From: casspa@atlantis.CS.ORST.EDU (Paul Cass)
Subject: The labeling of environmentalists
Organization: Computer Science Outreach Services - Oregon State University
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 92 05:19:58 GMT

The Labeling of Environmentalists

     A public relations "Crisis Management Pan" prepared for the
Clorox corporation and leaked to Greenpeace recommends labeling
environmental critics as "terrorists" and threatening to sue
"unalterably green" journalists.  The Ketchum Communications Public
Relations firm specifically recommended labeling Greenpeace as
"violent, self-seeking eco-terrorists".
     Richard Newhaus, author of "In Defense of People, argues that
ecological activists are "using nature the same way Hitler did, to
legitimize a desire for political power."
     Sue Joerger of the Southern Oregon Timber Industry Association
says of Earth First!, "These people aren't motivated to save more
wilderness, they're more a Marxist organization."
     The Wise Use movement, creation of the Center for the Defence
of Free Enterprise, has a specific agenda of polarizing local
political debate around a singular scapegoat: environmentalists. 
David Hupp of A Territory Resource, says, "Wise-use organizers have
proven themselves skilled at find the right code words to tap
community emotions, exploit fear and whip it into a frenzy.  Ken
Toole of the Montana Human Rights Network suggests that hate groups
thrive on the polarization wise-use organizers create, "The
clearest example we have seen is the Aryan Nation actively
recruiting in Oregon, Washington and Idaho around the spotted owl
issue.
     Cornucopian books have fueled the labeling of
environmentalists as extreme fanatics in such recent titles as
"Ecological Fantasies", "Models of Doom", "Doomsday has been
cancelled" and "Eco-Hysterics & Technology".  As the spokesman for
the Cornucopian movement, Julian Simon writes, "This juggernaut of
environmental movements is fueled by false information and special
interest values, and must be stopped before the world is led too
far along the road to disaster."
     When wheelchair bound David Willis and Earth First!er Dave
Foreman attempted to block a logging road under construction in the
Oregon Kalmeopsis wilderness, Foreman was deliberately knocked down
by a truck and dragged over the rough road.  The truck driver
yelled at the prostrate environmentalist "You dirty communist
bastard!  Why don't you go back to Russia?"  "But, Les, I'm a
registered Republican."  was Foreman's reply, which at the time was
true.
     As Christopher Manes, in "Green Rage" says, Environmentalists
have been labeled as being Fascists and Marxists, terrorists and
mystics, people with an axe to grind and hucksters in pursuit of
distrust, obscurantists, atheists, misogynists and misanthropes." 
To which Manes adds, "If any insult has been left out of the list,
apologies are in order."
     With systematic deliberation, environmentalists have been
labeled "extremists" or "terrorists" by those who disagree with
their values, science or recommended changes.  In fact, some
environmental groups have voluntarily assumed the mantle of
radicalism while maintaining a code of non-violence.  What
objective is served by this active pursuit of nominal
identification?  What consequences are predicted that give
exaggerated group classification a utilitarian purpose?  The
answers lie in the interaction goals of social cognition.
     Understanding the motives and effectiveness of nominal
classification, is found in social psychology theories of
interpersonal perception.  this paper will explore the consequences
of labeling environmentalists as extremists through the perceptual
tools of situational and self-assessment, expectancy heuristics,
correspondent inference and other attributional theories, and self-
fulling interaction scripts.  Finally, experimental data on the
effects of induced mood on expectancy-based illusory correlations
will be explored in an attempt to discover a defensive strategy to
nominal identification.

Situational and Self-Assessment
     Interpersonal psychology is, in the words of Jones,
"preoccupied with what determines person perception conclusions and
the consequences of drawing different conclusions for interpersonal
relations."  Every personal interaction takes place with the
framework of the situational conditions and the self-concept and
goals of the participants.
     Environmental controversies take place in the heated context
of self-interest.  corporations see their livelihood attack with
their products.  Workers see their behavior condemned and their
jobs at risk.  Environmentalists see the world and human survival
jeopardized.  This aroused context for interaction provides the
basis for motivated bias.  The hedonic relevance and personalism
each participant brings to the interaction sets the stage for more
extreme personal attributions.
     Dedicated environmentalists see their behavior as a reaction
to situational constraints.  The status quo has created the
problems environmentalist want addressed.  To preserve an old
growth forest, they need to change the current tide of behavior. 
the see the need for ecological civil disobedience to be similar
to the need felt by the civil rights marchers of martin Luther
king.  But they also believe there is an added sense of urgency
motivating the action because once a species is lost it is lost
forever.
     Psychologists have found that people are often blind to the
many ways that situational constraints influence behavior.  yet
environmentalists, as observers of their own behavior, will
frequently cite the situational context as explanation.  As
observers of corporate endeavors, however, environmentalists are
quite likely to ascribe personal attributions, ignoring and
situational constraints, or considering them irrelevant.
     Corporations and workers who view environmentalists with scorn
or dread are directly effected by the efforts of environmentalist -
 mills close, whaling is outlawed, pollution control costs prevent
salary increases.  The hedonic relevance will cause more extreme
dispositional attributions and increase the likelihood of
succumbing to the correspondent bias.
     Corporations of workers who are exposed by environmentalists
as engaging in unsafe or non-sustainable practices are having their
self-concept attacked.  Nobody want to view themselves as a
destroyer, a poisoner, a blight.  Cognitive dissonance is aroused
when self-assessment says, "I'm a kind, caring individual" and
environmentalists say "You're a killer."  Such dissonance must be
resolved by either denial or behavior change.  When the behavior
is the source of their economic livelihood, denial is the more
attractive alternative.  If the accuser can be viewed as someone
whose opinion is worthless, an extremist or terrorists, the self-
concept can more easily be maintained.
     Environmentalists believe their behavior is constrained by the
situation.  Their self-assessment is congruent with the hero-
underdog.  They see themselves fighting the losing battle of time
against great odds.  Corporations and workers maintain their own
self-concept by finding the tools to dismiss the accusations of
environmentalists.  Such aroused states provide a situational
framework that promotes the simplification of name calling, at the
very least.
 
Expectancy Heuristics
     The act of labeling environmentalists extremists is engaging
in schema priming - attempting to activate certain preconceptions
or stereotypes already stored in memory.  What images are evoked
by the word "extremist" or "terrorist?"  I asked reader of computer
network newsgroups what word pictures these terms painted.  These
newsgroups contain readers who are Cornucopians and
Environmentalists, but the images conjured were the same from both
groups, subversive, intemperate, excessive, outrageous, violent,
irrational, beyond control, extravagant, biased, distorted,
corrupt, coercive, enraged, vehement and murderous were some of the
varied definitions.
     Nominal identification of environmentalists with the terms
"extremist" and terrorist" is an attempt to force a schema-driven
category-based expectancy.  all environmentalists are gathered
together in an associative network with the images evoked from the
labels.  Category-based expectancies define a group in such a way
as to predict future behavior and to interpret ambiguous
information in the shadow of pre-existing stereotypes.
     Simply shouting names and playing sticks and stones does not
make an effective label.  How does Clorox Corporation believe it
can label the cogent, lucid scientific findings of a dioxin chemist
as the work of a subversive, irrational fanatic?
     The aroused or heightened situation of environmental
controversies and the need to alleviate cognitive dissonance
provides a motivational framework toward acceptance of the labels. 
Further, some environmentalists wear the labels as a badge of
honor.
     Foreman wrote, "there was a need for a radical wing that would
make the Sierra Club look moderate.  It would help the mainstream
environmental groups operate more effectively by making them appear
reasonable in comparison."
     Finally, the labels themselves form a foundation upon which
to analyze behavior.  If I read in the newspaper that the FBI has
labeled Earth First! activity at Glen Damn as "terrorist", my
subsequent judgement of the activities of unfurling a plastic
banner bearing a huge crack down the face of the dam in anchored
in that initial label.  If I subsequently decide that the
photographic crack caused no damage and may ask legitimate risk
questions, my conservative adjustment from my initial perception
may still cause me to label the behavior as extreme.
     If I encode in memory this environmentalist activity as
extreme, future uses of that word to label lucid scientific work
of global warming as extreme resonates with my existing
information.  The manipulative ability of schema priming lies in
the initial acceptance and the future defining of ambiguous
behavior within that framework.
     One interesting cognitive factor of category based
expectancies is the making of illusory correlations - expecting
that two unusual, salient things are somehow related. 
Environmentalists are extremely susceptible to illusory
correlations about extremism.  Normative expectancies reflect
status quo behaviors.  Environmental predictions question normative
expectancies, expose how accepted practices , produce unexpected
consequences, and challenge people to change status quo behaviors. 
The unexpected consequences elucidated by environmentalists are
often quite severe.  Predictions about the consequences of global
warming, ozone loss, species extinction and dessertification are
visions of a world profoundly different from those that are
provided by normative expectancies.  Extreme consequences are
linked with the bearer of the message in an illusory correlation
of extremism.
     The very nature of the environmental message is extreme; it
is salient; it grabs attention.  Salience is one of the prime
cognitive factors in category=based expectancies.  We are more
likely to not and encode an extreme behavior.  If we ask observers
why an environmentalist might be labeled a terrorist, they are
likely to mention tree spiking.  Everyone remembers the salient,
extreme behavior of putting nails in trees to prevent logging.  If
we ask the observers how many people have been injured by tree
spiking, few will remember that only one logger was somewhat
injured, no environmental group had issued a warning for the area
(which is {proforma} a necessary part of the spiking process) and
that the tree was not old-growth.  The salient details are much
more easily retrieved and help maintain the stereotypic expectancy.
     Only a small group of environmentalists engage in civil
disobedience of tree spiking, road blocking or high seas activism
yet the cognitive heuristic of out-group homogeneity means that
those who aren't environmentalists expect similarity among all
members of the target group.  If I see tree spikers as
environmentalists and as extremists, I am likely to see all
environmentalists as extremists, provided I don't consider myself
and environmentalist.
     Finally, scientific research in a new field attempting to
predict the future is fraught with uncertainty.  If a NASA
scientist concludes that global climate change has already started
but another scientist expresses doubt, the NASA scientist is seen
as more extreme.  He is seen this way precisely because his
conclusion deviates from normative expectancies.  In fact, the NASA
scientists work may contain more conservative scientific
manipulation of the numbers than might the scientist who doubts. 
If the scientists who maintains  the normative expectancies uses
extreme constraints to cause his numbers to remain within the
status quo, his work will be seen as less extreme by the public.
     Many observers remember the Alar scare as an example of
environmental extremism.  To this date, Washington apple growers
are still suing CBS.  Yet the facts that incited the scare and the
facts that incited the scorn and extremist labels have remained
unchanged.  The studies that found Alar to be a cancer-causing
agent found in baby food are not being challenged.  The aflatoxin
in peanut butter also cause cancer.  The contention is
predominantly that in the 60 Minutes publicity, unwarranted
salience was generated.  By the same lights, current dismissal of
Alar as a scare caused by extreme environmentalists is a matter of
salience given to the response.  The facts never changed. 
Responsible scientists are going to become unwilling to allow their
work released to the popular press when the salience of the issue
tars and feathers them with extremist labels and then dismisses the
findings with as much motivated bias.
     Category based expectancies about extreme environmentalists
means we will interpret ambiguous or uncertain findings as the
result of extremism not valid science.  Further the expectancies
will cause observers to pay more attention to manifest extremism. 
Finally, predictions will be made about future environmentalist
behavior, dismissing future finding beforehand as a product of the
"doom and gloom crowd."
 
Correspondent Inference
     Correspondent inference is the attributing of behavior to a
similar disposition.  In other words, extreme behavior is seen as 
evidence of an extremist personality.  Psychologists see this
causal attribution process as valid to the extent that the behavior
is free from situational constraints.
     It has already been mentioned that environmentalists feel that
their behavior is  not made under conditions of free choice.  They
feel that the situational constraints of the normative context
force them to engage in acts of civil disobedience, litigation, and
lobbying.  A Sea Shepherd sailor would not engage in the behavior
of ramming an illegal whaling boat if whales were not endangered,
if Iceland were not illegally harvesting whales, or if yelling
"Stop!" were enough.
     Despite environmentalist feelings of situational constraint
observers may argue that free choice existed to care about the
whale in the first place, observers may also be unaware of
situational constraints or succumb to the correspondent bias and
discount the constraints.  Thus it is likely that extremist
behavior will be seen as indicating an extreme attitude.
     The unusual item about this analysis is that in this case, the
labels are being applied to the attitude and behavior is expected
to correspond.  The Ketchum Public Relations firm suggested Clorox
call environmentalists terrorists.  Ketchum in applying an
attributional label to a disposition so that future behavior will
be viewed in light of the label.  Correspondent inference theory
is unidirectional, behavior supplies the information about
disposition.  Founded in self-perception theory, attributional
theories uniformly agree that attitudes only weakly determine
behavior.
     This misuse of correspondent inference theory highlights the
manipulative nature of defining a target population by attributing
disposition and then seeking to make salient any corresponding
behaviors as stereotypic.
     Trope's two stage model of attribution suggests that observers
use behavior situation and prior expectancies to make correspondent
inferences.  He suggests that cues in each of those attributional
categories provide the context for defining ambiguity in the other
categories.  Thus the police observers who watch a guard shoot a
few inches to the side of Lisa Brown's head (an OSU student
activist) when she had chained her neck to a timber loader, may
decide that the situation is civil disobedience, the prior
expectancies are that environmentalists are terrorists, so the
ambiguous behavior of the guard is defined as rational.
     The danger in labeling environmentalists in schema-driven
terms such as "extremist" becomes quite apparent.  If observers'
prior expectancies have been primed to expect violent, extremist,
terrorist behavior from environmentalists, the observers are quite
likely to view otherwise normative-violating behavior as normal. 
In fact, examples flourish of environmentalists killed, injured or
assaulted by people who had not previously engaged in this
behavior.
     ~    Judi Bari, a Redwood Summer activist has her car blown
          up and became paralyzed, yet initial news stories and the
          police believed she had blown herself up, despite lack
          of corroborating evidence.
     ~    Doug Norlen had his foot run over by a bulldozer operator
          in the Kalmiopsis who screamed, " If you don't get out
          of the way, I'm going to kill you."
     ~    "Nuke 'em - you have my vote" wrote the editor of "Forest
          Industries" about tree sitters.  So, a logger did indeed
          cut down an 80 foot tree with an environmental protester
          in it.
     ~    Paul Watson, chained to a stack of seal pelts, was lifted
          by crane and dunked repeatedly in the arctic ocean.
     ~    Someone began killing spotted owls and attaching monkey
          wrench symbols to their dead bodies.
     ~    To prevent environmentalists from disrupting nuclear
          tests, the French government made plans to blow up the
          Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, with all members
          aboard.  The secret service frogmen settled on sinking
          the ship in a New Zealand harbor, killing only the
          photographer.
     Examples such as these should make people pause and reassess
whether the civil disobedience or the response is more extreme. 
But, in fact, during this heightened arousal is the worst time to
attempt rational self-appraisal.  The extreme nature of the
situations lead to more extreme attributions and justify proper
assumptions - environmentalists are involved in extreme situations.
 
Self Fulfilling Interaction Scripts
     Because all actors in an interpersonal encounter provide the
situational context for the other actors, self-fulfilling
expectancies are the likely result of motivationally-biased
interactions.
     If environmentalists have prior expectancies that corporations
are made up of greedy-self-serving individuals who will sacrifice
the earth for the buck, they will probably perceive any encounter
with corporate leaders as justifying the stereotype.
     Similarly, if loggers view environmentalists as terrorists,
they are likely to approach a road blockage as they would approach
any other threatening situation.  Through an interaction script of
reciprocation, if a tree sitter is threatening livelihood, cutting
down the tree and the terrorist is reasonable.  After all, no one
objects when a terrorist is shot by police in an attempt to rescue
hostages.
     When an activist has had dirt bulldozed up to her neck, how
likely is it that she will attribute a rational, concerned
attribution to the driver.  If she is not wedded to the values of
non-violence, what are the possibilities of her considering
carrying a gun to protect herself.
     In fact, most civil disobedient activists take non-violence
training to prevent such self-fulfilling expectancies.  But what
about the public who is deliberately aroused, polarized and
threatened by wise-use tactics?  Agents of social change such as
Chico Mendez, Karen Silkwood, Diane Fossey, and many others, just
as surely as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, have been killed by
extremists who acted with reciprocity against the perceived threat
of extreme social change.
 
Effects of Mood on Illusory Correlation
     The heightened polarity created by schema-driven labeling and
category-based expectancies makes consensus, compromise and
analytical appraisal of scientific information increasingly
difficult.  In experimental data, Mackie et al. (1988) studied the
impact of mood states on expectancy-based illusory correlations. 
They found that heightened arousal, either positive or negative,
increased the reliance on stereotypic biases.  The state that
"counterintuitively, then, receiving information about groups while
in a good mood will not necessarily lead to more favorable
perceptions of social groups and an amelioration of intergroup
relations."
     It becomes quite apparent, therefore, that nominal
identification and arousal of category-based expectancies is an
effective tool for the dismissal of environmental messages. 
Breaking the illusory correlation between environmentalists and
extremism will not occur through actors meeting in friendly,
positive situations.  Thus, a Mary's Peak Alliance approach of
inviting loggers and environmentalists to a party together may only
increased stereotypic biases.
     How then should the level of confrontational polarization be
reduced?  Redwood Summer achieved some success in mutual
understanding by inviting loggers to their non-violence training
seminar.  Such a gathering, which was not expected to induce mood
effects, may have been the basis for the more successful
conclusion.
     Perhaps the best way to avoid walking down the road to
increased polarization, stereotypic characterization, and extreme
confrontation is to be vigilant against the use of labels. 
Organizations using schema-primes against environmentalists should
be called to justify their statements at the time, rather than
awaiting behavioral confirmation.
     After all, it shouldn't be difficult to argue that at the
heart of environmentalism is conservativism, and what could be less
extreme?

-- 
                          * * * * * * *
"It is possible to join forces, to identify common goals, and to agree on
 common action." - U.N. World Commission on Development and Environment
		       casspa@jacobs.cs.orst.edu