When extremists become violent: examining the association between social control, social learning, and engagement in violent extremism

Using data from the Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS) database (n = 1,757), this study presents a series of logistic regressions. Among radicalized individuals, weaker social control and stronger social learning of violence were associated violent over non-violent behavior. These results hold across all models. Taken together, these findings support the role of control and learning theories in identifying correlates of violent and non-violent extremism and suggest the possibility of reciprocal and interaction effects for future work. (Publisher Abstract)