The political psychology of radicalization

Funded by Marianne & Marcus Wallenberg, and Forte (both finished).

The purpose of this project was to explain why some individuals become radicalized and to explore the radicalization process. The theoretical point of departure lies within the social psychological theorization about radicalization, which is based on the assumption that humans have an innate need to feel belongingness and a sense of worth (Kruglanski et al. 2017). An important part of the theory is that the mechanisms underlying radicalization can be similar, regardless of the content or specific goal in question, and that these mechanisms are fundamentally human and social. In the project, we have performed several studies to explore how these fundamentally human mechanisms are related to the radicalization process. Our approach has been completely new within the research field of radicalization and thus clearly filled a gap.

In several different types of social psychological survey-experiments have we demonstrated that feelings of social exclusion or rejection, especially in combination with individual level sensitivity to rejection, makes people more willing to both sympathize with a radical group and join such a group. An important conclusion is that these tendencies are valid regardless of what focus or goal the radical group has. We have mainly studied political radicalization, more specifically right- and leftwing extremism. The mechanisms that drive the radicalization process seem to be the same for both groups (Bäck, Bäck, Altermark & Knapton, 2018; Bäck & Altermark, 2016; Renström, Knapton & Bäck, 2020).

We observe the same basic causes when it comes to other types of radical groups as well. We saw in one study that British citizens who experienced social exclusion or discrimination based on their group affiliation in the Brexit divide were more willing to engage politically. We also observed that the effect was explained by increased identification with the own group (Knapton, Bäck & Renström, under review). Our results also show that people who have experienced social exclusion are more attentive to information about what norms are relevant in a radical group, when they experience negative emotions following the exclusion. This points to that people who have been excluded are observant to the norms and rules of a group, possibly in an attempt to adapt and fit in with the group (Renström & Knapton, 2020).

Another study (Bäck, Gustafsson Sendén, Bäck & Sikström, 2018) explored the linguistics on a xenophobic forum in Sweden to study how social group identities are created through language and how adaption in online forums can be observed linguistically. This is important since online forums often are used for recruitment by extreme groups. With the use of computerized text analyses, we observed that new users on the forum created a group identity over time by an increase in the use of “we” and a simultaneous decrease of the use of “I”. We also observed that the use of “they” increased, which indicates creation of, and distancing against, outgroups. Finally, we also observed that the linguistic style converged over time such that users adapted to the linguistic style on the forum.

To sum up, there are fundamental human needs of group belongingness and sense of worth that seems to play an important part of the radicalization process. That people feel these kinds of needs is not the only reason people become radicalized, but the social factors have been the core of this research project. The results imply that radicalization could be countered by basic measures aiming for social inclusion and stress the importance of everybody’s equal value.

Who was working on this project?