depicted was ambiguous, that the person who had fallen was possibly drunk and was to blame for what had happened to him. Some test subjects even stated that one person should not force another to solve his/her problems. Therefore, for respondents from the group, the figure on the right, who, in their opinion, was trying to simply leave this place “so as not to have to do something that he/she does not like,” was more preferable in terms of self-identification.

Translation from Russian in Figure: WHICH OF THEM ARE YOU?

But, as a rule, those respondents who had previously demonstrated the second type of their response (the far right image in the second row in Figure 3 herein) distributed their attention to the elements of that stimulus quite differently. For them, on average, the specific time spent examining the left figure was 61% of the total stimulus exposure time, while that for the central figure amounted to 8%, and that referred to the right figure was recorded to be 14% of the total stimulus exposure time. In response to the presentation of a hard copy version of the same stimulus to that group of the respondents, psycho-physiological reactions characteristic of the dominance of the sympathetic component of the autonomic nervous system were most often recorded. In their comments to that stimulus, the group of the respondents in question has stated that “any normal person” should help those in need, that it is not difficult for them to give a hand to someone who has fallen, and therefore the right figure in the presented stimulus is closest to them. To some clarifying questions about the reasons for such readiness, the respondents from that group answered that this is a normal reaction of any well-mannered person.

CONCLUSION

To summarize the results of the conducted research, first of all, it is necessary to note the two groups of respondents that we have identified with significantly different options for responding to situations with various kinds of restrictions and prerequisites for interpersonal conflicts.

The first group was characterized by the following: – the preferences and sympathies related to participants in street protests;

– the sympathies for opposition politicians with pronounced protest behavior;

– the preference for “free” behavior in their lives;

– the desire to distance themselves from those who find themselves in a difficult situation in order to avoid unnecessary obligations;

– the resistance to external control.

The most typical characteristics of the second group were the following:

Figure 3. The eye-tracker recorded distribution of the zones of predominant gaze presence of the first type (far right image) and the second type (far left image) with a demonstration of the original type of visual stimulus (image in the center).

– the demonstration of preferences and sympathy for government officials, rather than for protesters and those prone to disrupting the established order;

– an increased attention to images of pro-government politicians;

– the declaration of a desire to follow accepted norms of behavior;

– the normative readiness to help those who find themselves in a difficult situation;

– the high level of self-control.

The obtained data demonstrated the validity of the initial hypothesis, according to which effective assistance in realizing one’s own inclination toward non-pragmatic protests can be the instrumental identification of such attitudes and demonstration of their influence on the choice of one or another option of action by the subject of his/her protest behavior.

The article was prepared within the framework of the scientific project of the Russian Science Foundation No. 20-18-00274 (HSE University)