Social Identity, Group Psychology, and ISIS: Forming a
Destructive Mind
Senior Seminar: Psychology of Politics
Zachary T. Chylinski
10/8/2016
The concept of social identity transcends time. We have seen social identity take its place
in various customs and cultures all throughout history, but the most well-remembered instance of
social identity, may be the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Now a new form of
modern terror has been rising in the Middle-East, and although it has been known that terrorism
has shown a face from these parts of the world already, this newer group, ISIS, has received a lot
of attention from the media and from our military. It’s a curious wonder on how a group that is
built on so much hatred and violence can rise to power as quickly as it has, so this paper will
identify the different forms of social identity that take place consciously and unconsciously,
inwardly and outwardly, and in ways very different and very similar to extremist groups in
history.
Ahmed S Hasin (2014) tells us that starting as early as 2000, ISIS starts from a seemingly
small militant group known as Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, or otherwise known as (JTJ). In
2004, JTJ blended themselves into al-Qaeda, and overtime continued to merge with various
Sunni insurgent groups to create the MSC, and then eventually the Islamic State. In 2011, The
Islamic State expanded into Syria and formed what we know them as now, ISIS (The Islamic
State in Syria.) This background information is rather valuable, because by knowing of the
combined effort of all these various groups, we can see how ISIS has managed to acquire a
foothold of power strong enough to claim a territory of land as a caliphate, and make much of the
middle east respect it. Additionally, this caused rebel groups that oppose ISIS to surrender, and
much of their power was backed by former jihad members as a force worthy of claiming a land
to dictate religious and political Islamic law. It is important to understand, that regardless of this
group’s milestones and their achievements, there is so much more then brute force and power
that plays into the success of ISIS and how they have held their fronts down for such a long
period of time.
So, before I go into detail on the aspects of social identity within ISIS, it’s important that
I explain exactly what social identity is. Introduction to Political Psychology tells us that social
identity is best described as the part of a person’s self-concept that is determined by the groups to
which the person belongs (Cottam, Mastors, Preston, and Dietz, 2016). There are a lot of
different factors that play in to this concept, whether that be a group members influence on
members outside of the group, quick conformity that a new member may face and be physically
and mentally forced to adapt to, or maybe in some cases members that have been raised into a
way of thinking and are unable to understand or reason with an opposing belief. Going back to a
previous point, we should ask why is it that a group that appears to have such a violent
