Eric Wolterstorff's Monograph
A Speculative Model of How Groups Respond to Threats addresses the unconscious behavior of groups in response to stress or traumatic shock. It is available in .pdf format, which requires the free Adobe Reader.
Part I (Chapters 1 through 4; see the Table of Contents below.)
Part II (Chapter 5)
Part III (Chapters 6 through 10)
Abstract
This essay is theoretical. It suggests that groups of humans respond to threats automatically and outside of individual conscious awareness. The literature concerning the effects of stress and trauma in relationship to three units of analysis—the brain, the individual and the group—are presented and theoretical links between them described.
Four interdependent facets of a speculative model of a group response-to-threat process are posited: 1) Building on recent modeling from neuropsychology, three distinct forms of memory are described, including their different qualities and how the resulting memory complex of a particular event changes, over a person’s life and when transmitted through generations. 2) The roles that individuals play at the scene of a traumatic event described in the traumatology literature are compared and contrasted with the roles members of a family assume when anxious, as described in the family therapy literature. A set of post-threat roles is suggested to coherently relate them. 3) Modeling from the study of the social insects is presented that describes how complex group processes can result from simple interactions between individuals without a need for conscious awareness. It is suggested that similar emergent processes evolved in humans, and further, that the emergent processes that occur in both ants and humans can be accounted for in part by epigenetic algorithms, and that the process can be modeled mathematically. 4) Finally, the essay proposes a self-regulatory, three-step process that emerges in groups of humans when they are threatened.
Hypotheses generated by the model, case studies and other avenues for further research are explored. Implications suggested by the model for practical interventions—with threatened, stressed or traumatized individuals, families, organizations, communities or nations—are presented. The application of the model to certain historiographical and international problems is suggested.
Chapter One: The phenomenon and how it will be approached
Chapter Two: Setting the stage: sources and terms
Chapter Three: Links between the levels of analysis; theory and findings
Chapter Four: Modulations of memory over time
Chapter Five: Identifying a gap in the literature; filling it; the four response-to-threat roles
Chapter Six: Complex group behavior from simple interactions; positive feedback loops
Chapter Seven: A model of group response-to-threat behavior
Chapter Eight: Avenues for further research
Chapter Nine: Practical applications
Chapter Ten: Conclusion
