The story starts when Hossein Kaviani sought answers to these questions: what are the psycho-social obstacles to democracy and how could a pluralistic, politically tolerant society in the Middle East be fostered? The Middle East region went through immense geopolitical and regime changes after the Second World War, mostly as a result of foreign military and/or political interventions. In the last two decades, Middle East countries have also seen heavily planned radical actions carried out by Western led military forces to replace authoritarian regimes (e.g., in Afghanistan and Iraq) with a democratic political system. These attempts were futile and Afghanistan, in particular, is still facing the consequences of those “bad political decisions”. The failure to establish democracy in these countries can, in part, be attributed to the fact that “foreign political players” did not bother to try to accommodate any subtle psycho-social factors into their strategic plan of action.

With that in mind, three studies (funded by the British Academy) were carried out in some countries in the Middle East, including Afghanistan, to detect if any specific psycho-social characteristics would mediate people’s social and political behaviour. Sayed Jafar Ahmadi and Zainab Musavi and their colleagues in Afghanistan joined our team to enable the research and data collection in that country. In a nutshell, the results revealed some psych-social correlates of the tendency towards democracy including empathy, flexibility, tolerance of difference, egalitarian gender role and openness. We also found factors like suggestibility and respect for authoritarianism to act against pro-democratic attitudes. The findings of these series of studies were published in peer-reviewed journals (see below).

In our papers we proposed that the experience and knowledge that we gained in our research could potentially be incorporated into the development of a relevant education programme for school children, with the intent of preparing the ground in children for the process of democratization. Hossein Kaviani and Ashrafsadat Mousavi searched for suitable educational packages that could help and came across CosmoKidz (Eikaas Haavimb & Pearce, 2013). It was the start of our conversation with the authors of CosmoKidz that led to fruitful cooperations later on. The CosmoKidz package was translated to Farsi by Ashrafsadat Mousavi. Then Sayed Jafar Ahmadi and Zainab Musavi, along with other colleagues, did a massive job on adapting the contents of the stories and illustrations to be culturally acceptable. Colleagues in Afghanistan also translated the package to Pashto, another language that is spoken in Afghanistan. A pilot study by our team confirmed that packages in Farsi (or Dari) and Pashto was reliable when used in that cultural setting.  

Our story still goes on as we are waiting for opportunities to resume our work in Afghanistan, when new circumstances allow us to do so.

In the meantime, the complete CosmoAfghan education package in Farsi and Pashto is freely available for use at https://cosmokidz.org/

Research Team

Dr Hossein Kaviani– Principal Investigator, University of East London, UK

Dr Sayed Jafar Ahmadi– Field Researcher, Team Manager, Research scholar in Psychology at Bard College, NY, USA.

Dr Ashrafsadat Mousavi, Farsi Translation Lead, Consultant, Behrawan Research and Psychology Services Organization, Kabul, Afghanistan

Ms Zainab Musavi, Dari Adaptation, Illustrations, Behrawan Research and Psychology Services Organization, Kabul, Afghanistan

Sayed Ali Akbar Sarwary, Digital Graphic Design (Cards), Behrawan Research and Psychology Services Organization, Kabul, Afghanistan

Mohammad Rafi and Mohammad-Fahim Qayumi, Pashto Translation, Behrawan Research and Psychology Services Organization, Kabul, Afghanistan

Also thanks to: Faiza Nasery, Ahmadkomail Frogh, Murtaza Amiri, Zahra Mirzayi Hassan Safari, Sayed Rohullah Rezwani, Sakinah Masha and Behrawan Research and Psychology Services Organization.

References

Eikaas Haavimb, M. & Pearce, K. (2013). CosmoKidz. Oracle, AZ: CMM Institute.

Kaviani, H. & Kinman, G. (2017). Relationships between psychosocial characteristics and democratic values: A cross-cultural study. Research & Review: Journal of Social Sciences, 3(1), 12-22.

Kaviani, H., Kinman, G. & Salavati, M. (2017). Bicultural Iranians’ political tendency: Inbetween two cultures. J. Socialomics 6, 206. doi: 10.4172/2167-0358.1000206

Kaviani, H. & Ahmadi, S.J. (2021). A cross cultural and trans-generational study: Links between psychological characteristics and socio-political tendency in Afghanistan. Personality and Individual Differences. International Journal of Environ. Research and Public Health, 18, 63-72.