Bifactor analyses provide uncorrelated measures of activism intentions and radicalism intentions

Abstract

ABSTRACT Activism is legal and non-violent political action, whereas Radicalism is illegal and sometimes violent action. Moskalenko and McCauley introduced the Activism Intentions Scale (AIS) and the Radicalism Intentions Scale (RIS) as related but distinguishable dimensions: the scales were significantly correlated but showed different correlates. The same pattern has been seen consistently in subsequent research using the scales. In this paper, two studies (280 Catalan university students, 163 Croatian adults) use bifactor analysis to measure Activism Intentions uncorrelated with Radicalism Intentions, and Radicalism Intentions uncorrelated with Activism Intentions. Scores on the purified scales show more differentiated patterns of correlates than scores on the usual item-average scales, that is, bifactor scores show improved discriminant validity. These results support the idea that activism and radicalism are different theoretical constructs. The distinction is important because it implies that fighting radicalization does not require fighting activism.