Dying the right-way? Interest in and perceived persuasiveness of parochial extremist propaganda increases after mortality salience.

Gary Bente,Lena Frischlich,Diana Rieger,Maia Hein

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01222

Gary Bente, Lena Frischlich + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01222

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Abstract

Research on parochial altruism demonstrated that hostility toward out-groups (parochialism) represents the dark side of the willingness to benefit one’s in-group even at own costs (altruism). Parochial aggression thereby emerged mainly under conditions of threat. Extremist propaganda videos, for instance by right-wing extremists, try to capitalize on parochial altruistic mechanism by telling recipients sharing their national identity that this nation is under threat wherefore they for have to join the extremist’s cause to prevent the extinction of their nation. Most of the time, propaganda videos are rated as uninteresting and non-persuasive by the target audience. Yet, evolutionary media psychology posits that the interest in and effectiveness of media increases when evolutionarily relevant problems are addressed. Consequently, interest in parochial altruistic right-wing extremist messages should increase under conditions of threat. The current study tested this assumption by randomly assigning German non-Muslims (N = 109) to either an existential threat (here: mortality salience) or a control condition and asking them to evaluate extremist propaganda that addressed them as either in-group members (right-wing extremists) or as out-group members (Islamic extremists). In support of the hypotheses, subjects under conditions of threat reported a higher interest in the right-wing extremist propaganda and perceived it as more persuasive. We discuss the results concerning the implications for evolutionary media psychology and the transmission of parochial altruism in propaganda videos.

Highlights

Extremist propaganda videos have become a frequent part of the contemporary online landscape
Evidence gathered in different research areas has demonstrated that parochial aggression toward out-groups and altruistic cooperation with in-group members are deeply interwoven (Bornstein and Erev, 1994; Rusch, 2014), whereby “people go to war” (Böhm et al, 2015) to defend their fellows
We examined our predictions by presenting German students under conditions of MS with parochially altruistic extremist propaganda, addressing them as in-group members or as out-group members

Summary

Introduction

Extremist propaganda videos have become a frequent part of the contemporary online landscape. In Germany in particular, right-wing extremists such as the “Oldschool Society” and Islamic extremists such as the “Islamic State” use YouTube videos to target recipients who share their nationality or religion in order to gain new followers (Bayrisches Staatsministerium des Inneren für Bau und Verkehr, 2014). Evidence gathered in different research areas has demonstrated that parochial aggression toward out-groups and altruistic cooperation with in-group members are deeply interwoven (Bornstein and Erev, 1994; Rusch, 2014), whereby “people go to war” (Böhm et al, 2015) to defend their fellows It is on this defense of those sharing one’s national or religious identity against the “wicked enemy” that extremist propagators capitalize (Lasswell, 1927). Interest in propaganda does not necessarily lead to radicalization, it is a necessary precondition for further exposure to such messages (McCauley and Moskalenko, 2008; Wilner and Dubouloz, 2009) and an initial step in a potential persuasion processes (Lewis, 1903)

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