ArticleFrontiers in psychology2015
Motivation for aggressive religious radicalization: goal regulation theory and a personality × threat × affordance hypothesis.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- Aggressive motivation mediates the influence of prosocial video game play on young children's aggressive behavior.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Individual, intergroup and nation-level influences on belief in conspiracy theories.Nature reviews psychology · 2023Review
- Individual Differences in Personality Moderate the Effects of Perceived Group Deprivation on Violent Extremism: Evidence From a United Kingdom Nationally Representative Survey.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- A Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory of Violent Extremist Propaganda: The Motivational Pathways Underlying Movement Toward and Away From Violent Extremist Action.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- From Querulous to Suicidal: Self-immolation in Public Places as a Symbolic Response to the Feeling of Injustice.Frontiers in psychology · 2017Article
- Preventing radicalisation and terrorism: is there a GP response?The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A new set of hypotheses is presented regarding the cause of aggressive religious radicalization (ARR). It is grounded in classic and contemporary theory of human motivation and goal regulation, together with recent empirical advances in personality, social, and neurophysiological psychology. We specify personality traits, threats, and group affordances that combine to divert normal motivational processes toward ARR. Conducive personality traits are oppositional, anxiety-prone, and identity-weak (i.e., morally bewildered). Conducive threats are those that arise from seemingly insurmountable external forces and frustrate effective goal regulation. Conducive affordances include opportunity for immediate and concrete engagement in active groups that are powered by conspiracy narratives, infused with cosmic significance, encouraging of moral violence, and sealed with religious unfalsifiability. We propose that ARR is rewarding because it can spur approach motivated states that mask vulnerability for people whose dispositions and circumstances would otherwise leave them mired in anxious distress.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.