Dying the right-way? Interest in and perceived persuasiveness of parochial extremist propaganda increases after mortality salience

Abstract

Research on parochial altruism demonstrated that hostility toward out-groups (parochialism) represents the dark side of the willingness to benefit one’s in-group even at own costs (altruism). Parochial aggression thereby emerged mainly under conditions of threat. Extremist propaganda videos, for instance by right-wing extremists, try to capitalize on parochial altruistic mechanism by telling recipients sharing their national identity that this nation is under threat wherefore they for have to join the extremist’s cause to prevent the extinction of their nation. Most of the time, propaganda videos are rated as uninteresting and non-persuasive by the target audience. Yet, evolutionary media psychology posits that the interest in and effectiveness of media increases when evolutionarily relevant problems are addressed. Consequently, interest in parochial altruistic right-wing extremist messages should increase under conditions of threat. The current study tested this assumption by randomly assigning German non-Muslims (N = 109) to either an existential threat (here: mortality salience) or a control condition and asking them to evaluate extremist propaganda that addressed them as either in-group members (right-wing extremists) or as out-group members (Islamic extremists). In support of the hypotheses, subjects under conditions of threat reported a higher interest in the right-wing extremist propaganda and perceived it as more persuasive. We discuss the results concerning the implications for evolutionary media psychology and the transmission of parochial altruism in propaganda videos.

Bad times are not good times for revolutions: Collective deprivation and the mobilization level of French radical movements (1882–1980)

“…Thus, chronic and situational threat and uncertainty, through increasing system justification, should increase participation in system‐supportive (conservative) protest while undermining participation in system‐challenging (progressive) protests. This framework is consistent with recent results showing that uncertainty and threat specifically increase right‐wing‐oriented radicalism: Pauwels and Heylen () found that perceived in‐group threat, through increasing authoritarianism, was related to participation in right‐wing violence in a sample of young Belgians, and recent studies show that existential threat (Frischlich, Rieger, Hein, & Bente, ) and uncertainty (Rieger et al, ) increase interest in right‐wing extremist groups' propaganda.…”

“…Previous research has shown that some psychological dispositions that were hypothesized to underlie extremism are in fact predictive of certain ideological contents. For instance, the need to reduce threat and uncertainty, which was thought to drive all kinds of extremism (e.g., Hogg, Meehan, & Farquharson, 2010), is in fact related to right-wing ideologies (Jost et al, 2003;Jost et al, 2007) and right-wing radicalization in particular (Frischlich et al, 2015;Pauwels & Heylen, 2017;Rieger et al, 2017). Similarly, research indicates that there are substantial sociodemographic differences between left-wing and right-wing activists (Chermak & Gruenewald, 2015), suggesting that research should focus on the individual determinants of right-wing versus left-wing radicalization.…”

Engaging with Online Extremist Material: Experimental Evidence

“…43 Those triggered for MS are more likely to: support martyrdom, consider engaging in martyrdom themselves, or support aggressive measure against civilians, 44 as well as other more mundane outcomes like, increasing donations and expressing increasing satisfaction for for higher donations, 45 engage in more risk-taking in gambling behaviours, 46 and respond with both higher positive and negative reciprocity. 47 Freschlisch et al, conducted a study that saw German Muslim and non-Muslim students watching Far-Right and Islamist terrorist videos, half being primed for MS. 48 MS increased interest and perceived persuasiveness of the material, but also had the effect in some participants of increasing ingroup-shame and inhibiting persuasiveness of material. Although MS is typically associated with pro-ingroup identification and behaviour, and outgroup hostility, 49 it can also lead to decreased identification and a resultant lack of negative intergroup engagement.…”

Dealing with the dark side: The effects of right-wing extremist and Islamist extremist propaganda from a social identity perspective

“…At first sight, these findings support both conflicting hypotheses, suggesting that additional moderating variables might play a role. Indeed, there is initial evidence that existential anxieties might foster the approach to extremist propaganda, whereas the absence of existential anxieties fostered the devaluation of such content (Frischlich et al, 2015; Rieger et al, 2017). This result speaks for the special condition when one’s social identity is addressed (in this case, the national social identity).…”