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Across the world, radical and populist political movements have done well electorally. Such radical movements may be politically left- or right-extreme, and some populist movements can be quite radical without necessarily being at the edges of the political spectrum. What do followers of these different radical movements have in common psychologically? The present chapter will review findings indicating that people hold radical political beliefs with high confidence. Research specifically suggests that radical beliefs are rooted in psychological distress, leading people to embrace a relatively simplistic worldview that offers them epistemic clarity. This worldview is, for instance, manifested in the belief that there are simple solutions for complex societal problems, and in an oversimplified perception of the social world as reflected in stereotyping. Epistemic clarity hence promotes confidence by fueling the belief that one …