Motivations behind violent extremism uncovered in groundbreaking global study

New research from the University of St Andrews has revealed that human readiness for intergroup violence is not a single or unified mindset.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the groundbreaking new study spanning 58 countries and involving over 100 researchers from various institutions around the world, demonstrates that violent extremist intentions are driven by two fundamentally different psychological motivations.

These are defensive extremism, which aims to protect a group from perceived threats, and offensive extremism, which seeks to establish group dominance and expand influence.

This pre registered study analysed data from 18,128 participants globally. The findings indicate that defensive extremist intentions are consistently more prevalent, showing higher levels of endorsement than offensive intentions in 56 out of the 58 surveyed nations. 

This suggests a widespread tendency to find protective violence more morally acceptable than violence aimed at conquest.

The study uncovered that the two forms of extremism appeal to different types of people. Individuals exhibiting high levels of narcissism and a strong tendency to manipulate others demonstrated particularly strong inclinations toward defensive extremism. The researchers suggest that calculating individuals might strategically exploit the perceived legitimacy of violence portrayed as protective. 

Conversely, a strong desire for group dominance and high levels of religious fundamentalism were linked to offensive extremism. Psychopathy was positively related to both types of violent intentions. Furthermore, liberal political group identification was unexpectedly associated with higher offensive but lower defensive intentions, possibly reflecting a willingness to disrupt the status quo. 

Co-authors of the study, Dr Anna Stefaniak and Dr Nicole Tausch from the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of St Andrews, collected data from Scottish participants in the study.

Dr Stefaniak said: “Research on interpersonal violence has long shown that violence can take many different forms, each shaped by different causes. Our work shows that the same is true for violence between groups. It is not a unitary phenomenon. By understanding the different types of intergroup violence and what predicts them, we can take an important first step toward responding to it more effectively.”

Lead author of the study, Jonas R. Kunst from the BI Norwegian Business School, Norway, said: “We often treat violent extremism as a single phenomenon, but our data show that the psychological drive to protect one’s group is distinctly different from the drive to dominate others. Understanding this dual nature is critical because each type of extremism appeals to different psychological profiles and requires different intervention strategies.”

Crucially, the distinction between these two mentalities maps onto real-world societal health. The research shows that offensive extremist intentions are associated with macrolevel societal dysfunction. Specifically, their endorsement is positively linked to rates of political terror, internal conflicts, and the impact of terrorism. Countries with higher scores on the Global Terrorism Index and lower scores on democracy and human development indices exhibited higher levels of offensive violent intentions. Defensive intentions, despite being more widely endorsed, did not show these same significant correlations with societal violence.

Co-author Dr Nicole Tausch, also from the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at St Andrews said: “Nonetheless, our finding that defensive violence is overall more widely endorsed than offensive violence suggests that intergroup violence often grows out of the desire to protect one’s group. But it also means that framing violence in defensive terms can make even highly questionable actions seem justified”.

These findings carry profound implications for programmes aimed at countering violent extremism. Because offensive and defensive intentions operate through distinct psychological pathways, the authors suggest that policymakers and intervention specialists must move away from uniform strategies. Tailored interventions are required to effectively address the specific underlying motives driving individuals toward either protective vigilance or dominance-seeking violence.

ENDS