Hardship-driven need frustration is what scapegoat movements exploit.

Evidence

As Staub (1989) has noted, difficult times heighten needs for security and physical well-being, for selfand group esteem, to believe that life is controllable and predictable, and to have hope for the future. Pyszczynski et al. (1999) add psychological defense against mortality salience to this list. Scapegoat movements address frustrated needs for esteem, belonging, and transcendence by reasserting the ingroup’s superiority and offering membership in a wider social movement that promises symbolic immortality. Security, physical well-being, and hope are addressed by identifying and combating the “enemy” that has putatively caused the ingroup’s misfortunes. The Nazis, for example, were masterful at creating a sense of belonging (everyone, children included, could belong to a subgroup, e.g., the Hitler Youth), group esteem and transcendence (through pageantry and an ideology of racial superiority), and optimism (through economic progress spurred by re-armament). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1598

Categorization

• XREF: Engages mortality-salience and terror management theory relevant to general prejudice psychology claims in the vault. — connects to: Frustrated basic needs drive groups to scapegoat others for destructive fulfillment. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 79; Economic frustration after military service triggered scapegoating that moved him toward extremism — 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:…, 305