{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,5]],"date-time":"2026-03-05T07:53:36Z","timestamp":1772697216015,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":59,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,5]],"date-time":"2026-03-05T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1772668800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Soc. Psychol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Understanding the psychological mechanisms underlying extremist personality helps explain why some individuals endorse rigid or polarized positions. Extremist personality is conceptualized as a self-regulatory tendency characterized by motivational imbalance, cognitive inflexibility, and strong commitment to salient goals. This study examined how the quest for significance, regulatory modes (Locomotion and Assessment), and the need for cognitive closure relate to extremist personality.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>A sample of 693 Argentine adults (M age = 41.9, SD = 15.42, range: 18\u201385; 61.4% women) completed an online questionnaire assessing quest for significance, regulatory modes, need for cognitive closure, and extremist personality. Structural equation modeling was conducted to test direct and indirect effects.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>\n                      Quest for significance positively predicted extremist personality both directly (\u03b2 = 0.232,\n                      <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                      &amp;lt; 0.001) and indirectly through Locomotion (\u03b2 = 0.190,\n                      <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                      = 0.001). Locomotion strongly predicted extremism (\u03b2 = 0.464,\n                      <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                      &amp;lt; 0.001; total effect = 0.576). Assessment was not significantly related to extremism (\u03b2 = \u22120.048,\n                      <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                      = 0.516). Cognitive closure weakly predicted extremism (\u03b2 = 0.083\u20130.084,\n                      <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                      &amp;gt; 0.05) and did not mediate the relationship between significance and extremism, despite being strongly predicted by significance (\u03b2 = 0.160\u20130.385,\n                      <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>\n                      &amp;lt; 0.001).\n                    <\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Discussion<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Findings suggest that motivational urgency and action-oriented self-regulation are key mechanisms associated with extremist personality, highlighting the central role of locomotion rather than evaluative orientation or cognitive closure in explaining extremist tendencies.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/frsps.2026.1715876","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,5]],"date-time":"2026-03-05T06:54:39Z","timestamp":1772693679000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Understanding extremist personality: the mediating influence of Regulatory Modes and the need for cognitive closure in the Quest for Significance"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"4","author":[{"given":"Luis Carlos","family":"Jaume","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Instituto de Investigaciones, Facultad de Psicolog\u00eda, Universidad de Buenos Aires","place":["Buenos Aires, Argentina"]},{"name":"Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas","place":["Buenos Aires, Argentina"]}]},{"given":"Marcelo Agustin","family":"Roca","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Instituto de Investigaciones, Facultad de Psicolog\u00eda, Universidad de Buenos Aires","place":["Buenos Aires, Argentina"]},{"name":"Facultad de Psicology Relaciones Humanas, Universidad Abierta Interamericana","place":["Buenos Aires, Argentina"]}]},{"given":"Nahuel Hugo Ezequiel","family":"Duhalde","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Instituto de Investigaciones, Facultad de Psicolog\u00eda, Universidad de Buenos Aires","place":["Buenos Aires, Argentina"]},{"name":"Universidad Maimonides","place":["Buenos Aires, Argentina"]}]},{"given":"Hugo","family":"Simkin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Instituto de Investigaciones, Facultad de Psicolog\u00eda, Universidad de Buenos Aires","place":["Buenos Aires, Argentina"]},{"name":"Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas","place":["Buenos Aires, Argentina"]},{"name":"Facultad de Educaci\u00f3n y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Andres Bello","place":["Santiago, Chile"]}]},{"given":"Sara","family":"Liebana","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Universidad Europea de Madrid, Facultad de Biom\u00e9dicas","place":["Madrid, Spain"]}]},{"given":"Pedro Altungy","family":"Labrador","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Universidad Europea de Madrid, Facultad de Biom\u00e9dicas","place":["Madrid, Spain"]}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,5]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e70061","DOI":"10.1111\/ssqu.70061","article-title":"To cancel or not to cancel. 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