Psychological processes common to social conservatism and terrorism

There are areas of overlap between contemporary social conservatism and psychological aspects of terrorism. This paper summarizes empirical evidence from our large-scale cross-cultural surveys linking the two domains. Two component processes of both domains - Religiosity and Nastiness - are closely related. On their own, these processes are unlikely to lead to a significant increase in terrorist activity, even if the number of conservative-leaning members of the population were to increase. Our research, however, identified another component of the militant extremist mindset (MEM) - Grudge - that might precipitate a new wave of terrorism by groups linked to extreme conservative right-wing/populist political parties.