Influence of certainty of notions about identity on teenagers’ radicalization

¹ St. Petersburg University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Saint-Petersburg, Russia
² Ural State Pedagogical University, Kosmonavtov Str., 26, 620017 Ekaterinburg Russia
³ Ural Institute of Management - Branch of RANEPA, 8 Marta Str., 70, 620144 Ekaterinburg, Russia

^* Corresponding author: shinkari@mail.ru

Abstract

The article discusses the problem of counteracting teenagers’ radicalization. It’s assumed that radical attitudes in teenagers’ environment negatively effect the formation and development of society. It’s underlined the growing desire to involve teenagers and youth in carrying out extremist and terrorist acts. Also there are considered modern theoretical concepts of radicalization, their specific essence. It‘s noted that all concepts take into account the role of disturbed or hampered social relationship as a latent factor of radicalization. On this basis we made the assumption about the influence of one’s representations about oneself on radicalization. A hypothesis is advanced about the influence of the certainty of identity on the manifestation of radical fanatical and nationalist convictions. Then the purpose, methods and procedure of empirical investigation of the certainty of self-identity and social identity are described, the sample of the study included 140 teenagers of 12 to 14 ages, 49% - male. It’s estimated the influence of the variables a) the certainty of self-identity; b) the certainty of social identity on the variables c) the fanatical attitude and d) the nationalistic attitude. One-way ANOVA is used as the main method. The results show that the uncertainty of self-identity reduces teenagers’ fanatical beliefs, and the certainty of social identity raises them. The parameters of the identity have no effect on the nationalist beliefs..