Personal-developmental identity processes remain nearly untested in quantitative radicalization research

Evidence

Surprisingly, only two studies examined the link between personal and developmental identity concepts or processes and extremist radicalization, with one investigating the restorative effect of alternative identities on the recidivism of terrorist offenders, and the second testing the putative risk effect of identity diffusion on left-wing, right-wing, and Islamist extremist attitudes. The lack of quantitative research on this perspective is remarkable, as the presumed link between personal and developmental identity processes and extremist radicalization is a familiar one among both scholars and policy makers: apart from the suggestion that a personal (identity) crisis may function as a cognitive opening for radicalization, for more than a decade, young people’s vulner­ ability to extremist radicalization has been ascribed to the challenge of forming an identity during adolescence. Yet, despite its popularity, we found that the link between identity (processes) and violent extremism has barely been empirically tested from a personal and developmental approach. — Lea Echelmeyer, Anne-Marie Slotboom, and Frank Weerman, The Putative Effect of Identity on…, 245

Categorization

• SEED: Directly confronts the negative-identity mechanism the reader is tracking: the empirical record has almost no direct test despite its theoretical popularity.
• XREF: connects to: Both personal identity diffusion and integrative life-change identities affect extremism in single unreplicated studies — Lea Echelmeyer, Anne-Marie Slotboom, and Frank Weerman, The Putative Effect of Identity on…, 254; 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; Personal crises precede and open receptivity to religious radicalization — 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:…, 327 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Both personal identity diffusion and integrative life-change identities affect extremism in single unreplicated studies #exemplifies (0.90) — Lea Echelmeyer, Anne-Marie Slotboom, and Frank Weerman, The Putative Effect of Identity on…, 254
• Frustrated identity needs have never been shown to precede rather than follow radicalization #expands (0.82) — Lea Echelmeyer, Anne-Marie Slotboom, and Frank Weerman, The Putative Effect of Identity on…, 253
• Self-esteem needs predict extremism only through collective, not personal, mechanisms #qualifies (0.80) — Lea Echelmeyer, Anne-Marie Slotboom, and Frank Weerman, The Putative Effect of Identity on…, 240
• Personal crises precede and open receptivity to religious radicalization #qualifies (0.75) — 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, 327