Suchergebnisse

This study is focused on multiple aims. The first goal is to extend the evidence base and offer insights into patterns of attitudes and intentions related to activism (normative collective actions) and radicalism (non-normative and violent collective actions) among youth in Croatia. The second goal is to test the "dark-ego-vehicle" principle by evaluating whether the profiles based on the patterns of attitudes and intentions related to collective actions significantly differ with respect to the general dark personality trait. Data of 727 Croatian university students (53% women) were analyzed using latent profile analysis, which revealed four profiles in male and five profiles in female subsample. Most profiles (passive, activists, moderate radicals, strong radicals) were established among men and women, with negligible differences in indicator means. However, men were more likely to be categorized as moderate radicals (and slightly more likely to be categorized as passive), while women were more likely to be categorized as activists. The study partially supported the "dark-ego-vehicle" principle among women: while activists scored low on the general dark personality trait, moderate and strong radicals exhibited elevated scores. Among men, activists also scored low on dark personality trait, unlike passive individuals, moderate and strong radicals.

Unatoč neupitnoj povezanosti stavova i ponašanja, velik broj teoretičara slaže se da stavove o političkom nasilju i sudjelovanje u političkom nasilju ne treba izjednačavati. Ipak, ranija istraživanja nisu se eksplicitno bavila empirijskom provjerom valjanosti tog izjednačavanja u kontekstu radikalizacije. Stoga je cilj ovog rada bio provjeriti koliko je precizno moguće temeljem stavova o političkom nasilju razlikovati sudionike političkog nasilja od osoba koje u političkom nasilju ne sudjeluju. Analize su provedene na skupu podataka prikupljenom u sklopu projekta MyPLACE krajem 2012. i početkom 2013. na mladima (N = 16935) iz četrnaest europskih država, uključujući Hrvatsku. Nakon uparivanja sudionika s ciljem eliminacije potencijalnih izvora pristranosti u procjenama, rezultati su potvrdili da obje mjere stava o političkom nasilju – opravdavanje političkog nasilja i percipirana efikasnost političkog nasilja – pružaju značajan i neovisan doprinos objašnjavanju varijance sudjelovanja u političkom nasilju. Međutim, temeljem spomenutih varijabli oko trećine sudionika bilo je pogrešno klasificirano glede stvarnog sudjelovanja u političkom nasilju, čime je i empirijski potvrđena važnost zasebnog istraživanja kognitivne i bihevioralne radikalizacije, kao i opravdanost razlikovanja između stavova i ponašanja u kontekstu političkog nasilja.

Although many different models of radicalization integrate different intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intergroup processes, this interactive approach is scarcely present in the empirical studies. The goal of this study was to fill this gap by combining personality traits (Machiavellianism), ideology (Islamism), and outcomes of intergroup comparisons (perceived deprivations) as predictors of support for Daesh among Muslims in the MENA region, based on Arab Barometer IV data. Results were calculated on the overall sample and on synthetically balanced samples from Algeria and Palestine, respectively, to ensure the robustness of findings. While Islamists were generally supportive of Daesh, socio-politically deprived individuals were not. A negative relationship between Machiavellianism and support for Daesh was found only in Algeria. Multiple interactions, which differed in Algeria and Palestine, confirm the relevance of studying complex relationships among potential predictors of extremism, as well as the role of context that can strengthen or diminish these relationships.

Outcomes of a recent meta-analysis highlighted the difference in the contribution of egoistic and fraternalistic relative deprivation to the prediction of support for political violence and violent intentions. However, no explanation for this difference was provided. As processual models of aggression contain the "targeting" phase, in which responsibility for the situation is attributed to someone or something, next to testing the relationship between the two types of relative deprivation and support for political violence and violent intentions (intentions to participate in activities of a violent group) as criteria, we also tested if the degree of blame for inequality attributed to the outgroup moderates these relationships. The analysis was conducted on Croatian student (n = 735) and non-student (n = 144) samples of youth. Fraternalistic relative deprivation consistently exhibited stronger relationships with our criteria than egoistic relative deprivation, which predicted only the support for political violence. Despite the shared variance, we also found arguments in favor of the interaction between fraternalistic relative deprivation and blame attribution in the prediction of violent intentions, but not in the prediction of support for political violence. Altogether, the findings confirm the contribution of fraternalistic relative deprivation and blame attribution to understanding attitudes and intentions behind political violence. Implications for deradicalization programs are briefly discussed.

AbstractMany contemporary researchers agree that group relative deprivation is a driver of political actions against outgroups. However, both relative deprivation and political actions are complex phenomena, making it important to further study this relationship in the context of other relevant variables. One such variable could be the specific outgroup. The purpose of our study was to evaluate differences in the contribution of group relative deprivation to the prediction of activist and radicalised intentions against two outgroups – Muslims and senior citizens. The multi‐group structural equation modelling was applied separately on nationally representative samples of youth from Germany (N = 1,056), Norway (N = 376) and the United Kingdom (UK) (N = 1053). Group relative deprivation exhibited a robust relationship with activist intentions after controlling for general aggression, social desirability bias, age and gender, except in the UK, where the relationship between activist intentions and relative deprivation was stronger with Muslims as the target outgroup. The relationship between relative deprivation and radicalised intentions depended on the target outgroup across countries – it was related to radicalised intentions only against Muslims. The meaning and implications of these results are briefly discussed.

With much unknown about the new coronavirus, the scientific consensus is that human hosts are crucial to its spread and reproduction—the more people behave like regular socializing beings they are, the more likely it is that the virus will propagate. Hence, many nations worldwide have mandated physical-distancing measures. In the current preregistered research, we focus on examining two factors that may help explain differences in adherence to COVID-19 preventive behaviors and policy support across different countries—political orientation and analytic thinking. We positioned our research within the dual-process framework of human reasoning and investigated the role of cognitive reflection, open-minded thinking, and political ideology in determining COVID-19 responsible behavior (physical distancing and maintaining hygiene) and support for restrictive COVID-19 policies on a sample of 12,490 participants from 17 countries. We have not been able to detect substantial relationships of political orientation with preventive behaviors and policy support, and overall found no reliable evidence of politicization, nor polarization regarding the issue. The results of structural equation modeling showed that the inclination towards COVID-19 preventive measures and their endorsement were defined primarily by the tendency of open-minded thinking. Specifically, open-minded thinking was shown to be a predictor of all three criteria—avoiding physical contact, maintaining physical hygiene, and supporting COVID-19 restrictive mitigation policies. Cognitive reflection was predictive of lesser adherence to stricter hygiene and only very weakly predictive of lesser policy support. Furthermore, there was no evidence of these effects varying across political contexts. The mediation analysis suggested a partial mediation effect of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs on the relationships of open-mindedness and cognitive reflection with physical distancing (but not adherence to stricter hygiene) and COVID-19 policy support, albeit very small and ...

Abstract
At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic.