Extremism is troubling, especially in the socio-political world.

Many troubling phenomena have equally troubling causes.

Extremism can also rise from more innocuous origins.

The number 18 is surely extreme. – Hoca Camide, trying to make an incontestable point.

Adeo causa non deest [There’s no shortage of causes] – Pliny the Elder

Visegrád is a village near the knee of the Danube. Rising in the west, the great river flows past Vienna to become Hungary’s border with Slovakia. Rolling past Visegrád and the hilltop Plintenburg, the river then makes a 90-degree turn to head South toward Budapest. In the Slavonic language, “Visegrád” means High (Vise) Castle (Grád). It is a beautiful, if Kafkaesque, setting. Down by the river, we find a swanky wellness hotel with baths, a bar, and conference rooms. It was here that we, a small group of psychologists and other social scientists, shared our thoughts on the psychology of extremism, a topic for our time. It was then and there that I realized that my views on the matter were rather moderate.

The group shared a broad consensus that extremism, and political extremism in particular, is a social phenomenon with potentially corrosive consequences. This is not an extreme attitude to have. Worries about political extremism are de rigueur and received as socially responsible (Freilich et al., 2024). Political extremism is a contributing factor to intolerance, aggression, and even violence. There is a good deal of empirical evidence for the link between extremism and aggression, but it is also clear that extreme political attitudes do not necessarily produce violence. It is perfectly possible to entertain extreme viewpoints without engaging in destructive behavior.

The scientist’s job is to detect, to explain, and (perhaps) to advise on a phenomenon of interest. So, we asked how we know whether a position is extreme, whether we can account for its origins, and what might be done to mitigate the detrimental consequences that might ensue. As to detection, a perception of extremity requires a distribution of data, that is, referents for comparison (extremus = the outermost). The extremity of the number 18 is indeterminate. If it is the number of years lived at the time of death, 18 is extremely small; if it is the number of........

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