The psychology of offensive and defensive intergroup violence: Preregistered insights from 58 countries

Evolutionary theory and historical evidence suggest humans possess distinct psychological tendencies for defensive and offensive violence, which have insufficiently been considered in research. In a large-scale preregistered study across 58 countries (<i>N</i> = 18,128), we demonstrate that violent extremist intentions manifest along two distinct psychological phenomena: defensive extremism, motivated by protecting one's group from (perceived) threats, and offensive extremism, driven by establishing group dominance. We show that these dimensions a) can be reliably differentiated across diverse cultural contexts, b) are distinctively associated with psychological dispositions, and c) systematically differentiate countries varying in macrolevel sociopolitical functioning and violence. Across nations, a two-factorial structure was observed that was invariant at the scalar level. Defensive extremist intentions were consistently higher than offensive extremism in 56 out of 58 countries, suggesting greater moral acceptance of protective violence. While psychopathy was positively related to both types of violent extremist intentions, those high in Machiavellianism and narcissism demonstrated particularly higher levels of defensive extremist intentions. By contrast, those scoring high on religious fundamentalism and social dominance orientation demonstrated particularly higher levels of offensive extremist intentions. Unexpectedly, liberal political group identification was associated with higher offensive but lower defensive extremist intentions. Crucially, offensive (but not defensive) intentions were associated with macrolevel societal dysfunction, including political terror and internal conflict. These findings establish that defensive and offensive violent extremist intentions represent two conceptually different forms of extremism across a large and diverse range of countries, with consequences for research and practice.

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Publication Details

Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Published
2026-03-24
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2535665123
Primary Topic
Social and Intergroup Psychology
Type
article
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article

The psychology of offensive and defensive intergroup violence: Preregistered insights from 58 countries

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Social and Intergroup Psychology
article

The psychology of offensive and defensive intergroup violence: Preregistered insights from 58 countries

article en

Abstract

Evolutionary theory and historical evidence suggest humans possess distinct psychological tendencies for defensive and offensive violence, which have insufficiently been considered in research. In a large-scale preregistered study across 58 countries (<i>N</i> = 18,128), we demonstrate that violent extremist intentions manifest along two distinct psychological phenomena: defensive extremism, motivated by protecting one's group from (perceived) threats, and offensive extremism, driven by establishing group dominance. We show that these dimensions a) can be reliably differentiated across diverse cultural contexts, b) are distinctively associated with psychological dispositions, and c) systematically differentiate countries varying in macrolevel sociopolitical functioning and violence. Across nations, a two-factorial structure was observed that was invariant at the scalar level. Defensive extremist intentions were consistently higher than offensive extremism in 56 out of 58 countries, suggesting greater moral acceptance of protective violence. While psychopathy was positively related to both types of violent extremist intentions, those high in Machiavellianism and narcissism demonstrated particularly higher levels of defensive extremist intentions. By contrast, those scoring high on religious fundamentalism and social dominance orientation demonstrated particularly higher levels of offensive extremist intentions. Unexpectedly, liberal political group identification was associated with higher offensive but lower defensive extremist intentions. Crucially, offensive (but not defensive) intentions were associated with macrolevel societal dysfunction, including political terror and internal conflict. These findings establish that defensive and offensive violent extremist intentions represent two conceptually different forms of extremism across a large and diverse range of countries, with consequences for research and practice.

Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesVol. 123(13)
Tbilisi State University (GE), Eötvös Loránd University (HU), Thammasat University (TH), Karnatak University (IN), Goethe University Frankfurt (DE), University of Copenhagen (DK), Ekiti State University (NG), University of Helsinki (FI), University of Ghana (GH), Lithuanian Sports University (LT), Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HK), Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IN), University of Waterloo (CA), University of Rijeka (HR), Tribhuvan University (NP), Universität Hamburg (DE), The University of Melbourne (AU), University of St Andrews (GB), University of Groningen (NL), Flinders University (AU), University of Cagliari (IT), University of Nicosia (CY), University of Patras (GR), Chinese University of Hong Kong (HK), Université de Dschang (CM), Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (ES), University of Bremen (DE), BI Norwegian Business School (NO), Universidade do Porto (PT), University of Oslo (NO), University of Canterbury (NZ), University of Cuenca (EC), University of Library Studies and Information Technologies (BG), Dokuz Eylül University (TR), Tilburg University (NL), Yerevan State University (AM), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (DE), University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" (IT), Lviv University (UA), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (GR), Czech Academy of Sciences (CZ), Smith College (US), Keio University (JP), Aarhus University (DK), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO), Slovak Academy of Sciences (SK), Linnaeus University (SE), California State University, San Marcos (US), Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (CO), University of Johannesburg (ZA), Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BG), Jakarta State Polytechnic (ID), Universidad Católica del Norte (CL), University of Gdańsk (PL), Universidad Privada de Santa Cruz de la Sierra (BO), Institute for Globally Distributed Open Research and Education (SE), Yerevan State Linguistic University (AM), Laboratoire Cognition, Langues, Langage, Ergonomie (FR), National Counterterrorism Center (US), Riga Stradiņš University (LV), Institute for Conflict Research (GB), Issues Research (US), Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (ES), Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Psychology (CZ), Institut Catholique d'Arts et Métiers (FR), Institute of Social Sciences (RU), Universidade Portucalense (PT), Gedik University (TR), Health & Life (Taiwan) (TW), Private University of the North (PE), University of Bergen (NO), University College London (GB), Sultan Qaboos University (OM), University of Bari Aldo Moro (IT), Mendel University in Brno (CZ), De La Salle University (PH), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (ES), Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PE), Australian Psychological Society (AU), University of Tirana (AL), HAW Hamburg (DE), University of Prishtina (XK), Sungkyunkwan University (KR), University of Gothenburg (SE), University of Colombo (LK), University of Latvia (LV), Cheikh Anta Diop University (SN), KU Leuven (BE)
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Social and Intergroup Psychology
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