Extremism research is too undeveloped for hypothesis testing, unlike suicide autopsy studies.

Evidence

As described in Chapter Three, for the current study, we interviewed 12 family members of persons who have radicalized and 24 former extremists. We began by reviewing the limited past research drawing on interviews conducted with former extremists and their families. At that point, in developing our interview protocol, we deviated somewhat from the psychological autopsy approach, which is semistructured and often includes specific questions to family about discrete constructs, such as mental health symptoms, in favor of an unstructured, narrative-based approach (described in more detail in Chapter Three). This shift was necessary because, unlike studies on suicide, research on extremism is less developed, and we did not identify specific hypotheses to test. Our less structured approach was designed to generate hypotheses rather than test them. — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America, 130

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s stated goal: the study deliberately avoided pre-testing the withdrawal-of-conflict hypothesis, so claimed causal findings will be hypothesis-generating testimony rather than confirmatory evidence. — connects to: Evidence for countering violent extremism programming remains thin and methodologically weak. — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America:…, 212; The mental-disorder theory of terrorism lacks reliable clinical evidence — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4089; Terrorism research is too fragmented to build cumulative psychological knowledge — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4181

Broader Connections

• Evidence for countering violent extremism programming remains thin and methodologically weak. #corroborates (0.85) — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America, 212
• Terrorism research is too fragmented to build cumulative psychological knowledge #expands (0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4181
• The mental-disorder theory of terrorism lacks reliable clinical evidence #corroborates (0.78) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4089