Disconnected Out of Passion: Relationship Between Social Alienation and Obsessive Passion

Violent radicalization continues to be a global problem. One of the main proposals for understanding radicalization and support for political violence is based on social alienation as a trigger. That is, individuals who feel alienated from society try to get out of this situation by using violence, if necessary. However, social alienation alone is not enough to explain radicalization. Therefore, we propose that social alienation interacts with other factors to foster radicalization. Particularly, we propose that obsessive passion, an internal compulsion that leads a person to engage in an activity even when they should not, is one of the interacting factors. Following previous literature, we hypothesized that higher social alienation predicts support for political violence to a greater extent the higher the obsessive passion. To test this hypothesis, we performed two studies in which the cause of passion varied (religion: N = 652 and family: N = 873). Both studies assessed social alienation, harmonious and obsessive passion, and support for political violence. The results showed a significant increase in the effect of social alienation on support for political violence when obsessive passion was higher, even controlling by harmonious passion. These results highlight the importance of considering other variables related to social alienation that could facilitate radicalization processes, particularly maintaining an obsessive passion for a cause when one feels a social disconnection. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed given their contributions to prevention based on work on feelings of social disconnection and harmonization of causes.