Belief, Attitude and Behavior Change: Leveraging Current Perspectives for Counter-Radicalization

Persuasion Theories, Frameworks, and Perspectives

To effectively prevent vulnerable audiences from being persuaded by extremist ideologies, it is important to first understand the processes by which individuals change beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors independent of context. In this vein, this paper describes and explores multiple persuasion theories, frameworks, and practices that have been utilized and studies in several other domains that can be brought to bear for the purpose of counter-radicalization. Two of these subject areas focus on psychological processes—both of which can be prompted by persuasive messaging—that individuals undergo that lead to changes in beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors.

• Emotional experiences and

• Goal-setting and implementation intention Other subject areas highlight specific strategies that can be employed to facilitate audience conformity to persuasive goals.

• Use of narrative communication,

• Promotion of self-monitoring,

• Emphasizing reciprocity,

• Promotion of consistency with committed goals,

• Presentation of social proof,

• Highlighting scarcity, and

• Appealing to authority Finally, there exists one strategy that is not intended to promote persuasion, but is instead meant to prevent persuasion. This strategy—called attitudinal inoculation—is included in this report because of its proven effectiveness in different contexts, as well as its natural applications for efforts intended to dissuade the adoption of extremist ideologies.

The next section of the paper will offer brief synopses of these theories, frameworks, and approaches. Each section will also discuss how each framework can be used for counterradicalization via preliminary recommendations for policymakers. Persuasion Theories, Frameworks, and Perspectives Discrete Emotions Although a comprehensive account of the persuasive potency of emotions is beyond the scope of this report, it is important to note how the elicitation of different kinds of emotions can prompt various attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.

The discrete emotion perspective dictates that emotions are evolved psychological and biological reactions to environmental stimuli that are either consistent with or contrary to our goals. Depending on the stimulus a person encounters in their environment and appraises as goal-congruent or goal-discordant, they will experience a variety of different responses, the combination of which define the emotion they are feeling.

Qualitative “feel” – Different emotional experiences feel subjectively distinct

• Physiological changes – Different emotional experiences prompt physical changes (e.g., anger increases adrenaline output)

• Neurological stimulation – Different emotions trigger different kinds of neural activity

• Expression – Different emotions prompt changes in facial expressions and body posture

• Cognitive changes

Discrete Emotions

–Different emotions change how we analyze the world around us Most important with respect to the discrete emotion perspective is that the experience of different emotional states also prompts different action tendencies. Action tendencies are behavioral pressures that motivate individuals to act in certain ways in response to emotions. Although they are categorized as being one of two types

—approach or avoidance

—action tendencies can be further distinguished according to the emotion felt.

The specific action tendencies associated with each emotion are critical for issues related to persuasion. Specifically, by targeting and eliciting different emotional responses, message designers can trigger desired behaviors via the action tendencies associated with each emotion and environmental appraisal. Eliciting emotions via communication to challenge violent extremist ideologies. In contrast to many of the other perspectives and theories outlined in this paper, the discrete emotions perspective can inform the development of all kinds of messages. That is because persuasive messages of all types can highlight different stimuli to arouse different emotions and yield different outcomes.

For counter-radicalization researchers and practitioners, there are a handful of emotions that can be elicited in a manner that can achieve desired outcomes. Recall, however, that emotional experience is contingent on movement towards or restrictions on message recipients’ goals. So, as a first step in the successful use of emotions to achieve successful belief, attitude, or behavioral change, it is necessary to identify and understand the nature of target audiences’ valued goals.

This can be achieved through various audience-analysis techniques, including the collection of survey data or interviews with individuals or focus groups. Once salient goals are identified, message designers can elicit emotions that can motivate changes in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors such that they do not align with extremist groups’ ideologies. There are three emotions that show promise for driving individuals away from violent extremist organizations: anger, hope, and pride. Assuming the valued goals of target audiences are identified prior to developing persuasive messages, each of these emotions can be elicited through persuasive messaging with specific guidelines:

1) Highlight extremist acts that obstruct target audiences’ ability to achieve valued goals.

2) Target individuals predisposed to agree with the content of a counter-radicalization message with messages that will induce a high level of anger and recommend behaviors that can resolve their anger that require significant effort

3) Target individuals with no predisposition to agree with the content of a counterradicalization with messages that emphasize the importance of challenging violent extremist behaviors and ideologies and recommend behaviors to resolve their anger that do not require significant effort

4) Incorporate content into anger appeals that communicate the ease with which behaviors that challenge the violent extremist group can be performed (i.e., increase the efficacy of target audiences.