When countermessaging backfires: The role of obsessive passion in psychological reactance.

Abstract

Political countermessages are communication strategies intended to discourage people from supporting violent political activism; however, it is unclear whether they are indeed effective. The purpose of this research was to address this gap by testing the influence of political countermessages on individuals with a passion for a cause. Four studies tested the proposition that when individuals are exposed to a political countermessage (vs. control message), obsessive (but not harmonious) passion for a cause is associated with psychological reactance and greater willingness to engage in violent political behaviors. Across 4 studies, we found support for this hypothesis across various ideological groups (Study 1: environmentalists; Study 2: Black Lives Matter activists; Study 3: Republicans; Study 4: Pro-Life activists). Moreover, in Study 4 we show that providing political activists with an opportunity to self-affirm before exposure to a countermessage successfully lowered their willingness to engage in violent activism. As a whole, the present findings challenge the widespread, although unsubstantiated, assumption that countermessages are effective to mitigate support for violent political activism. We suggest that countermessages should be used with extreme caution as they can increase radical activism in individuals who harbor an obsessive passion for their political cause.

The sociocognitive processes of ideological obsession: review and policy implications

“…Contrary to the notion that challenging extremist narratives would break the ideological spell, we found that those at a greater risk of ideological obsession reported more, not less, support for ISIS! We also showed similar results in experiments with a wider range of ideologies-including environmentalism, the 'Black Lives Matter' movement, the US Republican Party and pro-life supporters [54]. This is a classic case of psychological reactance: persuasive appeals produce the exact opposite behaviour because they threaten people's freedom to act as desired.…”

Ideological passion and violent activism: The moderating role of the significance quest

“…Based on prior work, we expected that both obsessive and harmonious passion would strongly predict ideological commitment (i.e., the quantity of motivation). However, given that only obsessive (but not harmonious) passion is associated with ego-insecurity (Bélanger et al, 2021;Bélanger, Lafreniere, et al, 2013), we expected that the relationship between obsessive passion and violent activism would be magnified by personal and collective loss of significance. In contrast, we did not expect harmonious passion to predict violent activism, nor any interaction effect with the loss of significance.…”

“…Hence, the ideology takes an overwhelming place in the person's identity, leading to a rigid (vs. flexible) ideological engagement which conflicts with other life domains (Séguin‐Lévesque et al, 2003). As a result of these dynamics, people's identity becomes fragile and prone to ego defensive reactions – especially when their ideological worldviews are challenged (Bélanger et al, 2021; Bélanger, Lafrenière, et al, 2013; Rip et al, 2012). Moreover, people's attentional resources are monopolized by the pursuit of their ideology; competing alternative goals are automatically suppressed and people's ideological involvement is shielded from potentially distracting information (Bélanger, Lafrenière, et al, 2013).…”

Identifying opinion-based groups from survey data: a bipartite network approach

“…Social networks record traces of interaction and information flow. However, people can interact without ever influencing each-other [12]. Conversely, groups of people in close agreement can influence society without ever interacting, for example when voting in elections.…”

“…In online interactions, it is often the case that people have little influence over each-other if they perceive themselves to be on different "sides." Instead, interaction in these circumstances may even drive opinions further apart [12]. So while the homophily network does not tell us much about actual interaction, it can reveal a great deal about the structure of social groups and likely paths of social influence [15][16][17].…”