Radicalizing youth social activism and finding support groups through digital and traditional means

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to research the protest forms of social activity of young people and to identify the means of finding support groups, taking into account the use of means of communication (traditional and digital). The stated purpose and the considered problematics are topical, because, firstly, there is a deficit of such researches in the stream of psychology of social activity of personality and group, and secondly, they are caused by the transformation of social life connected with the pandemic situation conducted by the special military operation. The diagnostic battery used: the author’s questionnaire aimed at evaluating the frequency of seeking support for one’s own actions, like-minded people in real and virtual environments (M.V. Grigoryeva, A.A. Sharov, A.I. Zagranichny); scales of the “Personal Protest Activity” questionnaire (A.Sh. Guseinov). The study involved 920 respondents, 65% female, average age 19 years. Statistical procedures: descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation; factor analysis (factorization by principal component method with Varimax rotation). It was revealed that the representatives of the younger generation more often seek social resources in the real environment (M=3.37) and mostly use messengers for communications in the virtual environment (M=3.83); have a low level of protest activity, opposition (M=1.31) and nihilism (M=1.15), which indicates a low level of radicalization. Finding support for activities and like-minded people in the real environment is positively correlated with the level of opposition (r=0.095, at p<0.01) and inversely with the level of nihilism (r=-0.146, at p<0.01). Radicalized youth prefer to use email as part of their virtual interaction. This mode of communication is directly related to the level of opposition (r=0.133, at p<0.01), nihilism (r=0.72, at p<0.01), protest activity (r=0.118, at p<0.01). Communication through messengers has an inverse relationship with nihilism (r=-0.112, at p<0.01). Factors were identified (25% of variance) that reveal the process of radicalization of youth (“Radicalization based on nihilism”, “Deradicalization based on growing up”, “Deradicalization based on successful social identification”). The representatives of young people more often resort to the search for social resources in the real environment, which indicates the importance of traditional institutions of personal socialization. The main factor in the radicalization of the younger generation is the increase in the level of nihilism on the background of a decrease in the level of opposition (skeptical and negative attitude towards the institutions of religion and morality). The factor of deradicalization can be attributed to the process of growing up. The prevention of radicalization should include a focus on the process of psychological maturation, assistance with social identification, the resolution of existential crises, and exposure to social institutions and processes in the real environment.