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Victims of Conspiracies? An Examination of the Relationship Between Conspiracy Beliefs and Dispositional Individual Victimhood.
European journal of social psychology·2026
Cognitive mechanisms in violent extremism.
Arie W Kruglanski1, Jessica R Fernandez1, Adam R Factor1
1Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, Biology-Psychology Building, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
Cognition
|December 15, 2018
Summary
Violent extremism arises from a motivational imbalance where the need for personal significance overrides other needs, leading to aggression. Cognitive processes like learning and attention enable this extreme behavior.
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Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Political Psychology
Background:
- Violent extremism poses a significant societal threat.
- Understanding the psychological drivers of extremism is crucial for developing effective interventions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the cognitive mechanisms underlying violent extremism.
- To propose a model where a dominant need for significance drives aggressive behavior.
Main Methods:
- Conceptual analysis of existing research on motivation and cognition.
- Examination of cognitive processes including learning, inference, knowledge activation, selective attention, and inhibition.
- Illustration through examples from relevant empirical studies.
Main Results:
- Violent extremism can be conceptualized as a motivational imbalance.
- The quest for personal significance emerges as a dominant need.
- Aggression is employed as a means to achieve significance, liberated from other constraints.
Conclusions:
- Cognitive mechanisms facilitate the process of motivational imbalance leading to extremism.
- Understanding these cognitive underpinnings is key to addressing violent extremism.