Becoming a violent extremist: a General Need and Affect model of psychological variables

ABSTRACT Violent extremism is associated with an intricately linked network of variables. Existing psychological models and research tend to either focus on specific forms of violent extremism or take a broad perspective. We propose an abstract model for the path towards violent extremism that allows for specification when needed; the General Needs and Affect (GNA) process model. This model can be used by researchers to align research outcomes focusing on various forms of violent extremism but can also show practitioners which variables are more relevant for specific cases of violent extremism. We demonstrate how the GNA model can be used as a starting point for applications such as decision-making tools and data-collection methods and for hypothesis generation, intervention development, and simulation.