Psychological variables in student activism: The radical triad and some religious differences

Thirty-six male students, drawn from a sample of 1195, were interviewed to obtain a personal history. A battery of projective psychological tests (Rorschach and TATs) were also administered to them. The students were divided into four groups of nine each, Jewish radicals (JR), Christian radicals (CR), Jewish moderates (JM), and Christian moderates (CM), to test the significance of religious background as it related to political outlook. Eight significant psychological variables were found and defined. No differences were found between JMs and CMs. Radicals differed from moderates on three variables: negative identity, masochistic surrender, and treating people as concepts. In addition, JR subjects demonstrated consistently a wandering fantasy, flight from the mother, the mother as salient, and "machismo" as psychological variables. CRs were not characterized by any of these variables. As with both groups of moderates, the father of the CRs was psychologically salient, but unlike the moderates, CTs perceived their fathers as flawed. The possible dynamic meaning of these configurations is discussed, as are their possible relationship to radical behavior and radical political ideology.