The Puzzle of Inoculating Against Radicalization: Demonstrating a Lack of Longitudinal Effects and Unclear Underlying Processes

• In Event: Words Matter: Examining Communication-based Strategies That Facilitate and Counter Radicalization

Abstract

Attitudinal inoculation has been successfully applied in a range of contexts, including as a tool to prevent support for terrorist actors. However, thus far, the long-term effects of inoculation interventions have not been assessed systematically. This pre-registered two-wave longitudinal study (N wave1 = 498; N wave2 = 403) examined whether exposure to an inoculation message before reading a propaganda excerpt posed by a violent extremist group attenuated support for the particular group as well as extremism in general up to one week after the intervention. Findings showed an immediate impact of the inoculation message, such that endorsement of the extremist group was lower in the experimental conditions than in the control condition. However, one week after initial exposure, support for extremism was no longer significantly reduced for participants who had, rather than had not, seen the inoculation message. Moreover, exploring the processes that might drive long-term inoculation effects, participants in the control rather than the experimental conditions experienced a higher sense of psychological reactance. Overall, results only partially replicated previous, cross-sectional research and raise questions about the potential influence of attitudinal inoculation to counter and prevent radicalization. Future directions for the design of interventions are discussed.

Authors

• Sandy Schumann, University College London

• Michael Barton, University College London