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Speaking of Psychology · August 6, 2025 · 37m
What Drives People to Extremism?
Exploring the psychological pathways to extremism — why ordinary people adopt extreme beliefs. Research on the need for significance, cognitive closure, and social identity as drivers of radicalization.
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Canon
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Mills: people with a high need for cognitive closure — who find ambiguity intolerable and crave definitive answers — are more susceptible to extremist narratives that offer black-and-white worldviews. Extremism provides the certainty that complex, nuanced reality denies.
Highlights
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Radicalization is driven by the need for significance — a desire to matter and be recognized
Mills: Arie Kruglanski's significance quest theory argues that the primary driver of radicalization is the need to feel significant — to matter, to have a meaningful identity, to be recognized as important. Extremist groups offer significance to people who feel invisible or humiliated.Was this useful?