Political and Religious Extremism and Sexual Aggression – New Perspectives from the Workshop on Aggression 2018

Abstract

This focus section on extremism, radicalization, and sexual aggression presents recent research from two currently important fields of aggression research. It presents five papers that were presented at the Workshop on Aggression at the Psychologische Hochschule Berlin in 2018. The first three address risk factors for radicalization and acceptance of group-related aggressive behavior, namely hate speech against Muslims and collective violent behavior towards perceived out-groups including Jews and Ukrainians. The last two studies address sexual aggression: one examines the prevalence and risk factors for sexual victimization among a large student population in Chile; the other considers risk factors for potential sexual aggression in a German sample of participants with and without BDSM identity. The studies span a broad and international perspective on these different types of aggression, including data from Chile, Germany, and Poland and examining the potential influences of social and individual factors. The papers included in the present focus section demonstrate that both radicalization/extremism and sexual aggression are world-wide problems that require preventive action. They provide theoretical input and empirical findings that will hopefully contribute to prevention at the societal and individual levels.