Disputing Irrational Beliefs Among Convicted Terrorists and Extremist Beliefs

Abstract

This study investigated the most common irrational beliefs among samples of: (1) convicted terrorists and (2) extremists, all of whom were prisoners in the country of Jordan. It also investigated the effectiveness of a program of disputing irrational beliefs (DIBP) with the same populations. The subjects were assigned randomly to two groups: an experimental group (EG) that consisted of 43 prisoners who received an training program, and a control group that consisted of 48 prisoners who received no training. The irrational beliefs scale (IBS) scores were assessed for both groups before and after exposure to the DIBP. To test the hypotheses of the study, means and standard deviations of the IBS measures were submitted to a two-way analysis of covariance. The results revealed that the most common irrational belief loaded on the factors of musts, exaggerations, and perfectionism. Moreover, the results revealed significant differences between the means of the two groups on the total IBS scores at post-test, with the EG scoring lower, which indicated the effectiveness of the training program in reducing the level of IBS. The results yielded significant differences in the effect of the reason for imprisonment in favor of extremists and the interaction between the reason for prison and treatment in favor of the EG and extremists.