Radicalisation: A Social Psychological Perspective (Part I)

Abstract

Terrorism, being a long-standing phenomenon and a threat that has existed for at least two millennia, is still an extreme problem in the life of society. Understanding how a person comes to commit terrorist acts requires consideration of the process of radicalisation. The aim of our literature review is to analyse the process of radicalisation.Security and counter-terrorism are one of the priority areas of scientific development in Russia. This direction has different facets of analysis. From a psychological point of view, the development of measures of influence should be based on knowledge of how a person joins groups and organizations of a terrorist nature, what are the psychological mechanisms of radicalization, as well as an understanding of the laws of deradicalization. Our analytical review within the framework of social psychological knowledge has allowed us to overcome a kind of gap existing in the literature, namely, to acquaint the Russian readers with a promising explanatory model of the process of radicalisation - the uncertainty — identity theory, proposed by Hogg. This model explains why and how people join groups with extremist and radical beliefs, as well as why they prefer acts of violence, acting on behalf of these groups.

Keywords

• radicalisation
• terrorism
• uncertainty
• communication strategies
• social identity
• group norms
• ”visual culture"