In this study among Dutch Muslim youth (N = 131), we focus on the process of radicalization. We hypothesize that this process is driven by three main factors: (a) personal uncertainty, (b) perceived injustice, and (c) perceived group threat. Using structural equation modeling, we demonstrate that personal uncertainty, perceived injustice, and group‐threat factors are important determinants of a radical belief system (e.g., perceived superiority of Muslims, perceived illegitimacy of Dutch authorities, perceived distance to others, and a feeling of being disconnected from society). This radical belief system in turn predicts attitudes toward violence by other Muslims, which is a determinant of own violent intentions. Results are discussed in terms of the role of individual and group‐based determinants of radicalization.

In this study among Dutch youth (N = 1086), we focus on the determinants of the susceptibility for adopting radical right‐wing attitudes and behaviors. By means of structural equation modeling, we find that (a) perceived injustice, (b) perceived group threat, (c) relative deprivation, and (d) identification with the Dutch are important background determinants of a radical right‐wing belief system (e.g., perceived in‐group superiority, perceived illegitimacy of Dutch authorities, perceived distance to others, and a feeling of being socially disconnected). Perceived in‐group superiority in turn is positively associated with endorsement of right‐wing motivated violence, which is a determinant of own violent intentions. Results are discussed in terms of the role of various determinants of the process of susceptibility of extreme right‐wing belief system.

Justifying social systems and defending cultural worldviews may seem to resemble the same human need to protect what is known and predictable. The current paper would like to argue that these society-supporting tendencies concern two different forms of self-regulation: the need for control and the need for meaning. Results show higher levels of system justification when participants were lacking control than when they had to think about death or about a control topic. Simultaneously, participants showed stronger worldview defense reactions when they thought about their own death, compared to those experiencing low control. This suggests that system justification may be used to compensate a loss of personal control, while cultural worldviews protect the person from existential anxiety.

People have a need to Belief in a Just World (BJW) in which people get what they deserve. When people are confronted with an event which threatens this BJW (e.g. when they witness a girl falling victim to rape), people try to maintain their existing beliefs, for example, by blaming the innocent victim for her ill fate. We argue that this defensive process of blaming innocent victims in essence stems from self-regulatory failure. In accordance with this line of reasoning, our first experiment shows that when self-regulatory resources were depleted (i.e. in the case of high ego-depletion) before BJW threatening information describing an innocent victim of a rape crime, the effect of BJW threat on victim blaming amplified. Study 2 shows that when self-regulation was facilitated by means of self-affirmation after the BJW threatening information, the effect of BJW threat on victim blaming vanished. Taken together, our findings suggest that coping with BJW threats involve self-regulatory processes leading to more or less defensive reactions (like blaming innocent victims). When people's self-regulatory resources are depleted, they react more negatively to innocent victims when they constitute a stronger threat to the BJW. Facilitating self-regulation, by means of self-affirmation, enables people to cope with BJW threatening information, thereby inhibiting the urge to blame innocent victims.

Two studies examined how people deal with conflicts between their self-interest concerns and their striving for fairness. Specifically, the affective reactions to outcome arrangements in which people receive better outcomes than comparable other persons, were studied. These arrangements of advantageous inequity constitute situations in which fairness and self-interest concerns are in conflict. Building on the social psychology of the self, it was predicted, and found, in both field and lab experiments that when people experience a self-threat, they react more positively to arrangements of advantageous inequity than when not experiencing this threat. This supports the view that people's need for positive information about their selves is an important factor in the underlying psychological processes of the way that people deal with conflicts between their fairness and self-interest concerns.