Citation

Naderer B, Rieger D, Schwertberger U. Communications 2023; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, International Association for Communication Research, Publisher De Gruyter Mouton)

DOI

10.1515/commun-2021-0115

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Extremists often aim to paint a biased picture of the world. Radical narratives, for instance, in forms of internet memes or posts, could thus potentially trigger cognitive biases in their users. These cognitive biases, in turn, might shape the users' formation of extremist attitudes. To test this association, an online experiment (N=392) was conducted with three types of right-wing radical narratives (elite-critique, ingroup-outgroup, violence) in contrast to two control conditions (nonpolitical and neutral political control condition). We then measured the impact of these narratives on the activation of three cognitive biases of relevance in the formation of extremist attitudes: the ingroup-outgroup bias, the negativity bias, and the just-world hypothesis. The results indicate that violence narratives seem to be particularly harmful as they heighten participants' negativity bias and increase just-world views. Just-world views in turn show a positive relationship to extremist attitudes, which highlights the need of regulating violence invocations on social media.

Language: en

Keywords

cognitive biases; extremism; extremist attitudes; online radicalization; radical narratives