The sociocognitive processes of ideological obsession: review and policy implications

Abstract

Understanding what motivates people to join violent ideological groups and engage in acts of cruelty against others is of great social and societal importance. In this paper, I posit that one necessary element is ‘ideological obsession’—an ideological commitment fuelled by unmet psychological needs and regulated by inhibitory and ego-defensive mechanisms. Drawing from evidence collected across cultures and ideologies, I describe four processes through which ideological obsession puts individuals on a path towards violence. First, ideological obsession deactivates moral self-regulatory processes, allowing unethical behaviours to be carried out without self-recrimination. Second, ideologically obsessed individuals are easily threatened by information that criticises their ideology, which in turn leads to hatred and violent retaliation. Third, ideological obsession changes people's social interactions by making them gravitate towards like-minded individuals who support ideological violence. As these social networks become more interconnected, they amplify one's adherence to violent extremism. Finally, ideologically obsessed individuals are prone to psychological reactance, making them immune to communication strategies intended to dissuade them from using violence. In fact, messages espousing non-violence can have the opposite effect by reinforcing their violence-supporting ideology. I conclude by presenting evidence-based strategies to prevent radicalisation leading to violence for individuals in pre-criminal spaces. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms’.

Ideology, communication and polarization

“…Second, the memory mechanism may be ideologically ego-involved or uninvolved. Well aligned with Zmigrod's relational or identity-based ideological thinking, ideological ego-involvement promotes motivated commitment to an ideological position, while an ideologically uninvolved mechanism does not show ideological commitment (also see [24]). Factorially combining ideological versus unbiased interpreter and ideologically ego-involved versus uninvolved memory mechanisms, we create a 2 × 2 typology of ideology-relevant information processing styles and study their implications for opinion dynamics.…”

Computational and neurocognitive approaches to the political brain: key insights and future avenues for political neuroscience

“…In a review of the literature on the socio-cognitive processes of radicalization, Belanger [ 18 ] posits that viewing ideological obsession as akin to other forms of addictions may be a fruitful parallel. Violent extremism emerges as an addiction to a belief system and is amplified by the loss of personal significance, suppression of alternative goals, and ego-defensiveness.…”

“…Considering ideological obsession in this way has the potential to clarify the commonalities across a range of ideological issues, from environmentalism to religious fundamentalism, and from social activism to political conservatism. Belanger's [ 18 ] approach is also critical for policymakers seeking to decelerate radicalization and offer credible counter-narratives that do not backfire and accidentally lead to greater extremism as a result. The review illustrates that incorporating insights from human learning can allow practitioners to substitute ideological obsession with alternative, healthier goals that provide existential meaning but do not cause interpersonal harm or disorder.…”

“…Linked to this, several lines of research converged on the mechanisms of social influence , positing how it affects individuals differentially based on their cognitive traits [ 5 – 7 ], motivations [ 19 ] and cultural context [ 20 ]. Toxic ideologies become internalized by individuals through cyclical [ 15 ] and addictively self-reinforcing [ 18 ] mechanisms, and it is these socio-cognitive loops that practitioners and equality advocates may need to break in order to achieve ideological open-mindedness and receptivity to evidence. Social influence can thus be a force for good—regardless of baseline ideological inclinations [ 17 ]—when it is used to create balanced information ecosystems that are resilient to misinformation and populism [ 21 ].…”

“…Lastly, these approaches can shed light on the cognitive structure of ideological beliefs , illustrating that there may be core neural, perceptual and cognitive dispositions that facilitate ideological dogmatism, extremism, or conservatism [ 5 , 8 , 10 , 12 , 14 , 18 ]. Computational and neurocognitive methodologies can thus unearth the psychological processes that govern adoption of intolerant ideological worldviews, even when these are implicit or invisible to the naked eye.…”