Amy Fisher-Smith, Charles R. Sullivan, John D. Macready, and Geoffrey Manzi — Identity Reconfiguration and the Core Needs Framework: Exit Narratives among Former Far-Right Extremists

12 published claims from this book.

• A former extremist relapsed identity growth to distancing himself from exit-program support
• A single core need drives both entry into and exit from extremism.
• Accepting relationships with out-group members model new identity structures for exiting extremists.
• Deradicalization depends on abandoning stop-gap measures that keep former extremists trapped in the past
• Disengagement from extremism is a recursive process, not a linear one.
• Effective exit relationships shift former extremists toward inclusive we-frameworks
• Exit trajectories hinge on a person’s developmental core need
• Initial coding organizes raw text into researcher-driven meaningful groups
• Leaving an extremist group can be physical, psychological, or both
• Leaving extremism requires bridging relationships that scaffold a new identity
• Physical separation from a group precedes rather than follows ideological change
• The moratorium phase frees extremists to pursue identity questions without the group’s framework