Creativity in Two Types of Violent Groups

Terrorism can be defined as a type of ideologically motivated violence that arises during asymmetrical conflict and has far-reaching psychological effects beyond the immediate target. This project seeks to isolate and examine one element of terrorism: ideologically-motivated violence. While malevolent innovation has been written about extensively over the past five years, little is known about correlates of creativity in actual violent individuals. At the broadest level, the current project focuses on personality profiles and creative problem solving of two different types of violent individuals. The goal of this study is to examine individual differences that characterize two types of violent group members—former members of neo-Nazi groups versus former members of Mixed-Martial Arts (MMA) groups—to determine whether there are reliable differences between former extremists and non-extremists