Both personal identity diffusion and integrative life-change identities affect extremism in single unreplicated studies

Evidence

Since they have thus far received too little attention in quantitative empirical research, we cannot draw firm conclusions regarding the effect of personal and developmental identity concepts and processes on violent extremism. In line with the suggestion that extremist radicalization can be caused by a personal (identity) crisis, one study found that a diffused identity was linked to a higher likelihood of having right-wing, left-wing, or Islamist extremist attitudes. Moreover, in line with the implication that deradicalization is linked to finding new priorities in life, accompanied by shifts in identity, one study found that forming multi-facetted identities based on significant life changes was negatively related to violent extremist behaviors as they present an alternative to identities that are exclusively based on extremist conventions and group membership. — Lea Echelmeyer, Anne-Marie Slotboom, and Frank Weerman, The Putative Effect of Identity on…, 254

Categorization

• XREF: Directly evidences the reader’s core mechanism but flags its thin empirical base — only one study each, both needing replication. — connects to: Identity diffusion predicts openness to all three extremist ideologies. — Lea Echelmeyer, Anne-Marie Slotboom, and Frank Weerman, The Putative Effect of Identity on…, 224; Frustrated identity needs have never been shown to precede rather than follow radicalization — Lea Echelmeyer, Anne-Marie Slotboom, and Frank Weerman, The Putative Effect of Identity on…, 253; Some identity needs reduce rather than increase violent extremism — Lea Echelmeyer, Anne-Marie Slotboom, and Frank Weerman, The Putative Effect of Identity on…, 253

Related

• Identity diffusion predicts openness to all three extremist ideologies. (similarity 0.92)
• Frustrated identity needs have never been shown to precede rather than follow radicalization (similarity 0.90)
• Personal-developmental identity processes remain nearly untested in quantitative radicalization research (similarity 0.90)
• Identity fusion is the most statistically robust identity predictor of extremism (similarity 0.87)
• Some identity needs reduce rather than increase violent extremism (similarity 0.87)
• Alternative identities reduce violent behavior even when ideology persists. (similarity 0.87)
• Integrated or dual identities can turn protective effects into extremism risk (similarity 0.86)
• Despite theory treating radicalization as a process, most quantitative studies are cross-sectional (similarity 0.85)
• No single factor robustly drives radicalization across the sampled extremist cases (similarity 0.84)
• Lea Echelmeyer, Anne-Marie Slotboom, and Frank Weerman — The Putative Effect of Identity on Extremist Radicalization A Systematic Review of Quantitative Studies (similarity 0.83)
• Uncertainty alone does not cause violent extremism without moderating factors (similarity 0.82)
• The radicalization literature overwhelmingly measures attitudes and intentions rather than actual violent behavior. (similarity 0.82)
• Terrorism can reaffirm ethnic roots rather than stem from identity rejection (similarity 0.81)
• A single core need drives both entry into and exit from extremism. (similarity 0.79)
• Civic political identification predicts extremism only among specific moral and ideological subgroups. (similarity 0.78)