A new set of US and international experiments suggests that people who believe few things in the world truly matter are more willing to endorse violent extremism. The research, led by Daniel W. Snook of Florida Gulf Coast University and published in Psychology of Violence, also found that a 10-day exercise involving photographing and journaling about things perceived as meaningful was linked to lower violent extremism intentions, though the reasons for the effect are not yet clear.
The study centres on “primal world beliefs” — broad, largely unconscious assumptions about the nature of reality that shape how individuals interpret their surroundings. These beliefs go beyond personal life meaning or a sense that the universe has an intentional design; they concern what people think is true about the world at large.
Snook explained that, while much prior work has examined how specific ideological views relate to violent extremism, little attention had been paid to general worldviews and their potential links to violence. “When I learned about primal world beliefs—people’s basic assumptions about the nature of reality—I immediately began to wonder which ones might be related to violent extremism, which is violence for a religious, political, or social cause,” he said. “Researchers have long studied how specific ideological beliefs relate to violent extremism … but none had studied how general worldviews … relate to violent extremism.”
The concept builds on earlier work identifying a broad array of primal world beliefs and on theories suggesting radicalisation often starts from a universal desire to feel significant. The researchers note these threads converge in their exploration of how global outlooks relate to intentions to commit violence for sociopolitical aims.
The authors reasoned that those who believe few things matter might justify harming others in pursuit of their chosen cause because the collateral harm would appear minimal to them. To test this, they conducted four surveys across diverse ideological groups in the United States, including 354 Democrats, 212 Republicans, 262 environmental activists, and 579 Black Lives Matter activists. The first three surveys measured 22 primal world beliefs, while the fourth focused on the three strongest predictors. Violent intentions were measured by asking participants how willing they would be to use any means, including physical violence, to advance their group’s objectives.
Across all groups, the Meaningful world belief emerged as the strongest predictor of violent intentions, though the strength of the association varied — from modest among Black Lives Matter activists to strong among Republicans. This belief is not about personal meaning or a grand design of the universe; rather, it holds that most things and people tend to matter. Those scoring lower on this measure, i.e., who feel that things and people generally do not matter, showed greater openness to violence for their ideology.
Snook noted the surprise that the “meaning is rare” aspect proved the best predictor, rather than more obvious worldviews such as danger or competitiveness. “The fact that the belief that the world is a place where meaning is rare was the best predictor of violent extremism … was a surprise,” he said.
To probe whether these patterns hold in actual offenders, the researchers studied 125 men incarcerated in Kazakhstan. They identified two groups: 64 convicted of jihadist terrorism and 61 convicted of non-ideological violent crimes such as murder, rape, or assault. The surveys were conducted anonymously to protect the inmates. The imprisoned terrorists scored lower on the Meaningful world belief scale than the non-terrorist violent offenders, averaging 4.10 versus 4.73 on a 1-to-6 scale, suggesting a link between lack of perceived meaning and ideological violence in real-world settings.
Snook emphasised the robustness of the relationships from the initial correlational studies. “The effects were consistent across the correlational studies (Studies 1-5), including some large effect sizes,” he said.
The researchers then tested whether altering these beliefs could reduce violent intentions. They recruited Republicans who had endorsed the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. Of 395 people assigned to the intervention, 179 began it, 216 declined due to the time commitment, and 71 completed all 10 days. Each day, participants used their smartphones to take three photographs of things they found meaningful, such as elements of the natural world or aspects often overlooked in daily life, uploaded the images to a study portal, selected the most meaningful one, and wrote a short journal entry explaining its significance. On the final day, they reflected on how their photos represented only a tiny fraction of the people and things in the world that hold value. In a passive control group of 359 participants who did not undertake the photo exercises, the intervention group reported a higher Meaningful world belief at the study’s end and lower violent-extremism intentions — 1.74 compared with 2.26 on a 1-to-7 scale.
One month later, the 57 intervention participants who responded again still reported lower violent intentions than at baseline, though their Meaningful world belief scores had drifted back toward their starting points, and the control group was not re-contacted.
Snook remarked that the intervention’s effects differed by sample. “In the experiment with Republicans who endorsed the January 6th Capitol insurrection (Study 6), effect sizes were medium, meaning the intervention noticeably mattered for reducing violent extremism, but in the experiment with general U.S. political partisans (Study 7), effect sizes were small, though significant,” he explained.
Several cautions accompany these findings. In the final general-population study, while the intervention reduced violent extremism, it did not produce a corresponding rise in Meaningful world belief, raising questions about how the intervention achieved the reduction in violence. The authors suggest the exercise might simply have made meaningful things more noticeable rather than changing the underlying belief itself. Other caveats include the reliance on self-reported violent intentions and the lack of a baseline in the control group, as well as potential differences between groups in the Kazakhstan prison sample that were not fully measured.
Future work, the researchers say, should test the photography intervention against active-control exercises among extremist populations to confirm the findings’ consistency. “This project is exciting because it opens the door to test other positive psychology interventions for reducing violent extremism,” Snook concluded.
The study, “Is a Meaningless World Easier to Destroy? Low Meaningful World Belief Predicts Violent Extremism Intentions,” was authored by Daniel W. Snook, Nicholas Kerry, Baglan Aidarov, Kairat Abuov, Jeremy D. W. Clifton, and Jocelyn J. Bélanger.
