The Level of Satisfaction of Psychological Needs as a Function to Predict the Attitude towards Extremism Amongst University Students

Abstract

The study aimed to investigate the level of psychological needs satisfaction and the level of students' attitudes towards extremism among Basic College of Education students in the State of Kuwait. Further aim was to discover the possibility to predict students' attitudes towards religious, political and social extremism based on the level of the satisfaction of their psychological needs. In order to achieve the goals of the study, two scales were conducted; attitudes towards extremism scale and  psychological needs scale, with a sample consisted of (897) male and female students of Basic Education College students, who were chosen randomly. A variety of statistical methods were used in order to obtain study findings ( means, standard deviations, T-test, One-way Anova, Cronbach's alpha coefficient, normal and Multiple Linear regression). Generally, the study suggested that Basic Education College students in Kuwait tend to hold moderately favorable attitudes towards extremism and that the level of the religious extremism is higher than the political and social extremism among students. Additionally, the results revealed a moderate level of the need to satisfy students' psychological needs in the Basic Education College. The results of the study indicated a statistical significant differences relation between students' attitudes towards extremism and students gender in favor of male students. The study also showed that students' attitudes towards extremism can be predictable by the knowledge of the level of  psychological needs satisfaction.