Culture and Extremism

Abstract

Much research in the last several decades has examined the social, political, and economic factors that predict terrorism, yet to date, there has been little attention to cultural factors and their relationship to terrorism. We present findings from the Global Terrorism Database showing how numerous cultural dimensions identified in the cultural psychology literature relate to over 80,000 terrorist attacks that occurred between 1970 and 2007. Controlling for economic and religious variables, our results suggest that fatalistic beliefs, rigid gender roles, and greater tightness are related to a greater number of terrorist attacks or fatalities. While fatalism and low gender egalitarianism were related to the overall number of terrorist incidents and fatalities, cultural tightness was related the overall lethality of events, i.e., fatalities per incident. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Uncertainty and the Roots of Extremism

“…The first four articles (Federico, Hunt, & Fisher, 2013;Hogg & Adelman, 2013;Klein & Kruglanski, 2013;Proulx & Major, 2013) are mainly focused on conceptual issues to do with the nature of uncertainty, the nature of extremism, and the psychological relationship between the two. The next section has two articles (Esses, Medianu, & Lawson, 2013;Gelfand, LaFree, Fahey, & Feinberg, 2013) that focus on uncertainty and extremism in the context of culture, immigration, population migration, and the refugee experience. The final set of three articles (Doosje, Loseman, & Van den Bos, 2013;Kay & Eibach, 2013;McGregor, Prentice, & Nash, 2013) focus on uncertainty and extremism in the context of religious and political zealotry and ideological orthodoxy.…”

Marginalization of Ethnic Communities and the Rise in Radicalization

“…This awareness of reality, no matter accurate it is, impacts their behavior. The subjective interpretation by people of what is society, as opposed to the objective truth, may bring about terrorism and radicalization [11]. However, conforming to radical explanations of religious conviction is an indicator rather than a basis of radicalization.…”

Approbation Of The Psycho-Correction Program Of Work With Convicted Terrorists

“…The resolution of the above tasks can be implemented only on a qualitative methodical basis (Gelfand, LaFree, Fahey, & Feinberg, 2013), systemically developed and used as part of the training of prison psychologists using a targeted approach to work with those convicted of terrorist activities.…”