FUNDAMENTALIST religious views are more likely to lead people into supporting violent extremism, researchers have found. A study led by the University of St Andrews has identified two different motivations as driving a tendency towards violent extremism: a defensive motive, to protect a group from a perceived threat, and an offensive one, to dominate others and expand its influence.
Defensive extremism is far more common around the world than offensive extremism, and most likely among individuals with high levels of narcissism and a tendency to manipulate others. Those who expressed religious fundamentalist views were more likely to be linked to offensive extremism. Those who could be described as psychopaths were linked to both categories.
The researchers also say, however, that they were surprised to find that people who supported liberal political parties could also be associated with a tendency to offensive extremism, possibly related to their willingness to disrupt the status quo, they concluded. The study’s authors say that understanding the different motivations behind violent extremism is crucial to addressing it.
Dr Anna Stefaniak, a lecturer in the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at St Andrews, said: “By understanding the different types of intergroup violence and what predicts them, we can take an important first step toward responding to it more effectively.”
The study analysed data from 18,128 participants globally. The findings indicate that defensive extremist intentions are much more prevalent, endorsed in 56 out of the 58 surveyed nations. Countries with conflict and lower scores on democracy and human development showed higher levels of offensive extremism.
Dr Nicole Tausch, one of the authors, said: “Our finding that defensive violence is overall more widely endorsed than offensive violence suggests that intergroup violence often grows out of the desire to protect one’s group. But it also means that framing violence in defensive terms can make even highly questionable actions seem justified,”
Professor Jonas R. Kunst, of the BI Norwegian Business School, was one of the authors of the study, which involved researchers around the world. “We often treat violent extremism as a single phenomenon, but our data show that the psychological drive to protect one’s group is distinctly different from the drive to dominate others,” he said. “Understanding this dual nature is critical, because each type of extremism appeals to different psychological profiles and requires different intervention strategies.”
The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.