To what extent is in-group affiliation motive and group-based positive emotions associated with the level of extremism?

• Main Author: Chua, Karie Sing Ying
• Other Authors: Ring Joyce Pang Shu Min
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/166375
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This study aims to investigate whether in-group affiliation motive and group-based positive emotions are associated with the level of extremism. Three hypotheses were proposed: 1) the level of in-group affiliation motive has a significant positive correlation with the level of extremism; 2) the level of group-based positive emotions has a significant positive correlation with the level of extremism; and 3) the level of in-group affiliation motive and group-based positive emotions has a significant interaction effect on the level of extremism. The sample for this study consisted of two terrorist groups, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Measures of in-group affiliation motive and group-based positive emotions were collected from 13 Inspire magazines as well as 23 Dabiq and Rumiyah magazines published by AQAP and ISIS respectively. A multinomial logistic regression analysis was then conducted to analyse the relationship between the categorical dependent variable (level of extremism) and the independent variables (in-group affiliation motive and group-based positive emotions). Results showed no support for all three hypotheses for both AQAP and ISIS, indicating that there might either be other factors at play affecting the level of extremism such as power motive or due to the inherent nature of the sample data collected being incomplete. However, this study can still contribute to preliminary insights in the less-researched field of the relationship between implicit motives, emotions, and terrorism and can potentially be deployed to make counter-terrorism efforts more effective.