Cultural threat perceptions predict violent extremism via need for cognitive closure

The paper, in plain language

Beyond naming a risk factor

That threatened people radicalise more easily was known; how the threat is converted into violence was not. With colleagues including John Dovidio at Yale, we traced the path across studies and samples, testing whether the discomfort of uncertainty — the need for cognitive closure — is the mechanism through which feeling one's culture endangered becomes endorsement of violence.

What we found

It is. Perceived cultural threat heightens the need for definite, unambiguous answers, and that heightened need in turn predicts support for violent extremism. Ideology supplies the content, but much of the motive force is epistemic: violence appeals partly because it promises certainty in a world that feels like it is dissolving.

Why it matters

Mechanisms are where interventions live. Arguing people out of an ideology is notoriously hard; reducing the felt threat, or meeting the need for certainty by other means, are concrete alternatives this finding puts on the table. It also explains a pattern visible across movements: the same craving for closure can be served by very different extremisms.