The present study aims to explore how narratives, stories, and memories are planted in the Jihadists' mind. In particular, the primary concern of this study is the interests of Indonesian Muslims to join Jihadist groups and their willingness to sacrifice possessions, families, and even lives. Five main informants who are members of Jihadi groups in Indonesia and 18 additional informants who have been linked with key informants participated in this study. The findings revealed the motivation of personal significance through 4 steps of radicalization. We found that the narratives of the Jihadists were an expression of the self-worth that is motivated by the need to increase the quest for significance in God's eyes. This study highlights the importance of alternatives to meaning in societies that are available and accessible by Jihadists to facilitate their reaching a self-fulfilled identity. This self-fulfillment may prevent the Jihadists from being manipulated by leaders from radical groups to perform a radical collective action. Public Significance StatementComprehensive understanding about terrorist motivation is the core of counter-terrorism programs as well as deradicalization programs. The knowledge is also instrumental in educating public about radicalism propensity.

Discussions that are based on religious understanding and aimed at reducing terrorists' hostility have been used as a central part of terrorist deradicalization programs in many countries where acts of Islamic terrorism are prevalent. Currently, various psychological approaches such as presenting social support and providing counseling sessions are being applied alongside religious discussions. Observers of these programs have reported benefits and positive responses to the psychological approaches, but there is still a lack of empirical evidence confirming this. In the current study, we examine the effects of two psychological interventions-emotional expression training and cognitive flexibility training-in predicting detainees' acceptance of the idea of democratic life. We investigated the observational records taken during the psychological interventions and religious discussions. Results showed no main effect of emotional expression and cognitive flexibility in predicting one's acceptance of democratic civil life, but there was a significant interaction between the two predictors. Among those who scored high in cognitive flexibility, detainees who scored also high in emotional expression were significantly more agreeable towards the state's sovereignty over belief in an Islamic caliphate during religious discussions. Our findings suggest that psychological interventions do indeed offer benefits for detainees' deradicalization programs.

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Political provocation on governor election in Jakarta had its spill-over effect on youths' increased prejudice in a national scale. With this concern, stakeholders initiated an intervention program named "Let's Share the Art" for high school students to facilitate discussions that promote cognitive flexibilities. The program was held once per week in 7 meetings. It was expected that the program will lower the need for closure (NFC) and raise the critical thinking mindset (CTM) scores of the beneficiaries. Two high schools that partnered with the program initiator were selected, with a total of 82 students participated in the research. Contrary to the hypotheses, we found no significant change in both measurements from both schools. However, separated analysis showed that there are some indications of changes regarding to certain situational and contextual matters. Notwithstanding the fact that the result could not be generalized on Indonesian youth, but the subtle impact of art activities on cognitive flexibility for teenagers was discussed, with the additional notes on how to implement such program in the future.