Many extremists proactively seek out reasons and philosophy to abandon radicalism.

Evidence

Self-Driven Exit In addition to experiencing interventions—either by intentional efforts from individuals or organizations or through happenstance occurrences—respondents described how focal individuals sometimes engaged in conscious, self-driven processes of deradicalization. We defined self-driven exit as the instance when an individual or their contact described deliberate proactive outreach and the seeking out of philosophical or personal reasons to abandon the radicalized life or organization. — 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, 443

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Stopping extremism and abandoning its beliefs are distinct forms of exit — 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:…, 189; Attempting to quit extremism can itself escalate a person into a worse group — 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:…, 366; Political events can re-trigger radical feelings years after an extremist exit. — 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:…, 457 (+2 more)