What goes on in the mind of a militant extremist?

One does not need to become a terrorist if they endorse moderately all three ingredients of a militant extremist mindset. Even a strong endorsement of one or even two of the three components is unlikely to prompt a person to spring into action. However, high endorsement of all three components may lead a person to act. And if a group has high ratings on all three components, chances are that at least some members of the group may become potential recruits for a radical cause.

Although the measure may be useful for identifying groups prone to terrorism, no justification can be made to use the militant extremist mindset for profiling purposes.

What can be changed?
Grudge should be more open to change than either nastiness or excuse. Nastiness is a social attitude akin to dogmatism and authoritarianism that are known to be hard to modify.

Grudge is only partly a psychological internal state of the person and the other part — that is, the outside threat that causes unhappiness or fear — may be open to intervention. Education and media can play a crucial role.

Policy response
Governments can continue with campaigns to educate people of the benefits of immigration, equal opportunity for all citizens and the acceptance of diversity as well as the need for vigorous action to secure immigrants’ equal rights and promotion of the democratic process.

Countering “protest counter-culture” can be achieved by directly engaging in discussions with counter-culture groups, monitoring their development and, eventually as a last resort, using police methods if the situation gets too heated. These efforts, perhaps, should be increased.

Monitoring the level and changes in extremists’ mindset

In a recent interview, retiring ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organization] chief David Irvine said that a small number of people who have very distorted views that propel them towards violence leading to mass casualties are a real concern.

Irvine added that the number of threats that ASIO is looking at, in terms of the numbers of people, has grown substantially with the Syrian conflict. Translated into the language of militant extremist mindset, this means that “grudge” among the people who already have an “excuse” has increased. Any policy response needs to account for the “nasty” ones within the protest counter-culture groups.

Prudent governments should monitor the extent and the strength of the militant extremist mindset in its population and especially among the young, including older adolescents and students. If this had been done in the past, the warning signs would have been detectable ahead of the realization that 150 Australians are engaged in terrorist activities in Syria and Iraq.

Psychological research into radicalization may complement political science and religious studies in countering terrorism in Western society. Monitoring the strength of militant extremist mindset endorsements in different communities within the Australian population could be helpful.

Finally, it may be useful to establish regular polling practices that would gauge the extent of radicalization over time and in reaction to terrorist-related political acts at home and globally.

Lazar Stankov is Professor, Institute for Positive Psychology and Education at Australian Catholic University. This story is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives).