Blocked economic paths to positive identity can push individuals into negative identities

Evidence

Knutson (1981, p. 112) also emphasizes the theme of government actions narrowing choices and pushing an individual into the assumption of a negative identity. Croatian terrorist Zvonko Busic was a member of an oppressed minority in a dominant culture, a situation Erikson (1968, p. 303) considers likely to engender negative identities because minorities may fuse the negative image held of them by the majority with the negative self-image of the group. Knutson found that economic constraints prevented Busic from pursuing his early goal of a university education. This disappointment, which Knutson compares to life disappointments experienced by several other terrorists, blocked the path to a positive identity and led to his assuming negative roles. … Knutson’s contention is that the negative identity is not totally negative; although deviant in some ways, it is based on values acquired through early socialization. This fact seems to contradict Erikson’s original theory of negative identity as the antithesis of what parents and society value. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4126

Categorization

• QUESTION: Knutson’s claim directly contradicts Erikson’s original theory — worth checking whether this tension was resolved in later terrorism literature.
• SEED: Angle: how blocked upward mobility — not ideology — recruits terrorists, using Busic’s case as the anchor example.
• XREF: connects to: Negative attention from authorities can reinforce a negative identity. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 4130; Negative party identification mobilizes voters as strongly as positive identification. — Sabrina J. Mayer and Luana Russo, What one is not: a new scale to measure…, 32