Wanting sex and willing to kill

Examining demographic and cognitive characteristics of violent “involuntary celibates”

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21558403
AutoresDavid Williams (0000-0001-8976-5760, Idaho State University, autor de correspondencia), D J Williams (0000-0003-2989-5242, Department of Sociology, Social Work, & Criminology Idaho State University Pocatello Idaho USA), Michael Arntfield (Department of English & Writing Studies Western University London Ontario Canada), Kaleigh Schaal (0000-0002-0872-4332, The Family Institute Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies Northwestern University Evanston Illinois USA), Jolene Vincent (Department of Sociology College of William & Mary Williamsburg Virginia USA)
Año2021
Volumen39
Número4
Páginas386-401
Fecha de publicación2021-08-01
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaBehavioral Sciences & the Law (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0735-3936 • E-ISSN: 1099-0798
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/bsl.2512
PMID33851433
OpenAlexW3155052741
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas18
Referencias citadas27

Over the past several years, an online community of self‐described “incels,” referring to involuntary celibates, has emerged and gained increased public attention. Central to the guiding incel ideology and master narrative are violent misogynistic beliefs and an attitude of entitlement, based on male gender and social positioning, with respect to obtaining desired and often illusory sexual experiences. While violence and hate speech within the incel community are both common, there exists a notable subset of incels who have been willing to act on those violent beliefs through the commission of acts of multiple murder. This study explores the demographic, cognitive, and other characteristics of seven self‐identified incels who have attempted and/or successfully completed homicide. The findings suggest that although self‐perceptions tend to reflect either grandiosity or self‐deprecation, homicidal incels share similar demographic characteristics and dense common clusters of neutralization techniques, cognitive distortions, and criminal thinking errors

Cognition · Criminology · Grandiosity · Homicide · Narcissism · Narrative · Perception · Poison control · Psychiatry · Suicide prevention · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Human Factors and Ergonomics · Medicine · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology