SOKY questions recent online threat frequency

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Recently, South Central Kentucky has seen a terrifying increase in online threats: messages on different platforms expressing intent to harm our community, our schools, and our elected officials.

Most of us understand living in a society means, like it or not, we have to accept different perspectives… but what about that select group of people who threaten to kill over differing ideologies?

University of New York Post-Doctoral Fellow Dr. Daniel Snook studies the psychology behind extremism and terrorism. He explained, “Some people have a more obsessive relationship with their ideology. What this means is that for them their ideology is the focal point of who they are is the focal point of their identity.”

Snook says this mindset stems from ‘in-group, out-group bias’. It’s an innate tendency to favor people who look or think like you and dehumanize people who don’t identify with things like one’s, race, religion, or political beliefs.

“When people think that there’s a group of people, an out-group, that have wronged their in-group, they start to dehumanize them and not consider people in that group as human beings,” he explained. “They’ll describe them with slurs, and names, and things like this.”

Dr. Snook also says people who proudly threaten mass violence often display narcissistic tendencies.

“We know that people who are narcissistic tend to have more psychopathic tendencies where they don’t care as much about hurting or killing other people, so all of that could be at play here.”

Snook reassures that most online comments threatening online violence are just that. Threats. But when it comes to the tragedies that pan out, Snook’s research shows up to 80 percent of the time, someone could have prevented mass bloodshed if they’d only spoken up.

“Oftentimes, it’s people who were coworkers, or family members, or romantic partners, even acquaintances say they think something’s going on with this person or that, or it seems like they have these sinister plans. They’ll keep mentioning that, ‘This is the day and they’re all gonna pay,'” Snook said. “A lot of times people fail to report these kinds of things. In psychology, this is called the bystander effect.”

Snook encourages people who are aware of these threats to speak up in spite of looking paranoid, saying, “It’s better to err on the side of caution,” when lives are at stake.