RAPID: Current Contexts for Testing the Psychology of Radicalization

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A pressing concern for national (and international) security is understanding the psychology of radicalization. Radicalization is the tendency for individuals to support or commit to extreme and often violent views or behaviors that differ substantially from those of a population's majority. Significance Quest Theory, developed by the investigator Arie Kruglanski (University of Maryland College Park) predicts that radicalization emerges when individuals experience a profound loss of significance, combined with exposure to an extremist narrative and a social network that supports it. The context of a refugee crisis, in which large numbers of individuals are unmoored from the normal environment and social contacts that ground meaning, offers a unique and very important setting for testing questions about radicalization. However, little systematic research has been conducted to understand the extent to which refugees have a propensity to radicalize, and what conditions might bear on such propensities. Moreover, the unique circumstances of refugee crises also reveal important gaps in knowledge about radicalization processes. In particular, the circumstances of refugees can activate competing motivational states--for significance and for survival--that might have different effects on radicalization potential. The current project focuses on understanding these competing forces affecting radicalization. The investigator uses the naturally occurring context of the Syrian refugee crisis to test key hypotheses about radicalization. Since the outbreak of the violent conflict in Syria, over 4.7 million Syrians have registered as refugees and nearly 900,000 migrants have applied for asylum in Europe. The research focusing on this population will address two questions. First, the researcher seeks to understand the extent to which these refugees do or do not embrace violent extremism. To the extent to which violent extremism is embraced, the second aim will identify the psychological and contextual factors specific to refugees and refugee camps that may prompt them to do so. The refugees' circumstances are unique. They are disconnected from friends and family back home, as well as from their jobs and social support networks. The squalid living conditions, displacement from stable realities, proximity to the conflict zone, and collective victimization may lower the refugees' feelings of personal significance as well as the sense of purpose and meaning in life. This may induce the motivation to embrace extremist ideologies that profess to provide such purpose. On the other hand, the hardships of the refugee predicament may focus them on the practicalities of survival in dire circumstances. This in turn may reduce attention to ideological concerns. This RAPID project will focus on the role of these two forces, namely, personal significance and survival, as these may determine the likelihood of refugee radicalization. Research will be conducted in refugee camps for Syrians located in both Jordan and Lebanon using survey and experimental methodologies that have been successfully used with violent extremists across the world.