Identity fusion is a strong feeling of connectedness that is capable of predicting willingness to... more Identity fusion is a strong feeling of connectedness that is capable of predicting willingness to self-sacrifice. The current research explores whether considering the extremity of the situation improves the ability of identity fusion to predict willingness to engage in life self-sacrifice. Participants first reported their level of identity fusion with a value (Study 1) or with their country (Study 2). Then, participants were randomly assigned to engage in an extreme versus non-extreme situation of sacrifice for the value (Study 1) or for their country (Study 2). These two variables (identity fusion and situation extremity) were used to predict willingness to self-sacrifice. Situation extremity moderated the effects of fusion on willingness to self-sacrifice, with greater consistency between fusion and sacrifice obtained for extreme versus non-extreme situations. In conclusion, taking into consideration the extremity of the situation can be useful to predict the association between identity fusion and willingness to self-sacrifice.
Using an intergroup version of the trolley problem, we explored participants’ willingness to sacr... more Using an intergroup version of the trolley problem, we explored participants’ willingness to sacrifice their lives for their group. In Study 1, Spaniards whose personal identities were fused with their group identity endorsed saving fellow Spaniards by jumping to their deaths in front of a runaway trolley. Studies 2 and 3 showed that the self-sacrificial behaviors of fused Spaniards generalized to saving members of an extended in-group (Europeans) but not members of an out-group (Americans). In Study 4, fused participants endorsed pushing aside a fellow Spaniard who was poised to jump to his death and initiate a chain of events that would lead to the deaths of several terrorists, so that they could commit this act themselves. In all four studies, nonfused participants expressed reluctance to sacrifice themselves, and identification with the group predicted nothing. The nature of identity fusion and its relationship to related constructs are discussed.
As part of the PsyCorona initiative (https://psycorona.org/) we provide here the survey codebook ... more As part of the PsyCorona initiative (https://psycorona.org/) we provide here the survey codebook as well as translations into 30 languages. The Pdf folder contains Pdfs of each wave in English. The excel sheet contains the translations into 30 languages.
Supplemental material, Sprong_Supplemental_Material_rev for "Our Country Needs a Strong Lead... more Supplemental material, Sprong_Supplemental_Material_rev for "Our Country Needs a Strong Leader Right Now": Economic Inequality Enhances the Wish for a Strong Leader by Stefanie Sprong, Jolanda Jetten, Zhechen Wang, Kim Peters, Frank Mols, Maykel Verkuyten, Brock Bastian, Amarina Ariyanto, Frédérique Autin, Nadia Ayub, Constantina Badea, Tomasz Besta, Fabrizio Butera, Rui Costa-Lopes, Lijuan Cui, Carole Fantini, Gillian Finchilescu, Lowell Gaertner, Mario Gollwitzer, Ángel Gómez, Roberto González, Ying-Yi Hong, Dorthe Høj Jensen, Inga Jasinskaja-Lahti, Minoru Karasawa, Thomas Kessler, Olivier Klein, Marcus Lima, Laura Mégevand, Thomas Morton, Paola Paladino, Tibor Polya, Tuuli Anna Renvik, Aleksejs Ruza, Wan Shahrazad, Sushama Shama, Heather J. Smith, Ana Raquel Torres, Anne Marthe van der Bles and Michael J. A. Wohl in Psychological Science
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-psp-10.1177_01461672211027034 for Awareness of the Psychological... more Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-psp-10.1177_01461672211027034 for Awareness of the Psychological Bias of Naïve Realism Can Increase Acceptance of Cultural Differences by Lucía López-Rodríguez, Eran Halperin, Alexandra Vázquez, Isabel Cuadrado, Marisol Navas and Ángel Gómez in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Political conservatism and threat salience have been consistently associated with intergroup bias... more Political conservatism and threat salience have been consistently associated with intergroup bias. However, prior research has not examined potential effects of conservatism and/or threat on the attribution of relative in-group/out-group intelligence. In a cross-cultural study conducted in Spain and the United Kingdom, priming violent conflict with ISIS led participants to view an in-group ally as relatively more intelligent than an out-group adversary, in an effect mediated by feelings of anger (but not fear or general arousal). Conservatism similarly predicted biased perception of the ally's relative intellect, a tendency that was driven by militaristic (not social/fiscal) political attitudes but was not explained by associated increases in state anger following conflict cues. This overall pattern indicates that conflict cues and militaristic political orientation heighten assessments of relative intergroup intellect during warfare via distinct affective and attitudinal pathways.
Supplemental material, Klein_Open_Practices_Disclosure for Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation i... more Supplemental material, Klein_Open_Practices_Disclosure for Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation in Replicability Across Samples and Settings by Richard A. Klein, Michelangelo Vianello, Fred Hasselman, Byron G. Adams, Reginald B. Adams, Sinan Alper, Mark Aveyard, Jordan R. Axt, Mayowa T. Babalola, Štěpán Bahník, Rishtee Batra, Mihály Berkics, Michael J. Bernstein, Daniel R. Berry, Olga Bialobrzeska, Evans Dami Binan, Konrad Bocian, Mark J. Brandt, Robert Busching, Anna Cabak Rédei, Huajian Cai, Fanny Cambier, Katarzyna Cantarero, Cheryl L. Carmichael, Francisco Ceric, Jesse Chandler, Jen-Ho Chang, Armand Chatard, Eva E. Chen, Winnee Cheong, David C. Cicero, Sharon Coen, Jennifer A. Coleman, Brian Collisson, Morgan A. Conway, Katherine S. Corker, Paul G. Curran, Fiery Cushman, Zubairu K. Dagona, Ilker Dalgar, Anna Dalla Rosa, William E. Davis, Maaike de Bruijn, Leander De Schutter, Thierry Devos, Marieke de Vries, Canay Doğulu, Nerisa Dozo, Kristin Nicole Dukes, Yarrow Dunham, Kevin D...
Supplemental material, Supplement_final for Threat Enhances Aggressive Inclinations Among Devoted... more Supplemental material, Supplement_final for Threat Enhances Aggressive Inclinations Among Devoted Actors Via Increase in Their Relative Physical Formidability by Alexandra Vázquez, Lucía López-Rodríguez, Mercedes Martínez, Scott Atran and ángel Gómez in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-psp-10.1177_0146167220974162 for Ambivalent Effects of Positive ... more Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-psp-10.1177_0146167220974162 for Ambivalent Effects of Positive Contact Between Women and Men on Collective Actions for Women's Rights by Alexandra Vázquez, Lucía López-Rodríguez, Ángel Gómez and John F. Dovidio in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Although most people acknowledge the moral virtue in sacrificing oneself to save others, few actu... more Although most people acknowledge the moral virtue in sacrificing oneself to save others, few actually endorse self-sacrifice. Seven experiments explored the cognitive and emotional mechanisms that underlie such endorsements. Participants responded to 1 of 2 moral dilemmas in which they could save 5 members of their country only by sacrificing themselves. Over 90 % of participants acknowledged that the moral course of action was to sacrifice oneself to save others (Experiment 1), yet only those who were strongly fused with the group preferentially endorsed self-sacrifice (Experiments 2–7). The presence of a concern with saving group members rather than the absence of a concern with self-preservation motivated strongly fused participants to endorse sacrificing themselves for the group (Experiment 3). Analyses of think aloud protocols suggested that saving others was motivated by emotional engagement with the group among strongly fused participants but by utilitarian concerns among wea...
International journal of psychology and psychological therapy, 2007
The present study examines how metaperceptions can be affected by intergroup processes. Our main ... more The present study examines how metaperceptions can be affected by intergroup processes. Our main goal was to investigate how our expectations for how others see us are affected by the valence of the perception we believe outgroup members have of our group and the extent to which we perceive ourselves to be prototypical members of our group. 800 psychology students indicated how they thought outgroup members perceived their ingroup (metaperception of ingroup) and their self-reported level of prototypicality, in order to test the effects of these variables on how participants expected to be perceived by outgroup members (metaperception of self), their feelings of intergroup anxiety, their interest in contact with the outgroup, and the extent to which they believed outgroup members were interested in contact with them. Participants’ metaperceptions were predicted by beliefs about outgroup members’ perceptions of their groups, and particularly for those who considered themselves to be p...
Pathogens represent a significant threat to human health leading to the emergence of strategies d... more Pathogens represent a significant threat to human health leading to the emergence of strategies designed to help manage their negative impact. We examined how spiritual beliefs developed to explain and predict the devastating effects of pathogens and spread of infectious disease. Analysis of existing data in Studies 1 and 2 suggests that moral vitalism (beliefs about spiritual forces of evil) is higher in geographical regions characterized by historical higher levels of pathogens. Furthermore, drawing on a sample of 3140 participants from 28 countries in Study 3, we found that historical higher levels of pathogens were associated with stronger endorsement of moral vitalistic beliefs. Furthermore, endorsement of moral vitalistic beliefs statistically mediated the previously reported relationship between pathogen prevalence and conservative ideologies, suggesting these beliefs reinforce behavioural strategies which function to prevent infection. We conclude that moral vitalism may be adaptive: by emphasizing concerns over contagion, it provided an explanatory model that enabled human groups to reduce rates of contagious disease.
El objetivo del presente trabajo es encontrar estrategias que puedan mejorar las relaciones inter... more El objetivo del presente trabajo es encontrar estrategias que puedan mejorar las relaciones intergrupales a traves del contacto intergrupal, desconfirmando expectativas negativas reciprocas y favoreciendo la diferenciacion, permitiendo a los grupos obtener a mantener una identidad social positiva. El estudio se lleva a caboen un contexto deportivo (dos equipos de baloncesto) y tres estudios sirven para decidir las dimensiones de comparacion, las caracteristicas del contacto, y los grupos que cumplen las condiciones para establecerse dicho contacto. Dos estudios (con 351 y 412 sujetos) prueban dos estrategias anadidas al contacto consistentes en fomentar la "cooperacion social" (valorando positivamente a cada grupo en una dimension diferente) o coartar la "competicion social" (valorando a ambos grupos en la misma) y un tercero (178 sujetos) exploran si existen diferencias en la jerarquia de valores de los grupos, con los siguientes resultados: valorar a cada grupo...
There is evidence that democracies are under threat around the world while the quest for strong l... more There is evidence that democracies are under threat around the world while the quest for strong leaders is increasing. Although the causes of these developments are complex and multifaceted, here we focus on one factor: the extent to which citizens express materialist and post-materialist concerns. We explore whether objective higher levels of democracy are differentially associated with materialist and post-materialist concerns and, in turn, whether this is related to the wish for a strong leader. Testing this hypothesis across 27 countries (N = 5,741) demonstrated a direct negative effect of democracies’ development on the wish for a strong leader. Further, multi-level mediation analysis showed that the relation between the Democracy Index and the wish for a strong leader was mediated by materialist concerns. This pattern of results suggests that lower levels of democracy are associated with enhanced concerns about basic needs and this is linked to greater support for strong leaders.
Identity fusion is a visceral feeling of oneness with a group that predicts extreme pro-group beh... more Identity fusion is a visceral feeling of oneness with a group that predicts extreme pro-group behaviors. However, the effects of fusion depending on the nature of such behaviors -violent versus nonviolent- and the factors that may incline strongly fused individuals to display them still remain unexplored. To fill this gap, we performed two correlational studies in which we examined whether moral beliefs regarding the justifiability of violence moderate the relationship between fusion with the family (Study 1), or with the country (Study 2), and willingness to engage in violent and nonviolent pro-group acts. Results showed that strongly fused participants were more willing to act violently than weakly fused participants, but only when their beliefs in the moral justifiability of violence were high. In contrast, their willingness to engage in nonviolent acts was not influenced by moral beliefs.
We distinguish two pathways people may follow when they join violent groups: compliance and inter... more We distinguish two pathways people may follow when they join violent groups: compliance and internalization. Compliance occurs when individuals are coerced to join by powerful influence agents. Internalization occurs when individuals join due to a perceived convergence between the self and the group. We searched for evidence of each of these pathways in field investigations of former members of two renowned terrorist organizations: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) (Study 1) and Islamist radical groups (Study 2). Results indicated that ex-fighters joined LTTE for reasons associated with both compliance and internalization but that ex-fighters joined Islamist radical groups primarily for reasons associated with internalization. When compliance occurred, it often took the form of coercion within LTTE but involved charismatic persuasion agents within Islamist groups. This evidence of systematic differences in the reasons why fighters enter violent groups suggests that strateg...
Identity fusion is a strong feeling of connectedness that is capable of predicting willingness to... more Identity fusion is a strong feeling of connectedness that is capable of predicting willingness to self-sacrifice. The current research explores whether considering the extremity of the situation improves the ability of identity fusion to predict willingness to engage in life self-sacrifice. Participants first reported their level of identity fusion with a value (Study 1) or with their country (Study 2). Then, participants were randomly assigned to engage in an extreme versus non-extreme situation of sacrifice for the value (Study 1) or for their country (Study 2). These two variables (identity fusion and situation extremity) were used to predict willingness to self-sacrifice. Situation extremity moderated the effects of fusion on willingness to self-sacrifice, with greater consistency between fusion and sacrifice obtained for extreme versus non-extreme situations. In conclusion, taking into consideration the extremity of the situation can be useful to predict the association between identity fusion and willingness to self-sacrifice.
Using an intergroup version of the trolley problem, we explored participants’ willingness to sacr... more Using an intergroup version of the trolley problem, we explored participants’ willingness to sacrifice their lives for their group. In Study 1, Spaniards whose personal identities were fused with their group identity endorsed saving fellow Spaniards by jumping to their deaths in front of a runaway trolley. Studies 2 and 3 showed that the self-sacrificial behaviors of fused Spaniards generalized to saving members of an extended in-group (Europeans) but not members of an out-group (Americans). In Study 4, fused participants endorsed pushing aside a fellow Spaniard who was poised to jump to his death and initiate a chain of events that would lead to the deaths of several terrorists, so that they could commit this act themselves. In all four studies, nonfused participants expressed reluctance to sacrifice themselves, and identification with the group predicted nothing. The nature of identity fusion and its relationship to related constructs are discussed.
As part of the PsyCorona initiative (https://psycorona.org/) we provide here the survey codebook ... more As part of the PsyCorona initiative (https://psycorona.org/) we provide here the survey codebook as well as translations into 30 languages. The Pdf folder contains Pdfs of each wave in English. The excel sheet contains the translations into 30 languages.
Supplemental material, Sprong_Supplemental_Material_rev for "Our Country Needs a Strong Lead... more Supplemental material, Sprong_Supplemental_Material_rev for "Our Country Needs a Strong Leader Right Now": Economic Inequality Enhances the Wish for a Strong Leader by Stefanie Sprong, Jolanda Jetten, Zhechen Wang, Kim Peters, Frank Mols, Maykel Verkuyten, Brock Bastian, Amarina Ariyanto, Frédérique Autin, Nadia Ayub, Constantina Badea, Tomasz Besta, Fabrizio Butera, Rui Costa-Lopes, Lijuan Cui, Carole Fantini, Gillian Finchilescu, Lowell Gaertner, Mario Gollwitzer, Ángel Gómez, Roberto González, Ying-Yi Hong, Dorthe Høj Jensen, Inga Jasinskaja-Lahti, Minoru Karasawa, Thomas Kessler, Olivier Klein, Marcus Lima, Laura Mégevand, Thomas Morton, Paola Paladino, Tibor Polya, Tuuli Anna Renvik, Aleksejs Ruza, Wan Shahrazad, Sushama Shama, Heather J. Smith, Ana Raquel Torres, Anne Marthe van der Bles and Michael J. A. Wohl in Psychological Science
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-psp-10.1177_01461672211027034 for Awareness of the Psychological... more Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-psp-10.1177_01461672211027034 for Awareness of the Psychological Bias of Naïve Realism Can Increase Acceptance of Cultural Differences by Lucía López-Rodríguez, Eran Halperin, Alexandra Vázquez, Isabel Cuadrado, Marisol Navas and Ángel Gómez in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Political conservatism and threat salience have been consistently associated with intergroup bias... more Political conservatism and threat salience have been consistently associated with intergroup bias. However, prior research has not examined potential effects of conservatism and/or threat on the attribution of relative in-group/out-group intelligence. In a cross-cultural study conducted in Spain and the United Kingdom, priming violent conflict with ISIS led participants to view an in-group ally as relatively more intelligent than an out-group adversary, in an effect mediated by feelings of anger (but not fear or general arousal). Conservatism similarly predicted biased perception of the ally's relative intellect, a tendency that was driven by militaristic (not social/fiscal) political attitudes but was not explained by associated increases in state anger following conflict cues. This overall pattern indicates that conflict cues and militaristic political orientation heighten assessments of relative intergroup intellect during warfare via distinct affective and attitudinal pathways.
Supplemental material, Klein_Open_Practices_Disclosure for Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation i... more Supplemental material, Klein_Open_Practices_Disclosure for Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation in Replicability Across Samples and Settings by Richard A. Klein, Michelangelo Vianello, Fred Hasselman, Byron G. Adams, Reginald B. Adams, Sinan Alper, Mark Aveyard, Jordan R. Axt, Mayowa T. Babalola, Štěpán Bahník, Rishtee Batra, Mihály Berkics, Michael J. Bernstein, Daniel R. Berry, Olga Bialobrzeska, Evans Dami Binan, Konrad Bocian, Mark J. Brandt, Robert Busching, Anna Cabak Rédei, Huajian Cai, Fanny Cambier, Katarzyna Cantarero, Cheryl L. Carmichael, Francisco Ceric, Jesse Chandler, Jen-Ho Chang, Armand Chatard, Eva E. Chen, Winnee Cheong, David C. Cicero, Sharon Coen, Jennifer A. Coleman, Brian Collisson, Morgan A. Conway, Katherine S. Corker, Paul G. Curran, Fiery Cushman, Zubairu K. Dagona, Ilker Dalgar, Anna Dalla Rosa, William E. Davis, Maaike de Bruijn, Leander De Schutter, Thierry Devos, Marieke de Vries, Canay Doğulu, Nerisa Dozo, Kristin Nicole Dukes, Yarrow Dunham, Kevin D...
Supplemental material, Supplement_final for Threat Enhances Aggressive Inclinations Among Devoted... more Supplemental material, Supplement_final for Threat Enhances Aggressive Inclinations Among Devoted Actors Via Increase in Their Relative Physical Formidability by Alexandra Vázquez, Lucía López-Rodríguez, Mercedes Martínez, Scott Atran and ángel Gómez in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-psp-10.1177_0146167220974162 for Ambivalent Effects of Positive ... more Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-psp-10.1177_0146167220974162 for Ambivalent Effects of Positive Contact Between Women and Men on Collective Actions for Women's Rights by Alexandra Vázquez, Lucía López-Rodríguez, Ángel Gómez and John F. Dovidio in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Although most people acknowledge the moral virtue in sacrificing oneself to save others, few actu... more Although most people acknowledge the moral virtue in sacrificing oneself to save others, few actually endorse self-sacrifice. Seven experiments explored the cognitive and emotional mechanisms that underlie such endorsements. Participants responded to 1 of 2 moral dilemmas in which they could save 5 members of their country only by sacrificing themselves. Over 90 % of participants acknowledged that the moral course of action was to sacrifice oneself to save others (Experiment 1), yet only those who were strongly fused with the group preferentially endorsed self-sacrifice (Experiments 2–7). The presence of a concern with saving group members rather than the absence of a concern with self-preservation motivated strongly fused participants to endorse sacrificing themselves for the group (Experiment 3). Analyses of think aloud protocols suggested that saving others was motivated by emotional engagement with the group among strongly fused participants but by utilitarian concerns among wea...
International journal of psychology and psychological therapy, 2007
The present study examines how metaperceptions can be affected by intergroup processes. Our main ... more The present study examines how metaperceptions can be affected by intergroup processes. Our main goal was to investigate how our expectations for how others see us are affected by the valence of the perception we believe outgroup members have of our group and the extent to which we perceive ourselves to be prototypical members of our group. 800 psychology students indicated how they thought outgroup members perceived their ingroup (metaperception of ingroup) and their self-reported level of prototypicality, in order to test the effects of these variables on how participants expected to be perceived by outgroup members (metaperception of self), their feelings of intergroup anxiety, their interest in contact with the outgroup, and the extent to which they believed outgroup members were interested in contact with them. Participants’ metaperceptions were predicted by beliefs about outgroup members’ perceptions of their groups, and particularly for those who considered themselves to be p...
Pathogens represent a significant threat to human health leading to the emergence of strategies d... more Pathogens represent a significant threat to human health leading to the emergence of strategies designed to help manage their negative impact. We examined how spiritual beliefs developed to explain and predict the devastating effects of pathogens and spread of infectious disease. Analysis of existing data in Studies 1 and 2 suggests that moral vitalism (beliefs about spiritual forces of evil) is higher in geographical regions characterized by historical higher levels of pathogens. Furthermore, drawing on a sample of 3140 participants from 28 countries in Study 3, we found that historical higher levels of pathogens were associated with stronger endorsement of moral vitalistic beliefs. Furthermore, endorsement of moral vitalistic beliefs statistically mediated the previously reported relationship between pathogen prevalence and conservative ideologies, suggesting these beliefs reinforce behavioural strategies which function to prevent infection. We conclude that moral vitalism may be adaptive: by emphasizing concerns over contagion, it provided an explanatory model that enabled human groups to reduce rates of contagious disease.
El objetivo del presente trabajo es encontrar estrategias que puedan mejorar las relaciones inter... more El objetivo del presente trabajo es encontrar estrategias que puedan mejorar las relaciones intergrupales a traves del contacto intergrupal, desconfirmando expectativas negativas reciprocas y favoreciendo la diferenciacion, permitiendo a los grupos obtener a mantener una identidad social positiva. El estudio se lleva a caboen un contexto deportivo (dos equipos de baloncesto) y tres estudios sirven para decidir las dimensiones de comparacion, las caracteristicas del contacto, y los grupos que cumplen las condiciones para establecerse dicho contacto. Dos estudios (con 351 y 412 sujetos) prueban dos estrategias anadidas al contacto consistentes en fomentar la "cooperacion social" (valorando positivamente a cada grupo en una dimension diferente) o coartar la "competicion social" (valorando a ambos grupos en la misma) y un tercero (178 sujetos) exploran si existen diferencias en la jerarquia de valores de los grupos, con los siguientes resultados: valorar a cada grupo...
There is evidence that democracies are under threat around the world while the quest for strong l... more There is evidence that democracies are under threat around the world while the quest for strong leaders is increasing. Although the causes of these developments are complex and multifaceted, here we focus on one factor: the extent to which citizens express materialist and post-materialist concerns. We explore whether objective higher levels of democracy are differentially associated with materialist and post-materialist concerns and, in turn, whether this is related to the wish for a strong leader. Testing this hypothesis across 27 countries (N = 5,741) demonstrated a direct negative effect of democracies’ development on the wish for a strong leader. Further, multi-level mediation analysis showed that the relation between the Democracy Index and the wish for a strong leader was mediated by materialist concerns. This pattern of results suggests that lower levels of democracy are associated with enhanced concerns about basic needs and this is linked to greater support for strong leaders.
Identity fusion is a visceral feeling of oneness with a group that predicts extreme pro-group beh... more Identity fusion is a visceral feeling of oneness with a group that predicts extreme pro-group behaviors. However, the effects of fusion depending on the nature of such behaviors -violent versus nonviolent- and the factors that may incline strongly fused individuals to display them still remain unexplored. To fill this gap, we performed two correlational studies in which we examined whether moral beliefs regarding the justifiability of violence moderate the relationship between fusion with the family (Study 1), or with the country (Study 2), and willingness to engage in violent and nonviolent pro-group acts. Results showed that strongly fused participants were more willing to act violently than weakly fused participants, but only when their beliefs in the moral justifiability of violence were high. In contrast, their willingness to engage in nonviolent acts was not influenced by moral beliefs.
We distinguish two pathways people may follow when they join violent groups: compliance and inter... more We distinguish two pathways people may follow when they join violent groups: compliance and internalization. Compliance occurs when individuals are coerced to join by powerful influence agents. Internalization occurs when individuals join due to a perceived convergence between the self and the group. We searched for evidence of each of these pathways in field investigations of former members of two renowned terrorist organizations: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) (Study 1) and Islamist radical groups (Study 2). Results indicated that ex-fighters joined LTTE for reasons associated with both compliance and internalization but that ex-fighters joined Islamist radical groups primarily for reasons associated with internalization. When compliance occurred, it often took the form of coercion within LTTE but involved charismatic persuasion agents within Islamist groups. This evidence of systematic differences in the reasons why fighters enter violent groups suggests that strateg...
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