Psychology of Terrorism - National Criminal Justice Reference Service

ather then from their own volition. Because they are not the actual agents of their actions, they arespared self-prohibiting reactions.-The deterrent power of self-sanctions is weakened when responsibility for culpable behavior isdiffused, thereby obscuring the link between conduct and its consequences. Responsibility can bediffused in several ways, for example, by the division of labor.-Collective actions is still another diffusion expedient for weakening self restraints.-Additional ways of weakening self-deterring reactions operate through disregard for ormisrepresentation of the consequences of action. When people choose to pursue activities that areharmful to others for reasons of personal gain or social inducements, they avoid facing or minimizethe harm they cause.-The final set of disengagement practices operates on the targets of violence acts. The strength ofself-censuring reactions to injurious conduct depends partly on how the perpetrator views the peopletoward whom the harmful is directed. To perceive another person as human enhances empathetic orvicarious reactions through perceived similarity. The joys and suffering of similar persons are morevicariously arousing than are the joys and suffering of strangers or of persons who have beendivested of human qualities.-Self-sanctions against cruel conduct can be disengaged or blunted by divesting people of humanqualities.-Imputing blame to one’s antagonist is still another expedient that can serve self-exonerativepurposes; one’s own violent conduct can then be viewed as compelled by forcible provocation.-The path to terrorism can be shaped by fortuitous factors as well as by the conjoint influence ofpersonal predilections and social inducements.13. Beck, A. T. (2002). Prisoners of Hate. Behavior Research and Therapy, 40(3), 209-216.Call Number: Key Quote Summary: Authors Abstract:The terrorist attacks in New York andWashington, D.C. on September 11, 2001 as well as domestic terrorism in the United States andelsewhere in the world has prompted an analysis of the psychology of the terrorist. The perpetratorsprofound sense of being wronged their values undermined by foreign powers or a corrupt domesticpower structure has cried out for revolution and revenge. The fanatic ideology of the perpetrators hasprovided the matrix for a progressively more malevolent representation of the oppressors: the imageof the enemy. Retribution against the Enemy in the form of mass murder of anonymous civiliansbecomes an imperative. The counterpart of the image of the enemy is the idealized collective selfimageof members of the movement, faction, or cult. The group narcissism of the white supremacistsin the United States, the Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, and the Islamic extremists enhance their collectiveself-image as pure, righteous, and united. While the foot soldiers, as in any war, gain glory throughmartyrdom, the instigators and leaders have their own personal narcissistic goals (power andprestige) and plan. For the extremist Islamists the ultimate goal has been overthrow of the moderateIslamic governments; for the domestic terrorists, destabilization of the national government andreinstitution of the traditional values.-What then is the psychology of the terrorist? It is crucial to understand that their ideologyconcentrates their thinking and controls their actions.-Driving violent acts of this type is the perpetrators’ view of the victim: the image of the Enemy.-Islamic radicals who become obsessed with these polarized images are prime candidates forrecruitment for assignments of assault on the enemy.-They have demonized their antagonists and dehumanized its people.-The thinking of the terrorist evidently shows the same kind of cognitive distortions observed inothers who engage in violent acts, either solely as individuals or as members of a group. Theseinclude overgeneralization that is, the supposed sins of the Enemy may spread to encompass theentire population. Also, they show dichotomous thinking a people are either totally good or totallybad. Finally, they demonstrate tunnel vision once they are engaged in their holy mission (e.g., jihad),their thinking, and consequently their actions, focuses exclusively on the destruction of the target.-The perspective of the psychology of the terrorist needs to be extended to the polarized thinking ofthe militant fundamentalist groups that are the breeding grounds of the terrorists.-The cognitive approach to “hot” violence (that is associated with anger) is based on two premises.First, people are people whether they are operating individually or in groups. Secondly, the violentlyhostile person has strong negative biases toward the victim: the greater the degree of bias and degree