Irrational Beliefs and Personality Traits as Psychological Mechanisms Underlying the Adolescents' Extremist Mind-Set (original) (raw)
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Correlates of the Militant Extremist Mindset
Frontiers in Psychology, 2020
This study aimed to examine bright-and dark-side personality, personal beliefs (religion and politics) and self-evaluation correlates of beliefs in the Militant Extremist Mindset (MEM). In all, 506 young adults completed various self-report measures in addition to the three-dimensional MEM questionnaire. The measures included short measures of the Big Five traits, Self-Monitoring, Self-Evaluation and Personality Disorders, as well as demographic questions of how religious and politically liberal participants were. The Proviolence, Vile World, and Divine power mindsets showed varying correlates, with no consistent trend. Stepwise regressions showed that the demographic, personality and belief factors accounted for between 14% (Vile World) and 54% (Divine Power) of the variance, There were many differences between the results of three mindset factors, but personality disorder scores remained positive predictors of all three. The Vile World mindset was predicted by religiousness, liberalism, personality disorder scores and negative self-monitoring, but not personality traits. Religiousness had a contribution to all subscales and predicted the vast majority of the Divine Power mindset with smaller relationships with personality and personality disorders. Proviolence was predicted by the majority personality measures and sex.
Contextual and Psychological Predictors of Militant Extremist Mindset in Youth
Frontiers in Psychology
The present study aims to identify contextual and psychological factors of proneness to radicalization and violent extremism (RVE) operationalized through the Militant Extremist Mindset scale (MEM) consisting of three distinct aspects: Proviolence (PV), Vile World beliefs (VW), and trust in Divine Power (DP). A community sample of 271 high school students (72% females) from Belgrade and Sandžak regions in Serbia completed: (1) a 24-item MEM scale; (2) contextual measures including a 6-item scale of family dysfunction (FDys) and a 4-item composite measure capturing exposure to a harsh school environment and peer abuse (HSE); (3) psychological measures including the 9-item Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale (RWA), the 5-item Social Dominance Orientation scale (SDO), and the 20-item UCLA Loneliness scale (LON). A path analysis was conducted with contextual factors on the first and psychological factors on the second level of the model predicting the three factors of MEM. LON was positiv...
Militant extremist mindset and the assessment of radicalization in general population
PsycEXTRA Dataset
This paper presents new data and reviews the available evidence pointing to the existence of three main ingredients of militant extremist mindset (MEM). Three different methods of item development identified factors that we have labeled Nastiness, Grudge, and Excuse. In other words, there are in our midst nasty people who are more prepared than others to accept, approve, or even advocate the use of violence. When such people feel a grudge, in that they see somebody as threatening to themselves (or to members of the group they belong to) or think that the world is not a hospitable place in which to live, they may resort to violence. This violence is often accompanied by an excuse or justification that refers to a higher authority or a "noble" principle such as religiosity or utopianism. Although all three ingredients may be open to intervention, Grudge might be the most amenable. Social policies related to immigration and procedures for dealing with protest counterculture may be effective in reducing MEM. The most important, however, is the need to espouse principles of diversity and tolerance.
Militant Extremist Mindset and the Assessment of Radicalization in the General Population
This paper presents new data and reviews the available evidence pointing to the existence of three main ingredients of militant extremist mindset (MEM). Three different methods of item development identified factors that we have labeled Nastiness, Grudge, and Excuse. In other words, there are in our midst nasty people who are more prepared than others to accept, approve, or even advocate the use of violence. When such people feel a grudge, in that they see somebody as threatening to themselves (or to members of the group they belong to) or think that the world is not a hospitable place in which to live, they may resort to violence. This violence is often accompanied by an excuse or justification that refers to a higher authority or a "noble" principle such as religiosity or utopianism. Although all three ingredients may be open to intervention, Grudge might be the most amenable. Social policies related to immigration and procedures for dealing with protest counterculture may be effective in reducing MEM. The most important, however, is the need to espouse principles of diversity and tolerance.
The questionnaire YES allows to evaluate a probability of accepting radical ideology as well a probability of violent behavior against some social groups. Extremism is defined as the propaganda and application of extreme methods (notably, violence) in order to achieve any social purpose. The questionnaire can be applied for diagnose of the personal dispositions 1 (general attitudes) to different types of extremism: nationalistic or racial, religious, political, football hooliganism etc. Аt the same time the questionnaire does not provide any information about involvement in real extremist behavior and cannot be used to prove any offenses. It is proposed to apply the questionnaire for youth over 14 years old. The development of the questionnaire has been based on the views that there is no special 'extremist person' or stable personal traits that determine the propensity to extremism 2. The risk of involvement in extremist behavior is determined by the simultaneous expression of a set of personal attitudes, each of them is formed on the basis of the needs and the social situation. These dispositions are invariant and, in themselves, are not antisocial. Importantly there is the synergistic effect: some attitudes, if there are no one or two others, do not define extremist activity.
Psychological Factors of Ethnic Extremism in Muslim Youth
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 2014
The aim of the research was to reveal the correlations between the extreme forms of ethnic identity and some personal traits involved in intercultural communication. Also the task of the research was to analyze cultural specificity in ethnic extremism manifestations at Muslim youth.420 young people from 6 regions of the world (Russia, China, South America, Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia) took part in the research; among them 81 people from the Middle East countries and 60-from the former soviet Central Asian countries. 14 psychodiagnostic techniques were used to measure various personal features associated with cross-cultural communication. The technique "Types of ethnic identity" (G.U.Soldatova, S.V.Ryzhova) was applied for diagnosing the types of identity with different degrees of ethnic tolerance that were marked on a wide range of ethnocentrism scale. We used statistical techniques: Kruskall Wallis test, Multiple range tests, multifactorial dispersive analysis, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. The comparative analysis of young people, who responded high scores in extreme form of ethnic identity (ethnic bigotry or fanaticism) (147) and those who showed low levels of ethnic bigotry (134), revealed that persons inclined to ethnic bigotry were less tolerant not only for other ethnic group, but to any manifestations of individuality and to other social groups: they were more egocentric, not able to adjust themselves to different situations and people. They couldn't control their negative emotions and were less able to recognize the other's emotions by facial expression (especially fear, disgust and contempt). Also they were not sure in the world controllability; are less flexible in their activity control. Correlation analysis on general sample showed that ethnic bigotry inversely correlated with the life purposes awareness, internal locus of control, positive self-image, social and emotional intelligence, flexibility in the activity regulation. Positive correlation of ethnic extremis with disbelieve in the world controllability, egocentrism and apartness in interpersonal relations were revealed. Correlation analysis in Arab and Central Asian two subsamples showed some specific relations of ethnic bigotry and personal features. So, we can conclude that generally ethnic extremism correlates with rather controversial and conflict styles of self-realization and communication. Young people with extreme attitude toward other nations clearly realize their life goals, but they don't believe in their approachability and don't have enough abilities to interact with other people feeling the apartness in their personal interaction. The styles of interethnic communication of young representatives of different Muslim nations have some common features with the representatives of other nations, and have some specific features as well. Arab youth ethnic extremism correlates mostly with social stereotypes and hostility to other social groups, and Central Asian youth extremism correlates with intolerance to the other people individuality manifestation. Personal resources for the ethnic extremism reduction could be-for Arab people-their self-control in emotions and activity; and for the Central Asian people-concentration on their life goals. The research was supported by the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation, project № 13-06-00673.
Frontiers in Psychology
Extremist acts and the process of radicalizations got into researchers' attention worldwide since 2001. The aim of this paper is to offer a broad image on radicalization and extremist acts and to bring a new perspective for the conceptualization of radicalization. Radicalization is a process of developing extremist beliefs, emotions, and behaviors. The extremist beliefs are profound convictions opposesd to the fundamental values of society, the laws of democracy and the universal human rights, advocating the supremacy of a certain group (racial, religious, political, economic, social etc.). The extremist emotions and behaviors may be expressed both in non-violent pressure and coercion and in actions that deviate from the norm and show contempt for life, freedom, and human rights. A complete inroad to psychological mechanism involved in the process of radicalization is offered in order to have a broad image regarding current research in the field. Starting from this point, a rational emotive and behavioral conceptualization on radicalization has been developed, bringing together all the concepts and knowledge in the field. A complete and clear conceptualization is crucial for developing prevention/intervention programs and good practices in dealing with this process which has been spreading in the past years. The final part deals with directions regarding prevention/intervention programs from a rational emotive and behavioral perspective, and also from the perspective of European policies.
Journal of Strategic Security
The Assessment and Treatment of Radicalization Scale (ATRS) is designed to quantitatively measure Muslim extremists’ ideologies regarding risk areas that are reported in the literature. Utilizing the scale, in this study, using a convenience sample of 1769 from 10 countries (Australia, Canada, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Spain, and South Africa) responded to the ATRS. Results supported previous findings about the reliability and validity of the Assessment and Treatment of Radicalization Scale (ATRS, formerly known as Belief Diversity Scale BDS, Loza, 2007) for assessing Muslim extremists. Suggested cut off scores to use for identifying possible extremists are provided.
Developing a scale to measure students’ attitudes towards fanaticism
Govarî zankoî germîan, 2017
The purpose of the current study was to develop a scale to evaluate students' attitudes towards fanaticism. In order to do this, the researcher composed a questionnaire of 64 items. The format of the questionnaire corresponded to the five-point Likert Scale: 1 strongly agree; 2 agree; 3 slightly agree; 4 strongly disagree; and 5 disagree. The research sample consisted of 23 undergraduate students from the University of Leicester. The research tool was an online questionnaire distributed through the.EPR system. Participants completed the questionnaire in return for course credit. Results of statistical analysis, obtained through the use of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), were as follows. The internal reliability (Cronbach's Alpha) of the final structure of the scale, which consisted of 20 items, was calculated to be α=.834. Statistical analysis (principal components analysis, orthogonal approach, Varimax method) resulted in the following three factors: factor 1,"Fanaticism and social security" (8 items highly loaded on this factor); factor 2, "Religious fanaticism" (9 items highly loaded on this factor); factor 3, "Fanaticism and absolute views" (3 items highly loaded on this factor). These three factors explained 52.516% of the variance. Fanaticism is an internal feeling which causes an individual to believe that his/her opinions and ideas are permanently on the right side of truth. Fanatics simply do not accept the need for debate and view people with different opinions to their own as presenting a threat to their values and beliefs. Fanatical beliefs can result in discrimination and sometimes aggressive behaviour towards people who hold alternative opinions and beliefs. Fanaticism is a serious social and psychological issue which could present a significant risk to the community: "Fanatical beliefs may possibly lead to a nuclear holocaust in the nottoo-distant future" (Ellis, 1986). Investigating intolerance and fanaticism from a psychological and social standpoint using scientific research could help to identify some of the causal factors related to these phenomena. Ultimately, this research could help to achieve recognition accuracy 'More effective recognition and a clearer understanding of fanaticism, thereby making it easier to deal with and, potentially, reducing its impact on society.
An integrative psychological model for radicalism: Evidence from structural equation modeling
Personality and Individual Differences, 2016
The present study aimed at testing an integrative model that comprises cognitive, psychopathological and psychosocial factors that potentially relate to radicalism as an antecedent condition to radical and terrorist behaviors. A sample of 662 Egyptians (54.83% females and 45.17% males) aged 26, 16 years was administered a comprehensive battery of 25 cognitive, psychopathological and psychosocial measures. The data were analyzed using Exploratory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling techniques to test the research hypothesis. The results revealed that the cognitive model, psychopathological model and psychosocial model did not fit the data well individually. However, an integrative model that included 22 psychopathological constructs, five cognitive constructs, and four psychosocial constructs fit the data very well. Both males and females conceptualized the constructs similarly, and there were no significant latent gender mean differences in any constructs involved in the research model, including radicalism. These findings imply that none of the models can solely explain radicalism, whereas the integrative model can. The findings support the notion that radicalism is a product of, but is not limited to, complicated trajectories of cognitive, psychopathological, and psychosocial factors.