Extremism continues to rank highly on the global security agenda. An extremist belief system, while simplistic, holds resonance for certain individuals but polarises others, undermining the inclusion of all citizens in society, and giving rise, not infrequently, to acts of violence. Central to an extremist belief system is the preceding process of radicalisation; a gradual, psychological movement characterised by a preference for risk because of its negative consequences (i.e., counterfinality).

By bringing together experts on radicalisation and ecomomic and social decision-making, the
current project seeks to better understand the process of radicalisation to extremism by designing a series of experimental studies. The aim of these experiments is to determine whether behaviour in an economic game can be understood as a representation of radicalisation propensity. This aim will be achieved by creating various paradigms in which a key characteristic of radicalisation (i.e., counterfinality) can be both manipulated and measured behaviourally.

• cooperation
• extremism
• punishment
• radicalisation
• reward