Members stay in extremist groups because status there outweighs real-world misery

Evidence

Another noted how, although miserable, he refused to leave because he was “revered” and had a “huge inflated identity in the movement.” He went on to explain, “I was kind of legendary [in radical group], and in the real world I was just an alcoholic, high school dropout who was dealing drugs to pay his bills and kept moving back into mom’s house and had a tendency to drink ‘til he passed out and pissed all over himself.” — 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, 377

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The inverse-prestige ledger (legendary in the movement vs. a wreck in the real world) is a compact engine for understanding why deradicalization must replace a status structure, not just remove one — highly relevant to the therapeutic hypothesis under test.
• XREF: connects to: A trusted friend’s offer of belonging can initiate the radicalization pathway; Extremist groups sustain membership by offering family-like bonds, power, and mission. — 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:…, 41; the MOC “The Enemy-Making Machine: Ours, True, and the Identity That Defends Both”