Quest for significance and violent extremism : the case of domestic radicalization

By Katarzyna Jaśko, Gary LaFree, Arie W. Kruglanski. 2017

233 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In the present study, we applied the quest for significance model of radicalization to explain the use of political violence. According to the model, when people experience loss of personal significance (e.g., due to social rejection, achievement failures, or abuse) the motivation to restore significance may push them toward the use of extreme means. We tested this prediction in a sample of individuals who have committed ideologically motivated crimes in the United States (n = 1496). We found that experiences of economic and social loss of significance were separate and positive predictors related to the use of violence by perpetrators of ideologically motivated crimes. We also found evidence that the presence of radicalized others (friends but not family members) in the individuals' social network increased their likelihood of using violence.

Subfields: Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6c59a6a1d1b83272e1be30afde1f125aa8e2e2ff

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In Social Psychology

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

The Making of Violent Extremists (2018, background): “For instance, researchers found that Iranian college students induced to experience a state of insignificance (via a mortality reminder) were more supportive of martyrdom attacks against the United States than individuals who did not experience such a reminder (Pyszczynski et al., 2006).”
CORRELATES OF VIOLENT POLITICAL EXTREMISM IN THE UNITED STATES (2018, background): “As Jaśko et al. (2017) noted, it could also be that in addition to social influence, there is a self-selection process at work such that individuals that become interested in violent extremism search for others with similar ideologies.”
Protective Factors Against Extremism and Violent Radicalization: A Systematic Review of Research (2018, unknown): “With regard to peer group inﬂuences, contact with non-violent peers had a protective effect against mixed types of extremism and nationalist/separatist orientations in more than one study (Cragin, Bradley, Robinson, & Steinberg, 2015; Jasko et al., 2016).”