Adam Lankford

University of Alabama | UA · Criminology & Criminal Justice

This study examined fame-seeking mass shooters worldwide who attacked from 1999 to 2022 to identify their profiles, behaviours, influences, and trends. Quantitative analyses revealed many similarities between fame-seeking shooters in the United States and in other countries: compared to other mass shooters, they were more frequently young and more...

Involuntary celibates, or incels, have become a popular topic of discussion within academia in recent years. However, almost all the research and discourse surrounding this topic focuses solely on the male incel, leaving a notable gap present in the literature on the female incel (femcels) and their online communities. This study aims to address th...

Could serial killing be addictive? Although scholars have discussed this possibility before, it has not been rigorously tested. The present study closely examines Jeffrey Dahmer’s statements and behavior to assess whether they fit the American Psychiatric Association’s criteria for addiction and the International Classification of Diseases’s criter...

Although several mass killings by incels have received much attention, the overall phenomenon of sexually frustrated offenders seems even larger. This study drew from a recently developed sexual frustration theory to closely examine public mass shooters in the United States from 1966 to 2021 (n = 178). Results showed that some sexually frustrated p...

Two of the worst targeted attacks on American police officers in recent history occurred within eleven days of each other. Although it seems clear their proximity was not merely attributable to chance, the connection between these incidents, and the implications for understanding copycat violence, have never been fully explored. This study analyzes...

Background: Sexual frustration is a common experience for many people; it is one of the biggest frustrations in some individuals' lives; and it has been cited as a cause of immoral behavior for centuries. However, it does not feature prominently in any leading criminological theories. Methods: This review builds on findings from frustration-aggress...

This study compared public mass shooters (n = 171) and active shooters (n = 63) in the United States to the general population, homicide offenders, and people who die by suicide. Comparisons with the general population are the foundation of epidemiological research, and comparisons with homicide offenders and people who die by suicide are helpful b...

Although it is important to know what public mass shooters have in common, it is also helpful to understand when different variables were present on their pathways to violence. This study explored the timing of key life events for the deadliest public mass shooters in the United States since Columbine (N = 14). Using data from official reports and...

Public mass shootings have traumatized Americans for more than fifty years, while similar incidents seem to have been extremely rare in other countries. Several years ago, I conducted a cross-national study which found that the United States had 30.8 percent of all public mass shooters from 1966–2012, despite having less than five percent of the wo...

Research Summary: Public mass shootings in the United States have become substantially more deadly over time. We document this increase, offer a model to explain it, review supporting evidence for the model, and present new findings on offenders from 1966 to 2019. It appears that societal changes have led to more public mass shooters who are motiva...

Some psychologists consider attention seeking to be one of the most common goals of misbehavior by young people, and it can have many unhealthy consequences. Currently, however, so many Americans use the internet and social media to seek fame or attention that it may be difficult to know when intervention is necessary. This study examines the pre-a...

This study examined the 15 deadliest public mass shootings in the United States from March 1998 to February 2018 to assess (a) leakage of violent thoughts/intent, (b) leakage of specific interest in mass killing, (c) concerning behaviors reported to law enforcement, (d) concerning interest in homicide reported to law enforcement, and (e) firearms a...

Public mass shooters almost always attack alone; this is common knowledge and has been consistently shown in previous research. Unfortunately, John Lott and Carlisle Moody ignore this fact. They include many forms of group violence in their analyses, such as massacres by hundreds of members of the Lord’s Resistance Army, and group attacks by soldie...

Researchers have extensively studied the tendency of certain violent criminals to hurt or torture animals, primarily focusing on domestic abusers and serial killers. However, little is known about the extent or nature of prior animal abuse among active shooters and public mass shooters. Public mass and active shooters essentially represent a single...

As the threat of public mass shootings continues to be on the forefront of Americans’ minds, it begs the question whether there are differences between young and older mass shooters. In general, earlier research suggests that young people are more likely than their older counterparts to commit crimes because of immaturity, lack of impulse control,...

In the United States and Europe, the distinction between public mass shooters and suicide terrorists no longer seems particularly meaningful. A number of public mass shooters have considered using bombs and claimed to be sacrificing themselves for an ideological cause, and many suicide terrorists have attacked without organizational support, using...

In recent years, major media organizations have wondered if their coverage of mass shooters actually increases the risk of future attacks, and have asked how their reporting could be improved. In response, 149 experts have called for media to stop publishing the names and photos of mass killers (except during ongoing searches for escaped suspects),...

This special issue includes: "Media Coverage of Mass Killers: Content, Consequences, and Solutions" by Adam Lankford and Eric Madfis; "Visually Reporting Mass Shootings: U.S. Newspaper Photographic Coverage of Three Mass School Shootings" by Nicole Smith Dahmen; "Covering Mass Murder: An Experimental Examination of the Effect of News Focus -- Kill...

In recent years, some critics have suggested that the media make mass killers into celebrities by giving them too much attention. However, whether the media coverage these offenders receive actually approaches the amounts given to celebrities has never been tested. This study compared perpetrators of seven mass killings during 2013–2017 with more t...

We seek strength in numbers as a survival strategy, so it seems unlikely that social bonds would make us want to intentionally die. However, our deep desire to be protected may explain our attraction to exaggerated notions of intentional self-sacrifice – even though research on suicide terrorists, kamikaze pilots, and cult members suggests they wer...

Prior research has shown that many mass shooters have explicitly admitted they want fame and have directly reached out to media organizations to get it. These fame-seeking offenders are particularly dangerous because they kill and wound significantly more victims than other active shooters, they often compete for attention by attempting to maximize...

In line with previous research on suicide and social contagion, there has been widespread speculation that mass killings-which often involve suicidal offenders-are socially contagious for up to 14 days. This study tested these claims by making comparisons (i) between observed chronological clusters of mass killings in the United States from 2006 to...

More than 15 years have passed since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and a comprehensive re-examination of the 9/11 attackers is now warranted. Research on the psychology of terrorists has evolved dramatically, and there is also new information on some offenders. The present study provides the available psychological and psychiatric ev...

Background: For years, many scholars dismissed the possibility that terrorists - including suicide attackers - could be mentally ill or primarily suicidal. However, that view is gradually changing. Aim: Researchers continue to face significant challenges when attempting to detect mental health problems and suicidal motives among terrorists and m...

Increasingly in America, fame is revered as the ultimate form of prestige-bearing success, and the distinction between fame and infamy seems to be disappearing. In this context, some rampage shooters succumb to “delusions of grandeur” and seek fame and glory through killing. The present study offers initial findings on the behavior of fame-seeking...

Objective: Model the global distribution of public mass shooters around the world. Method: Negative binomial regression is used to test the effects of homicide rates, suicide rates, firearm ownership rates, and several control variables on public mass shooters per country from 1966 to 2012. Results: The global distribution of public mass shoot...

Rape and sexual assault remain major criminological problems in the United States. However, there are a number of reasons for future optimism. American society appears to be gradually evolving in important ways, and changing attitudes reflect more appreciation for human rights, human equality, and support for victims of sexual violence. In addition...

In the popular discourse, it is commonly assumed that mass murderers and mass shooters are different from most criminals in the United States, because they are almost always white. The present study uses data on 308 mass murderers who attacked from 2006 to 2014 to evaluate this assumption, test for racial differences between mass murderers and all...

Public mass shooters are often assumed to be an exceptionally American problem, but little is known about what proportion of global offenders attack in the United States, or how America’s offenders compare to those in other countries. The present study offers the first quantitative analysis of all known offenders from 1966 to 2012 who attacked anyw...

Objective: many mass murderers appear to care more about harming others than they do about protecting themselves, and they often commit suicide or refuse to surrender and are killed by police. The present study offers the first in-depth investigation of differences between mass murderers who live and die as a direct result of their offenses. Method...

Academic debates persist about the psychology of suicide terrorists, with one view being that they are psychologically healthy individuals who primarily engage in altruistic self-sacrifice to serve their family, organization, or cause. Some proponents of this view now argue that suicide attackers are actually responding to their evolved sacrificial...

The Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers proposes that suicide terrorists are psychologically and behaviorally similar to other people who commit suicide, due to a range of individual, social, and situational factors. Some commentators agree, while others are skeptical, given th...

For years, scholars have claimed that suicide terrorists are not suicidal, but rather psychologically normal individuals inspired to sacrifice their lives for an ideological cause, due to a range of social and situational factors. I agree that suicide terrorists are shaped by their contexts, as we all are. However, I argue that these scholars went...

This article proposes that there are four primary types of suicide terrorist: (1) conventional suicide terrorists, who become suicidal owing to classic risk factors, (2) coerced suicide terrorists, who become suicidal because they fear the organizational consequences of not carrying out attacks, (3) escapist suicide terrorists, who become suicidal...

Previous research suggests that there are fundamental psychological and behavioral differences between offenders who commit murder and offenders who commit murder-suicide. Whether a similar distinction exists for rampage, workplace, and school shooters remains unknown. Using data from the 2010 NYPD report, this study presents results from the first...

This study presents results from the first combined quantitative assessment and comparative analysis of suicide terrorists and rampage, workplace, and school shooters who attempt suicide. Findings suggest that in the United States from 1990 to 2010, the differences between these offenders (N = 81) were largely superficial. Prior to their attacks, t...

For thousands of years people have saved their loudest praise for individuals who made ‘the ultimate sacrifice.’ Recently, however, many people have begun to equate suicide terrorism with sacrificial heroism. These assertions benefit from a general lack of conceptual clarity regarding the nature of sacrificial heroism itself. Therefore, this paper...

When it comes to explaining, predicting, and preventing suicide terrorism, there is a lot more important work to be done. This paper draws on the most recent evidence about where suicide terrorism occurs and why to propose a basic explanatory framework. Taking a bottom-up approach, it first identifies the minimum requirements for a suicide terroris...

Simple logic dictates that some suicide terrorists are more significant than others. However, major questions still remain about the motives and psychology of 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta, arguably the most significant suicide terrorist in human history. This article constructs a psychological autopsy of Atta in order to provide a much more complet...

For years, experts have agreed that Saudi Arabia runs the best terrorist rehabilitation program around the world. However, recent events, including Al Qaeda’s December 25, 2009, attempt to blow up Northwest Flight 253, which put 289 innocent lives in danger and was apparently planned by a program graduate, have raised serious doubts. This study ree...

For years, it has been widely agreed on that suicide terrorists are not suicidal individuals, and that behaviorally, they are more similar to noble soldiers who are willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause. However, upon closer examination, it appears that the foundation of this conventional wisdom is extraordinarily shaky. There are many reason...

Previous research comparing rampage shooters in the U.S. and volunteer suicide bombers in the Middle East appears to be virtually non-existent. When these two types of suicidal killers have been mentioned in the same context, it has primarily been to dismiss any possible connections. Rampage shooters are generally assumed to be mentally unbalanced,...

Internationally, there are more than 100 different definitions of terrorism, and even within the U.S. government, there are multiple standards. This lack of consistency has helped fuel a heated debate between the West and Islamic extremists about who is truly terrorizing whom. This article evaluates charges that several past U.S. acts constitute te...

Despite growing evidence to the contrary, it is still widely assumed that suicide terrorists are not actually suicidal. However, this review supports recent studies which suggest the opposite, and presents initial evidence that much like other suicidal individuals, many suicide terrorists appear to be driven by clinically suicidal risk factors, inc...

Since its inception, people have constantly found new and unexpected ways to communicate via the Internet. One such use has been the recruitment of new members by terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda (Riedel, 2007). Al Qaeda uses social influence techniques to induce individuals to become terrorist sympathizers (Burton & Stewart, 2008; Gerwehr...

On 22 January 2009, President Barack Obama issued an executive order that banned harsh interrogations and restricted legal methods to those listed in Army Field Manual 2-22.3. However, there remain concerns that the field manual may fail to prevent the continued abuse and torture of detainees. This study reexamines the leading social–psychological...

Since its inception, people have constantly found new and unexpected ways to communicate via the Internet. One such use has been the recruitment of new members by terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda (Riedel, 2007). Al Qaeda uses social influence techniques to induce individuals to become terrorist sympathizers (Burton & Stewart, 2008; Gerwehr...

The torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib has been characterized as an isolated incident and blamed on a few “bad apples.” However, as similar reports of war crimes throughout Iraq continue to surface, it seems increasingly apparent that in the anxious post-9/11 context, the low-level agents who carried out such violence were designed to function in t...