Measuring Extremist Archetypes: Scale Development and Validation

Abstract

To date, research on individual differences in susceptibility to extremism has typically focused on contextual perspectives and on clinical or maladaptive personality profiles including psychopathology. In addition, the field has mostly distinguished between the extremist and the non-extremist in a dichotomous way, paying little attention to the motivational and behavioral heterogeneity in violent extremists. Supporting the importance of this heterogeneity, “extremist archetypes” with different motivational backgrounds and behavioral roles have been identified in independent lines of qualitative research. Yet, research quantitatively testing and validating these archetypes and investigating whether and how they relate to extremism and violence is missing. The present research aimed to fill these gaps by developing and validating the Extremist Archetypes Scale. In Study 1 conducted with 303 White/Caucasian Americans, exploratory factor analysis of a preliminary item pool gave support for a scale measuring five factorially distinct archetypes: “adventurer”, “fellow traveler”, “leader”, “drifter” and “misfit.” Each of these had different associations with individual level factors such as violent intentions, ethnic identification and social dominance orientation. In a second pre-registered Study 2 conducted with 301 White/Caucasian Americans, confirmatory factor analysis supported the scale’s five-factor solution. As in Study 1, four of the extremist archetypes had positive associations with violent intentions, supporting the scale’s criterion validity. The different partial correlations found in both studies indicate that the extremist archetypes have different personality profiles and associations with individual based factors. Hence, by developing a scale that captures extremist archetypes that differ in term of personality and ideology, the present research provides the quantitative tools for future research to further investigate the diversity in motivations and roles of extremists. The findings of the present research are discussed in light of future research and societal implications.