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Psychology's Clark McCauley Quoted by CBC

August 22, 2016

Professor of Psychology Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko, co-authors of Friction: How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us are the sources for a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation article on that’s country’s efforts to identify and de-radicalize potential terrorists.

From the article:

"I used to think that radical thought and radical action were part of the same continuum," said McCauley, "like a pyramid with radical ideas at the bottom and radical action at the top. But I came around to seeing it quite differently."

McCauley now pictures two separate pyramids, one of thought and one of action, with the most radicalized people at the top of each. Some climb to the very top of the first pyramid without ever jumping to the second. Others will quickly move to violent action without even waiting to absorb the whole radical ideology.

McCauley says effective programs would focus on preventing people from taking that leap to action, or at least understanding who does it and why.

McCauley is a consultant and reviewer for the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation for research on dominance, aggression, and violence, and a principal investigator of the National Consortium for Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (NC-START).

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