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Could Suicide Terrorists Actually Be Suicidal?
Abstract
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 reasons to think that both event-based and psychological risk factors for suicide may drive the behavior of suicide terrorists. Furthermore, there is growing evidence that more than 75 individual suicide terrorists have exhibited these classic suicidal traits. Given the power that the stigma of suicide may have to deter future suicide terrorists, it is critical that governments, scholars, and practitioners examine this issue once again.
... Along similar lines, studies increasingly suggest that there are fundamental psychological and behavioral differences between regular terrorists and suicide terrorists. Although terrorist leaders commonly claim that all members of their organization would be honored and eager to blow themselves up for the cause, past research has shown that this appears to be propaganda, not fact (Baer, 2008;Lankford, 2011;Pedahzur, 2005). Psychological assessments of preemptively arrested suicide bombers, regular terrorists, and organizers of suicide attacks have found that the suicide terrorists are by far the most likely type to exhibit suicidal tendencies, depression, dependent-avoidant personality, and post-traumatic stress disorder (Merari, 2010). ...
... Psychological assessments of preemptively arrested suicide bombers, regular terrorists, and organizers of suicide attacks have found that the suicide terrorists are by far the most likely type to exhibit suicidal tendencies, depression, dependent-avoidant personality, and post-traumatic stress disorder (Merari, 2010). By contrast, regular terrorists and organizers of suicide attacks appear to be far more psychologically normal and display far more ego strength (Lankford, 2011;Merari, 2010). While suicide terrorists are largely self-selected, having willingly volunteered for death (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 2004;Pedahzur, 2005), regular terrorists and organizers often admit that they would not intentionally kill themselves, even for the cause. ...
... This suggests that mass shooters are quite different than other perpetrators of murder or terrorism. At the same time, in accordance with similar findings on murderers and terrorists (Baer, 2008;Eliason, 2009;Lankford, 2011;Malphurs & Cohen, 2002;Merari, 2010; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 2004;Pedahzur, 2005;Rosenbaum, 1990), the present study did find evidence of statistically significant differences between mass shooters who died as a result of their attacks and mass shooters who lived. Holding all other independent variables constant, mass shooters who died were different at a behavioral level: they armed themselves with more weapons, killed more victims, and often struck at different locations than those who survived their attacks. ...
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 regression analysis of all qualifying mass shooters who struck in the USA between 1966 and 2010 (N = 185). Findings suggest that there are fundamental differences between mass shooters who die as a result of their attacks and mass shooters who live. Patterns among offenders, the weapons they use, the victims they kill, and the locations they attack may have significant implications for scholars and security officials alike.
... These claims have been echoed by many moderate sources as well: religious authorities, politicians, educators, scholars and security offi cials all around the world ( Israeli, 1997 ;Davies and Neal, 2000 ;Pastor, 2004 ;Gambetta, 2005 ;Pape, 2005 ;Hafez, 2006 ;Townsend, 2007 ). However, recent evidence has increasingly shown that many suicide terrorists indeed exhibit classic suicidal traits, and that their desire to kill themselves is the driving force behind their deadly attacks ( Lester et al , 2004 ;Lankford, 2010aLankford, , 2011Merari et al , 2010a, b ). ...
... Conventional suicide terrorists become suicidal for many of the same reasons other people become suicidal, and generally exhibit the same types of classic suicidal risk factors. Their suicidality can be the product of individual traits, social forces, a recent crisis or any combination thereof ( Lester et al , 2004 ;Lankford, 2010aLankford, , 2011Merari et al , 2010a, b ). ...
... They found that 40 per cent of the suicide bombers displayed suicidal tendencies, 20 per cent showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and 13 per cent had previously attempted suicide, while none of the regular terrorists or organizers showed any of these suicidal signs ( Merari et al , 2010a ). Finally, Lankford (2011) presented a list of more than 75 individual suicide terrorists who displayed classic risk factors for conventional suicide. ...
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 because they fear being captured by the enemy, and (4) indirect suicide terrorists, who become suicidal at an unconscious level and orchestrate their deaths in ways that disguise their desire to die. It then outlines behavioral expectations for each type, in terms of warning signs, tactical experience and attack styles, and concludes with recommendations for security countermeasures and future research.
... Although 60 percent of the suicide terrorists did not appear suicidal in the conventional sense, previous research on cross-cultural variations of suicidality suggests that some may have been suicidal in a less conventional manner (Holmes 2005;Lankford 2010a). Furthermore, other recent studies have shown that more than 75 individual suicide terrorists appear to have displayed classic risk factors for conventional suicide (Lankford 2010b(Lankford , 2011. As the following evidence will show, in the case of Atta, these risk factors appear to have included social isolation, depression, hopelessness, guilt, and shame. ...
... Islamic fundamentalists support this view and similarly condemn conventional suicide as "weak," "selfish," and "mentally disturbed" (Post et al. 2009, p. 15). Given this ideological context, even if Atta fully admitted to himself that he wanted to commit suicide, he would have had reason to try and disguise his motives by carrying out a "martyrdom operation" (Holmes 2005;Lankford 2011). ...
... Scholars who subscribe to this view commonly claim that suicide terrorists are motivated by their profound ideological commitment to the cause and are certainly not suicidal (Gambetta 2005;Hafez 2006;Israeli 1997;Pape 2005;Pastor 2004;Townsend 2007). By contrast, growing evidence shows that some suicide terrorists struggle with personal crises, mental health problems, and suicidal tendencies which play a major causal role in their violent behavior (Lankford 2010b(Lankford , 2011Lester et al. 2004;Merari 2010;Merari et al. 2010a, b). This article constructs a psychological autopsy of Atta in order to provide a much more complete explanation of his behavior. ...
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 complete explanation of his behavior. First, it suggests that accounts which solely attribute Atta’s actions to religious and political ideology appear severely incomplete. It then reviews evidence that Atta may have been clinically suicidal, and that his struggles with social isolation, depression, hopelessness, guilt, and shame were extraordinarily similar to the struggles of those who commit conventional suicide. Finally, it considers how Atta’s ideology may have interacted with his suicidal tendencies to produce his final act of murder-suicide on September 11, 2011.
... For instance, recent psychological assessments of suicide terrorists have suggested that a significant percentage of them are far more prone to suicidal behavior than regular, non-suicide terrorists (Merari 2010). Many suicide terrorists have been struggling with severe personal crisessuch as broken relationships, unwanted pregnancies, substance abuse addictions, serious health problems, or the death of loved onesprior to their decision to volunteer for suicide attacks (Lester et al. 2004, Lankford 2010b, 2011b, Merari 2010, Pedahzur 2005. ...
... Fadi was shot near their house and Jaradat personally watched him die before her eyes, as he lay in a pool of his own blood. She was severely traumatized by this incident, and may have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Lankford 2011b). As Jaradat's mother recounted, her daughter 'was full of pain. ...
... Furthermore, the psychological consequences of their deaths were spilling over into other aspects of her life, transforming her dreams into recurring nightmares, and making her far more irritable and moody during the day. If she was indeed suffering from PTSD, as previous reports have suggested, this could directly explain why she was so eager to carry out a suicide attack, because PTSD is a common risk factor for suicide (Hafez 2006, Lankford 2011b. As it turned out, Jaradat's mother appears to have put far more value on her daughter's life than Hanadi herself. ...
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 aims to explore, describe, and define sacrificial heroism, arguing that it requires two primary things: the risk of something highly valued; and the attempt to achieve a directly morally positive result. The paper then reviews four representative scenarios, including two types of suicide terrorism and two types of sacrificial heroism, in order to highlight several critical differences between those actions that deserve to be praised as supremely heroic and those which clearly do not.
... Because of their proliferation, suicide attacks in general and suicide bombing in particular have attracted much scholarly interest from investigators using a variety of different theoretical strategies. Some, for example, explain suicide attacks with psychological characteristics such as the personality, motives, and mental states of the attackers (e.g., Araj, 2012;Lankford, 2010Lankford, , 2011Merari, Diamant, Bibi, Broshi, & Zakin, 2010;Silke, 2008). Others focus on the external influence of ideology, socialization, and social bonds (e.g., Moghadam, 2008;Pedahzur, 2005;chapter 7;Sageman, 2004). ...
... There is considerable debate about the extent to which suicide attacks are similar to suicide. Much of the debate hinges on the psychological state of the attacker À whether their personality types, emotional states, and motivations resemble those typically found among suicides (see Byrm & Araj, 2012;Lankford, 2011;Merari et al., 2010). From a structural perspective, however, what matters are similarities in social structure and social time. ...
Purpose-In this chapter, I apply theories of conflict and social control derived from the work of Donald Black to explain when suicide attacks will occur and who will carry them out. Methodology/approach-Drawing on the published literature on suicide, suicide terrorism, and social control, I present a structural analysis of suicide attacks that specifies which configurations of social space and social time are most likely to produce them. Findings-I propose that suicide attacks can be explained by structural patterns such as social distance, status inferiority, organization, and large movements of social time. Furthermore, sacrifice is greater among those who are socially marginal individuals whose locations are otherwise conducive to both partisanship and self-destruction. Originality/value-I highlight structural similarities between suicide attacks and other forms of violence, social control, and suicide, thus contributing to the systemization of structural theories of human behavior and suggesting avenues for further study.
... Kamikazes orterrorist suicides may be placed squarely inthisfirst category. Lankford identifies four broad types of suicidal behavior among these people (Lankford 2011): (1) conventional suicide terrorists, who become suicidal owing to classic risk factors, (2) coerced suicide terrorists, who become suicidal because they fearthe organizational consequences of not carrying out attacks, (3) escapist suicide terrorists, who become suicidal because they fear being captured by the enemy, and (4) indirect suicide terrorists, who become suicidal at an unconscious level and orchestrate their deaths in ways that disguise their desire to die (Lankford 2014). ...
In high-risk industries, the development of reliable safety systems has made it easy to forget that operators may one day be confronted with dramatic, life-threatening situations. This article examines one such catastrophe, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. It will shed light on the mechanisms at work in operators’ attempts to mitigate the disaster, even as they knew they would be exposed to a radioactive environment. Using available literature and official reports, it will show how the decision process used by workers to make tragic choices involving self-sacrifice unfolded within three orders of determination: institutional, organizational, and the field.
While these regimes did help actors to make hard choices, we will show that they simultaneously created ethical blind spots. Just as the complexity and tight coupling of this high-risk industry leads to “normal accidents” (Perrow 1984), we argue that self-sacrifice in the wake of such accidents is masked by what we call “normal blindness,” which hides the underlying tragic choices actors must make.
This article argues that normal blindness need not be inevitable, and that further exploration of and reflection on the ethical lessons of the Fukushima accident could help us to better prepare for such situations in the future.
... One recent claim concerning an individual psychological motivation for suicide bombing comes from Lankford (2011Lankford ( , 2014. He argues that suicide bombers demonstrate psychological tendencies associated with suicide, although difficulties in finding enough evidence to actually psychologically evaluate suicide bombers post hoc makes drawing inferences difficult. ...
How do we know whether judges of different backgrounds are biased? We review the substantial political science literature on judicial decision making, paying close attention to how judges' demographics and ideology can influence or structure their decision making. As the research demonstrates, characteristics such as race, ethnicity, and gender can sometimes predict judicial decision making in limited kinds of cases; however, the literature also suggests that these characteristics are far less important in shaping or predicting outcomes than is ideology (or partisanship), which in turn correlates closely with gender, race, and ethnicity. This leads us to conclude that assuming judges of different backgrounds are biased because they rule differently is questionable. Given that the application of the law rarely provides one objectively correct answer, it is no surprise that judges' decisions vary according to their personal backgrounds and, more importantly, according to their ideology.
... Despite significant advances in our understanding of suicide terrorism, the primary focus of prior suicide terrorism studies has previously centered on the exploration of distal factors, such as ideological grievances, group dynamics, and the sociocultural contexts Gunaratna, 2000;Merari, 2010;Pedahzur, 2005;Stern, 2003), which may inspire terrorists to engage in criminal self-sacrifice. This literature has furthered our understanding of why groups and individuals are willing to resort to suicide tactics Holmes, 2006;Lankford, 2011;Pape, 2005), but previous studies have often overlooked the criminal event dimensions of terrorism and how opportunities for committing different forms of terrorism are structured. While terrorism research has increased since 9-11, few studies have investigated suicide terrorism in the United States specifically. ...
This study compares suicide and non-suicide incidents in the United States by analyzing data from the U.S. Extremist Crime Database (ECDB) on terrorist incidents committed by extreme far-right (FR) and radical Islamic terrorists between 1990 and 2014. Drawing from Situational Crime Prevention (SCP), we investigate whether suicide incidents are more likely than non-suicide incidents to be directed at secure targets and to utilize firearms. Findings reveal that suicide terrorism is significantly more likely to be committed against secure targets and similarly likely to involve the use of firearms in comparison with non-suicide terrorism. In addition, suicide terrorism is more likely to be committed by lone actors, radical Islamic terrorists, and result in fatalities. Implications for terrorism prevention are discussed.
... Lloyd deMause makes similar claims when he writes that ''[f]amilies that produce the most terrorists are the most violently misogynist. 84 Again, no evidence is provided. ...
In this article, the present status of our knowledge about the phenomenon of “suicide” bombing or “martyrdom” operations is identified. A review of many studies located at different levels of analysis is conducted, followed by an analysis and evaluation of the state of the research at each level. In addition, an exploration of the evolution in the characteristics of this tactic and the differences, if any, between subnational and transnational acts is undertaken. The conclusion identifies what we know and what may be appropriate for future research and public policy initiatives.
... 10 It is especially important to continue to investigate Lankford's recent conclusion that "suicide terrorists are not necessarily a representative sample of the much larger terrorist population . . . [and] that there are fundamental differences between suicide and non-suicide terrorists," 11 as implications for homeland security policies and programs may depend on the type of terrorism. ...
This study explores differences in perpetrators of suicide attacks and non-suicide attacks in the United States. The study uses data on far-right and Al Qaeda and affiliated/inspired terrorists between 1990 and 2013 from the United States Extremist Crime Database. Our analysis estimates logistic regression models to test whether suicide attackers were more likely to have exhibited specific risk factors for suicidality, while examining other prominent claims regarding patterns of suicide terrorism. Suicide attackers were no more likely than non-suicide attackers to have previously attempted suicide or to have been diagnosed as mentally ill. Suicide attackers were more likely, though, to have a history of substance abuse, to be loners, have served in the military, participated in paramilitary training, and be more ideologically committed to the cause. We found that Al Qaeda affiliated/inspired attackers were more likely than far-right attackers to have engaged in a suicide mission. With the current focus on Americans traveling to Syria and Iraq to receive training and fight for jihadist movements (e.g., the Islamic State), our findings appear relevant. Observers have expressed concern that these fighters may return and then commit attacks in their homeland. Law enforcement could make use of this study’s findings.
... Psychologically, an individual only needs to have suicidal intent to potentially carry out a suicide attack. Past research on both conventional suicide and suicide terrorism has shown that this intent may be the combination of individual, social, and situational factors [5]. Sometimes people develop suicidal intent due to their own individual problems, such as mental illness, substance abuse disorder, or a personal crisis, and then decide to carry out suicide attacks for those reasons [6]. ...
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 terrorism attack, and then outlines additional facilitators for the deadliest attacks and most prolonged suicide terrorism campaigns. Next, it applies these variables to clarify popular misunderstandings about foreign occupation as the primary cause of suicide terrorism. Finally, it shows how security officials can use this framework to develop a series of short term and long term countermeasures and begin to reduce the prevalence of suicide terrorism worldwide.
... The depressive and suicidal tendencies shown by the would-be bombers could well be a function of their failure to engage in the suicide bombing rather than the reason why they signed up to the mission in the first place. Lankford (2010Lankford ( , 2011 provides a larger contextual position on the negative precipitating events that individuals experience prior to becoming would-be suicide bombers. Lankford's illustrative examples demonstrate similarities to conventional cases of suicide. ...
From grassroots activism to armed combatants, Palestinian females have been active in combating Israel’s occupation of Palestine since the early twentieth century. During the second Palestinian Intifada, however, western news media coverage of female-perpetrated ‘suicide bombings’ sensationalized these previously unseen acts. Utilizing Herjeet Marway’s ‘scandalous subwomen’ societal reaction as a framework, this article engages in a multimodal analysis of the largely unexplored UK and US broadcast news coverage of female-perpetrated Palestinian ‘suicide bombings’. Via a postcolonial perspective, it addresses this framework’s focus upon ‘exclusion’: the projection that Palestinian female suicide bombers’ political participation is subject to male influence. This article finds that exclusionary male figures, as well as Saudi Arabia, are framed by UK and US broadcast news media to afford Palestinian female suicide bombers a lack of political agency. Palestinian female ‘suicide bombers’, as a result, become victimized figures via the UK and US broadcast news media’s orientalist ‘perceived reality’ which fails to recognize these female actors’ agential will or their ability to freely participate in political acts.
Background
The link between mental health difficulties and terrorist behaviour has been the subject of debate for the last 50 years. Studies that report prevalence rates of mental health difficulties in terrorist samples or compare rates for those involved and not involved in terrorism, can inform this debate and the work of those responsible for countering violent extremism.
Objectives
To synthesise the prevalence rates of mental health difficulties in terrorist samples (Objective 1—Prevalence) and prevalence of mental health disorders pre‐dating involvement in terrorism (Objective 2—Temporality). The review also synthesises the extent to which mental health difficulties are associated with terrorist involvement compared to non‐terrorist samples (Objective 3—Risk Factor).
Search Methods
Searches were conducted between April and June 2022, capturing research until December 2021. We contacted expert networks, hand‐searched specialist journals, harvested records from published reviews, and examined references lists for included papers to identify additional studies.
Selection Criteria
Studies needed to empirically examine mental health difficulties and terrorism. To be included under Objective 1 (Prevalence) and Objective 2 (Temporality), studies had to adopt cross‐sectional, cohort, or case‐control design and report prevalence rates of mental health difficulties in terrorist samples, with studies under Objective 2 also needing to report prevalence of difficulties before detection or involvement in terrorism. For Objective 3 (Risk Factor) studies where there was variability in terrorist behaviour (involved vs. not involved) were included.
Data Collection and Analysis
Captured records were screened in DisillterSR by two authors. Risk of bias was assessed using Joanna Briggs Institute checklists, and random‐effects meta‐analysis conducted in Comprehensive Meta‐Analysis software.
Results
Fifty‐six papers reporting on 73 different terrorist samples (i.e., studies) (n = 13,648) were identified. All were eligible for Objective 1. Of the 73 studies, 10 were eligible for Objective 2 (Temporality) and nine were eligible for Objective 3 (Risk Factor). For Objective 1, the life‐time prevalence rate of diagnosed mental disorder in terrorist samples (k = 18) was 17.4% [95% confidence interval (CI) = 11.1%–26.3%]. When collapsing all studies reporting psychological problems, disorder, and suspected disorder into one meta‐analyses (k = 37), the pooled prevalence rate was 25.5% (95% CI = 20.2%–31.6%). When isolating studies reporting data for any mental health difficulty that emerged before either engagement in terrorism or detection for terrorist offences (Objective 2: Temporality), the life‐time prevalence rate was 27.8% (95% CI = 20.9%–35.9%). For Objective 3 (Risk Factor), it was not appropriate to calculate a pooled effect size due the differences in comparison samples. Odds ratios for these studies ranged from 0.68 (95% CI = 0.38–1.22) to 3.13 (95% CI = 1.87–5.23). All studies were assessed as having high‐risk of bias which, in part, reflects challenges conducting terrorism research.
Author's Conclusions
This review does not support the assertion that terrorist samples are characterised by higher rates of mental health difficulties than would be expected in the general population. Findings have implications for future research in terms of design and reporting. There are also implications for practice with regards the inclusion of mental health difficulties as indicators of risk.
Since the middle of the 20th century, suicidology, as a group of disciplines working to understand and prevent suicide, has reinforced the long-held view that suicide is caused first and foremost by mental illness. Yet, the record of the last two centuries demonstrates the difficulty in identifying the risks and in reducing the incidence of suicide despite persistent reliance on psychosocial means. In order to understand the reasons for this outcome it is crucial, we will argue, to expose the moral values on which the medicalised assumptions about causes of suicide was based. Our aim here will be to demonstrate how moral arguments against suicide, which existed for centuries, have shaped psychiatric theories and discourse on suicide since the turn of the 19th century, and how this has persisted in present suicidology. These arguments, which had once justified legal and religious sanctions, were progressively naturalised and appropriated by medicine. Latent, implicit, even denied in contemporary suicidology, these moral arguments remain nonetheless at the heart of the medicalised conception of suicide, as it is through these moral values that medicine was able to ‘appropriate’ this act.
Terrorist attacks launched by extremist groups or individuals have caused catastrophic consequences worldwide. Terrorism risk assessment therefore plays a crucial role in national and international security. Fuzzy reasoning based terrorism risk assessment systems offer a significant potential of providing decision support in combating terrorism, where highly complex situations may be involved. Nevertheless, little has been done in developing and applying an integrated hierarchical bidirectional (forward/backward) fuzzy rule interpolation mechanism that is tailored to suit decision support for terrorism risk assessment. This paper presents such an integrated approach that is capable of dealing with dynamic and insufficient information in the risk assessing process. In particular, the hierarchical system implementing the proposed techniques can predict the likelihood of terrorism attacks on different segments of focused attention. The results of an experimental investigation of this implemented system are represented, demonstrating the potential and efficacy of the proposed approach.
Suicidal acts of terrorism conducted by lone actors independently of overseas command and control networks currently dominate the European landscape. Intelligence suggests from a population of fifty-two attackers between 2012 and 2017, at least 75% had a history of chronic substance abuse. Almost exclusively, Muslims do not engage in 12-step recovery programmes like Alcoholics Anonymous. We hypothesize that as both an ideology and agent of socialization, Islamic fundamentalism provides a structurally equivalent alternative. Yet, it is a programme that inadvertently directs a minority of vulnerable men along a pathway towards isolation, obsession, resentment and finally martyrdom.
Terrorism and particularly suicide terrorist campaigns have became a high priority for governments, the media, and the general public. It is imperative to have a comprehensive security risk management programme including effective risk assessment and appropriate decision support for such activities. Terrorism risk assessment (TRA) therefore plays a crucial role in national and international security. In order to predict terrorist behaviour from a given set of evidence (including hypothesised scenarios), it is often necessary for investigators to reconstruct the possible scenarios that may have taken place.
Terrorist attacks launched by extremist groups or individuals have caused catastrophic consequences worldwide. Terrorism risk assessment therefore plays a crucial role in national and international security. Fuzzy reasoning based terrorism risk assessment systems offer a significant potential of providing decision support in combating terrorism, where highly complex situations may be involved. Nevertheless, little has been done in developing and applying an integrated hierarchical bidirectional (forward/backward) fuzzy rule interpolation mechanism that is tailored to suit decision support for terrorism risk assessment. This paper presents such an integrated approach that is capable of dealing with dynamic and insufficient information in the risk assessing process. In particular, the hierarchical system implementing the proposed techniques can predict the likelihood of terrorism attacks on different segments of focused attention. The results of an experimental investigation of this implemented system are represented, demonstrating the potential and efficacy of the proposed approach.
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 evidence on each of the 9/11 pilots, muscle hijackers, and thwarted hijackers who intended to participate in the “planes operation.” Overall, findings suggest that the 9/11 terrorists may have had significantly more mental health problems than previously assumed, and the leaders who planned 9/11 personally approved suicide attackers with prior histories of mental illness. By widely publicizing this information, security officials may be able to more effectively delegitimize suicide terrorism and reduce the number of individuals who would consider funding, supporting, or committing these deadly attacks.
Terrorist attacks launched by extremist groups or individuals have caused catastrophic consequences worldwide. Terrorism risk assessment therefore plays a crucial role in national and international security. Fuzzy reasoning-based terrorism risk assessment systems offer a significant potential of providing decision support in combating terrorism, where highly complex situations may be involved. However, missing expertise often presents challenges for configuring systems that can otherwise assess the likelihood and risk of possible attacks due to the availability of only sparse rule bases. Hierarchical fuzzy rule interpolation systems may be adopted in order to overcome such problems. Unfortunately, situations can become more sophisticated because certain important antecedent values may be missing, which need to be inferred from the known (or hypothesised) consequences. Initial theoretical work on backward fuzzy rule interpolation has been proposed to cope with certain underlying problems. Nevertheless, little has been done in developing and applying an integrated hierarchical bidirectional (forward/backward) fuzzy rule interpolation mechanism that is tailored to suit decision support for terrorism risk assessment. This paper presents such an integrated approach that is capable of dealing with dynamic and insufficient information in the risk assessing process. In particular, the hierarchical system implementing the proposed techniques can predict the likelihood of terrorism attacks on different segments of focused attention. It also helps identify hidden variables that may be useful during the decision support process via performing reverse inference. The results of an experimental investigation of this implemented system are represented, demonstrating the potential and efficacy of the proposed approach.
Terrorist attacks – suicide attacks in particular – targeting police have increased worldwide over the past decade in both number and relative to other targets. One plausible explanation for this is the presence of a foreign military on a country’s soil, which is theorized to increase terrorism in that country. Terrorist attacks targeting the police may be more likely in these countries because police typically are tasked with assisting the foreign military. The primary research question asks whether there is a relationship between foreign military presence and terrorist attacks on police. This is assessed using a cross-sectional sample of 82 countries, with data drawn from several sources between 1999 and 2008. Because the dependent variables – terrorist attacks targeting the police – are proportions, Tobit and Cragg’s double-hurdle analyses were used. Analyses were confirmed using zero-inflated negative binomial regression models, with the outcomes measured as counts. Foreign military presence significantly increased the proportion of suicide terrorist attacks targeting the police, terrorist attacks using any tactic targeting the police and fatal terrorist attacks targeting the police. Greater economic inequality, involvement in civil war and greater regional terrorism were related to the proportion of attacks targeting police, but each was inconsistent across the outcome measures. To avoid being viewed as an occupying force and, thus, to decrease the proportion and count of terrorist attacks targeting police, administrators and officers alike may wish to reflect on public perception of their image. Future research should expand the dependent variable to include additional target types and a longer time period.
This chapter is not about the recognition and empowerment of marginalised or voiceless groups but offers a complementary discussion of a different set of margins. It seeks to develop a psychologically based understanding of how and why violence gathers around the edges of the mediatised public sphere, and then erupts onto centre stage in the form of terrorist attacks.
This research note presents a dynamic risk assessment model of homegrown terrorists. The model was tested in a study of convicted “homegrown” American terrorism offenders inspired by Al Qaeda's ideology. The New York Police Department model developed by Silber and Bhatt was chosen as the basis for creating a typology of overt and detectable indicators of individual behaviors widely thought to be associated with extremism. Twenty-four specific cues associated with each stage of radicalization were used to code and estimate the sequencing of behaviors and the duration of the average radicalization trajectory. Sixty-eight cases have been analyzed thus far. A decision was made to publish the initial results when it became apparent that the model was an effective tool for the evaluation of terrorist offenders. © 2015 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
This article reviews the existing literature, mostly from political science, on suicide bombing. A prominent weapon in the toolkit of violent nonstate actors for a generation, suicide bombing generates a significantly larger number of casualties per attack than other uses of force by terrorist groups, insurgents, and others. Scholars tend to agree that no single reason leads individuals to become suicide bombers. Moreover, groups use suicide bombing for strategic reasons - although whether suicide bombing campaigns make groups more likely to achieve their goals is unclear. Scholars continue to disagree about what drives groups to adopt or eschew suicide bombing, including the role of religion. Although groups that are more religious are significantly more likely to adopt suicide bombing, the underlying cause and its relationship to particular religious ideologies (such as Salafi Jihadi movements) versus the structure of religious groups remain matters of contention.
Suicide terrorism is the most violent and horrifying form of terrorism in the world today. This kind of terrorism causes many fatalities and can throw an entire nation into a state of panic. We usually attribute this kind of terrorism to altruistic motivation, assuming that bombers are willing to sacrifice themselves for a higher cause. The current study uses the criminological theory of Rational Choice to analyze the motivation of jihadist suicide terrorism. By reviewing the religious, personal, and social incentives, we demonstrate that even those who kill themselves in suicide attacks, which are seemingly examples of irrational or altruistic behavior, do so while considering future, self-gratifying benefits. Since this self-destructive behavior is mostly driven not by altruistic motivation but by the anticipation of costs and benefits, we find that there is no fundamental difference between the perpetrators’ motivations and those of other criminals; both groups are committed to maximizing self-gratifying, beneficial behavior.
The psychology of suicide terrorism involves more than simply the psychology of suicide. Individual differences in social dominance orientation (SDO) interact with the socio-structural, political context to produce support for group-based dominance among members of both dominant and subordinate groups. This may help explain why, in one specific context, some people commit and endorse terrorism, whereas others do not.
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 the lack of information about many attackers' lives. However, the book's position is not simply based on individual case studies; it is also supported by other independent assessments, the confirmation of empirical predictions, the paucity of contradictory evidence, and new applications of evolutionary theory. It is undisputed that human beings behave as the author suggests; it is unknown if they behave as the conventional wisdom suggests. Those who argue that suicide terrorists are psychologically normal and altruistically sacrificing their lives for an ideological cause should bear the burden of proof for those claims.
Terror organizations tend to rely on a limited number of practices to reinforce commitment to suicide on the part of recruits. Therefore, given the many difficulties associated with identifying individuals willing to become suicide terrorists, understanding the organizational contexts in which most suicide terrorism takes place is likely to be more useful than psychological profiling for predicting future attacks.
Lankford's essential empirical argument, which is based on evidence such as psychological autopsies, is that suicide attacks are caused by suicidality. By operationalizing this causal claim in a hypothetical experiment, I show the claim to be provable, and I contend that its truth is supported by Lankford's data. However, I question his ensuing arguments about beauty and goodness, and thereby the practical value of his work in counterterrorist propaganda.
A hallmark of the resurgence of antigovernment forces in Afghanistan was the mass introduction of suicide terrorist attacks. Between 2005 and 2006, the incidence of suicide bombings increased more than fivefold, marking a sea change in the Afghan conflict. Despite the initial jump in the volume of suicide attacks and the fear of more violence, the number of attacks actually flat-lined while the level of other attacks increased. This study will argue that it is the competency of the attackers employed in Afghanistan, not the politics, technology, or targeting, that best explains the static level of suicide attacks.
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 too far. In The Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers, I take the opposing view, based on my in-depth analyses of suicide attackers from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North America; attackers who were male, female, young, old, Islamic, and Christian; attackers who carried out the most deadly and the least deadly strikes. I present evidence that in terms of their behavior and psychology, suicide terrorists are much like others who commit conventional suicides, murder-suicides, or unconventional suicides where mental health problems, personal crises, coercion, fear of an approaching enemy, or hidden self-destructive urges play a major role. I also identify critical differences between suicide terrorists and those who have genuinely sacrificed their lives for a greater good. By better understanding suicide terrorists, experts in the brain and behavioral sciences may be able to pioneer exciting new breakthroughs in security countermeasures and suicide prevention. And even more ambitiously, by examining these profound extremes of the human condition, perhaps we can more accurately grasp the power of the human survival instinct among those who are actually psychologically healthy.
While the analyses of who engages in terrorism have largely evolved away from early psychopathological accounts, studies that focus on suicide bombers still emphasize personality characteristics as the cause of involvement and contain static interpretations of motivation. This article provides a review of such approaches before offering a number of alternatives that potentially contain more value for moving terrorism research forward. These approaches are illustrated by a series of analyses of a data set of 219 Palestinian suicide bombers: a descriptive analysis of the socio‐demographic characteristics of suicide bombers, their pathways into terrorist organizations, their spatial patterning and issues concerned with lethality. Collectively these analyses show how bringing together different theoretical frameworks can provide a stronger basis for the management of conflict and terrorism.
This is a critical review of five arguments against the scholarly consensus that individual suicide terrorists are rational actors. The first three arguments are analytic, meaning that they hold that suicide terrorism is inherently irrational, based on assumptions regarding the nature of the perpetrators' interests as individuals. The fourth argument is empirical, based on alleged evidence of suicide terrorist psychopathology. And the fifth argument is pragmatic, based on the strategic implications of ‘conceding’ the status of rationality to enemies. This article highlights weaknesses in these arguments and considers assessing the rationality of suicide terrorists by measuring their act to cultural or community goals subject to a division of labor principle.
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, including: (1) the desire to escape the world they live in, (2) the desire to escape moral responsibility for their actions, (3) the inability to cope with a perceived crisis, and (4) a sense of low self-worth. By establishing the links between suicide terrorism and suicidality, scholars may be able to better understand the nature of these violent attacks and develop more effective ways to stop them.
Much of the research on suicidal behavior in Muslim countries has been simple descriptive studies of samples of completed and attempted suicides. Despite this, and despite the possible under-reporting of suicidal behavior in countries where such behavior is illegal, suicide rates do appear to be lower in Muslims than in those of other religions, even in countries which have populations belonging to several religious groups. Rates of attempted suicide, on the other hand, do not appear to be lower in Muslims as compared to non-Muslims. Research into this topic has been quite poor, failing to take into account the ethnic background and the Islamic sect to which the suicidal subjects belonged. Reasons for the low rate of completed suicide in Muslims are reviewed, including differences in values and socio-economic status.
Research on the characteristics of suicide bombers is reviewed. Contrary to previous commentary, it is suggested that suicide bombers may share personality traits (such as the "authoritarian personality") that psychological profiles of suicide bombers might be feasible, and that the suicide bombers may be characterized by the risk factors that increase the probability of suicide.‐
In the United States, it seems unlikely that a foreign terrorist group would be able to assemble and maintain the required infrastructure within our borders that would provide a platform for a sustained campaign of suicide bombings. However, a strategy of infrequent suicide bombings supplemented by psychologically manipulative rhetoric during the intervals between attacks is plausible and could amplify the fear level. Attacks against high-value targets, use of weapons of mass destruction, or maintenance of an infrastructure on foreign soil with an operational capability for suicide attacks within our borders, would further amplify the psychological fallout. In either case, the potential psychological effects on society - including pervasive insecurity, reduced travel, commerce, and long-term investment, and foreign policy shifts in acquiescence to terrorist pressures - easily dwarf the potential physical effect of suicide terror on American soil. Therefore, identifying strategies to counter the psychological effects of suicide terror and promote resilience is an indispensable aspect of taking away its potential value to terrorist organizations around the world. Who becomes a suicidal terrorist and why is, perhaps obviously, a multifactorial "etiology" including significant developmental, psychodynamic, social, cultural, biological, temperamental, situational, and tactical-instrumental determinants. In other words, multiple "ingredients" often are needed in the manufacture and delivery of a suicide terrorist, or "human bomb" (Table 1, see page 706). For direct victims of terrorism and mass disasters, the principles of psychological support are relatively well developed. For the wider, societal target of the suicide bomber, psychological response is less well defined. Focusing on the intended effects of suicidal terror provides empowering insights to potential victims, enabling them to identify the boundary between rational and irrational fear and to neutralize the primary weapon of the suicide bombers (Table 2, see page 705).
researchers have identified two subtypes of aggression. reactive aggression is characterized by impulsive angry retaliation and has been associated with narcis-sism while proactive aggression is calculated and linked to psychopathy. how-ever, these aggression subtypes commonly co-occur and little is known about fac-tors that underlie each subtype or their overlap. the present study examined the relationship of psychophysiological factors, psychopathic, and narcissistic traits to proactive and reactive aggression during an experimental paradigm. among men, proactive aggression was predicted by low physiological reactivity to anxi-ety/punishment. Conversely, reactive aggression was associated with narcissistic traits and poor decision making under risk and rewards conditions for both sexes. Manipulative and egocentric features of psychopathy were related to proactive physical aggression among men but to reactive indirect aggression among wom-en. these data point to factors that uniquely influence each aggression subtype and their co-occurrence, and highlight the role of gender in the expression of aggression. Increasingly, research suggests that aggression is best conceived as a continuum with adaptive correlates such as social status and goal attainment in its normative range, and maladaptive outcomes at
Many people judge suicide to be immoral. We have found evidence that these moral judgments are primarily predicted by people’s belief that suicide taints the soul and by independent concerns about purity. This finding is inconsistent with accounts that define morality as fundamentally based upon harm considerations. In this commentary, we respond to a critique of our finding, and we provide further support for our original conclusions. Even when applying new exclusion criteria to our data, an examination of effect sizes demonstrates that concerns about purity robustly and meaningfully explain variance in moral judgments of suicide. While harm concerns sometimes predict moral judgments of suicide alongside purity concerns, they reliably explain a much smaller proportion of the variance than do purity concerns. Therefore, data from six studies continue to suggest that the relevance of harm concerns for moral judgments of suicide is substantially overshadowed by the contribution of purity concerns.
Moral violations are typically defined as actions that harm others. However, suicide is considered immoral even though the perpetrator is also the victim. To determine whether concerns about purity rather than harm predict moral condemnation of suicide, we presented American adults with obituaries describing suicide or homicide victims. While harm was the only variable predicting moral judgments of homicide, perceived harm (toward others, the self, or God) did not significantly account for variance in moral judgments of suicide. Instead, regardless of political and religious views and contrary to explicit beliefs about their own moral judgments, participants were more likely to morally condemn suicide if they (i) believed suicide tainted the victims' souls, (ii) reported greater concerns about purity in an independent questionnaire, (iii) experienced more disgust in response to the obituaries, or (iv) reported greater trait disgust. Thus, suicide is deemed immoral to the extent that it is considered impure.
Evil is a difficult topic to explore from an analytic, let alone scientific, perspective because the concept of evil is primarily emotive and moralistic. Like the perception of risk (Sandman, 1989; Slovic, 1987), the perception of evil is often accompanied by feelings of outrage and dread, even terror. Alford (1997) found that people tend to describe evil mainly in terms of a sense of impending doom, suggesting that the phenomenology of evil is closely tied to emotional responses to perceived actors and events—namely, to people's "gut feelings." Evil, though, is also clearly related to attributions of extreme moral wrongdoing (Darley, 1992), suggesting that its phenomenology (again like risk perception) may be one that we would characterize as "hot
Suicide bombers are often compared to smart bombs. From the point of view of their dispatchers, they are highly effective, inexpensive forms of weaponry, and there is no need to invest in their technological development. Suicide bombers are in fact smarter than smart bombs because they can choose their own target—and they can react to circumstances on the ground, changing their target, or their timing, in an instant, to ensure the maximum damage, destruction, and death. Of course, unlike smart bombs, suicide bombers think and feel, they have histories, stories, beliefs, desires—in short, they have an inner world. Exploring the inner world of suicide bombers has been the focus of Anat Berko's research for years. She has worked to understand the thought processes of a people who can choose to place explosives on their bodies and kill themselves, taking as many other people with them as they can.
Do male bombers really believe that death will transport them to a paradise where they will be greeted by virgins? Are they victims of unbearable pressure to commit this act of terror? What are female bombers promised in the hereafter? Is there something that links all suicide bombers? Berko also explores the world of those who drop the smart bomb—the dispatchers: who are these people who persuade others to go calmly to their horrific deaths?
Self-deception occurs because we often see the world the way we would like it to be, rather than the way it is. Our brains so long for things the way we want them, we might not even be aware we are fooling ourselves, explains author Harry Triandis, a widely known Professor Emeritus of Psychology. Across cultures and around the world, self-deception is a phenomenon that has subtle and profound effects on everyday life, explains Triandis, also former president of the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology. In this work, he not only explains how and why self-deceptions occur in three areas - politics, religion, and terrorism - but also how to recognize and reduce the frequency of fooling ourselves.
Insights here include consideration of personal and societal self-deceptions, as well as extensive understanding of how politics, ideologies, and religions can frame reality for each of us in such a way that it is, in our minds, warped so the stage is well-set for self-deception. This text will be of special interest to general readers drawn to politics and religion, as well as scholars of psychology, anthropology, and sociology.
Patriotism may be interpreted as one brand of human altruism. Contemporary evolutionary theory suggests that the roots of human altruism lie in kin selection. However, patriots in contemporary large-scale societies make their patriotic sacrifices on behalf of groups that are composed predominantly of non-kin. This fact appears to call into question the view that human altruism is founded on kin selection. This article attempts to resolve the problem by linking kin recognition cues to the socialization process. The result is a theory which integrates kin selection and socialization as foundations of human altruism. Since patriotism is a noteworthy example of human altruism, and one especially relevant for political science, the theory is applied to patriotism in order to generate hypotheses about the process of patriotic socialization.
Antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders are forms of persistent maladaptive personality styles that interfere with a person's functioning. Antisocial personality disorder is characterized by a disregard for the rights of others often exemplified by criminal behavior and a lack of remorse. Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by a grandiose sense of self and pathological self-centeredness. Antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders often co-occur with one another and with other personality disorders and substance use disorders. The causes of antisocial and NPDs include both genetic and environmental influences. Success in treating these disorders often proves difficult.
Some Thoughts on Human Extinction, Kin Recognition, and the Impact of Patriotism on Inclusive Fitness - Volume 4 Issue 2 - Gary R. Johnson
The Role of Kin Recognition Mechanisms in Patriotic Socialization: Further Reflections1 - Volume 8 Issue 1 - Gary R. Johnson
• individual differences and antisocial behavior;
• misconduct in workplace - carrying weapons and violently assaulting someone who “disrespects” you;
• “Antisocial” being not always “criminal,” and criminal law - at variance with what is seen as antisocial;
• genetics, crime and antisocial behavior - intergenerational transmission, and continuity of antisocial behavior, via exposure to multiple social risk factors;
• possible mechanisms for antisocial behavior - aggregated disfranchisement, leading to self-expression through criminal acts, helping perpetrators to obtain what other people appear to get apparently effortlessly;
• modern cognitive neuroscience - converging lines of evidence in its thinking about antisocial behavior;
• biopsychosocial processes - as life is lived, constant transaction between biological, psychological and social processes;
• personality and antisocial behavior - and McCrae's five-factor model (FFM), called the “Big Five”;
• personality disorders, psychiatric expression of extremes of normal personality - defined by clinical practitioners using either American Psychiatric Association's (APA) DSM–IV, or the World Health Organization's ICD–10;
• intelligence, IQ and antisocial behavior - individual differences in antisocial behavior, starting with evidence for heritability of behavior, and putative mechanisms
Evidence is reviewed which suggests that there may be little or no direct introspective access to higher order cognitive processes. Subjects are sometimes (a) unaware of the existence of a stimulus that importantly influenced a response, (b) unaware of the existence of the response, and (c) unaware that the stimulus has affected the response. It is proposed that when people attempt to report on their cognitive processes, that is, on the processes mediating the effects of a stimulus on a response, they do not do so on the basis of any true introspection. Instead, their reports are based on a priori, implicit causal theories, or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response. This suggests that though people may not be able to observe directly their cognitive processes, they will sometimes be able to report accurately about them. Accurate reports will occur when influential stimuli are salient and are plausible causes of the responses they produce, and will not occur when stimuli are not salient or are not plausible causes.
The commonly accepted interpretation is that a religious motive—the desire to please God—is the principal reason why people volunteer for suicide missions. American political scientist Robert A. Pape rejects this view. For him the common thread linking suicide bombers is a political objective— driving out an occupier from one’s homeland, which they see as furthering the common good of their society. In arriving at this theory, Pape relied on the concept of “altruistic suicide,” developed by French sociologist Emile Durkheim in his pioneering work Suicide (1897). These ideas are discussed in Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2005), from which the passage below is taken.
Suicidal attacks are a warfare tactic rooted in lethal altruism, a highly damaging drift away from people's more generous tendencies. Martyrs who commit these acts are extreme altruists by definition: They offer their lives as a supreme investment for others' interests. Individual differences in altruism have been measured using scales and economic games that have led to a growing understanding of their genetic and neurohormonal basis. Analyzing that in relation to suicide martyrdom leads to a question: Are there pockets of individuals among all populations who are willing to make high-cost investments of trust/sacrifice in nonkin others, particularly at war? Disentangling the neurocognitive attributes of altruism and its relationship to other traits mediating martyrdom proneness is a vital task to understand the genesis of suicidal attacks. A temperamental workspace for warriors encompassing the trait dimensions of dominance- submission, Machiavellianism-gullibility, and selfishness-altruism is outlined to frame the main clusters mediating violent martyrdom.
We cannot explain why people kill themselves. There are no necessary or sufficient causes for suicide, so rather than explaining suicide (looking for causes), perhaps we can understand suicide, at least in one individual, a phenomenological approach. This book begins by examining the diaries from eight individuals who killed themselves. Using qualitative analyses, supplemented in some cases by quantitative analyses, Lester seeks to uncover the unique thoughts and feelings that led these individuals to take their own lives. Lester has also studied suicide notes, the poems of those who died by suicide (both famous poets and unpublished poets), the letters written by suicides, blogs and twitter feeds, and one tape recording of a young man who killed himself just an hour or so after he recorded the tape. This book will give you insights into the "I" of the storm, the suicidal mind.
This book attempts to shed light on suicide missions and provide answers to the questions we all ask. Are these the actions of aggressive religious zealots and unbridled, irrational radicals or is there a logic driving those behind them? Are their motivations religious or has Islam provided a language to express essentially political causes? How can the perpetrators remain so lucidly effective in the face of certain death? And do these disparate attacks have something like a common cause? It focuses on four main instances: the Kamikaze, missions carried out by the Tamil Tigers in the civil war in Sri Lanka, the Lebanese and Palestinian groups in the Middle East, and the al-Qaeda 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. For more than two years, the authors have pursued an unprejudiced inquiry, investigating organizers and perpetrators alike of this extraordinary social phenomenon. Close comparisons between a whole range of cases raise challenging further questions: If suicide missions are so effective, why are they not more common? If killing is what matters, why not stick to 'ordinary' violent means? Or, if dying is what matters, why kill in the process?
The Third Reich met its end in the spring of 1945 in an unparalleled wave of suicides. Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler and later Göring all killed themselves. These deaths represent only the tip of an iceberg of a massive wave of suicides that also touched upon ordinary lives. As this suicide epidemic has no historical precedent or parallel, it can tell us much about the Third Reich's peculiar self-destructiveness and the depths of Nazi fanaticism. The book looks at the suicides of both Nazis and ordinary people in Germany between 1918 and 1945, from the end of World War I until the end of World War II, including the mass suicides of German Jews during the Holocaust. It shows how suicides among different population groups, including supporters, opponents, and victims of the regime, responded to the social, cultural, economic and, political context of the time. The book also analyses changes and continuities in individual and societal responses to suicide over time, especially with regard to the Weimar Republic and the post-1945 era.
This book takes a hard-science look at the possibility that we humans have the capacity to care for others for their sakes (altruism) rather than simply for our own (egoism). The look is based not on armchair speculation, dramatic cases, or after-the-fact interviews, but on an extensive series of theory-testing laboratory experiments conducted over the past 35 years. Part I details the theory of altruistic motivation that has been the focus of this experimental research. The theory centers on the empathy-altruism hypothesis, which claims that other-oriented feelings of sympathy and compassion for a person in need (empathic concern) produce motivation with the ultimate goal of having that need removed. Antecedents and consequences of empathy-induced altruistic motivation are specified, making the theory empirically testable. Part II offers a comprehensive summary of the research designed to test the empathy-altruism hypothesis, giving particular attention to recent challenges. Overall, the research provides remarkably strong and consistent support for this hypothesis, forcing a tentative conclusion that empathy-induced altruism is within the human repertoire. Part III considers the theoretical and practical implications of this conclusion, suggesting that empathy-induced altruism is a far more pervasive and powerful force in human affairs than has been recognized. Failure to appreciate its importance has handicapped attempts to understand why we humans act as we do and wherein our happiness lies. This failure has also handicapped efforts to promote better interpersonal relations and create a more caring, humane society.
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 terrorism attack, and then outlines additional facilitators for the deadliest attacks and most prolonged suicide terrorism campaigns. Next, it applies these variables to clarify popular misunderstandings about foreign occupation as the primary cause of suicide terrorism. Finally, it shows how security officials can use this framework to develop a series of short term and long term countermeasures and begin to reduce the prevalence of suicide terrorism worldwide.
Human altruism in non-kin, unreciprocated contexts is difficult to understand in evolutionary terms. However, neo-Darwinian theories remain a potentially useful means of illuminating this behavior. In particular, induced altruism, wherein cues of genetic relatedness are manipulated to elicit costly behaviors for the benefit of non-kin, appears highly relevant. This article reviews cross-cultural data on several examples of extremely costly altruism-vows of celibacy, suicide bombings, and combat suicide-as exhibited in organizational and institutional contexts. Two predictions are used to test the relevance of induced altruism to the reinforcement of altruistic commitment to these behaviors. First, different organizations requiring costly sacrifice by their members should employ similar practices involving patterns of association, phenotypic similarity, and kinship terminology that are associated with kin cue-manipulation. Second, these organizational practices should be adopted as a consequence of recruit pools growing increasingly larger and, thus, less genetically related. There appears to be support for both predictions, suggesting that cross-cultural analyses could provide an effective avenue through which to test this and other evolutionary theories related to human unreciprocated altruism in non-kin contexts.
Extending data reported by Mohammed Hafez in 2007, we compiled a database of 1,779 suicide bombers who attempted or completed attacks in Iraq from 2003 through 2010. From 2003 through 2006, monthly totals of suicide bombers show a pattern different from the pattern of non-suicide insurgent attacks, but from 2007 through 2010 the two patterns were similar. This biphasic pattern indicates that suicide attacks sometimes warrant separate analysis but sometimes are just one tactic in a larger envelope of insurgent violence. We also show that only 13 percent of suicide bombers targeted coalition forces and international civilians, primarily during the early years of the conflict, whereas 83 percent of suicide bombers targeted Iraqis (civilians, members of the Anbar Awakening Movement, Iraqi security forces, and government entities) in attacks that extended throughout the duration of the insurgency. These results challenge the idea that suicide attacks are primarily a nationalist response to foreign occupation, and caution that “smart bombs” may be more often sent against soft targets than hard targets. More generally, our results indicate that suicide attacks must be disaggregated by target in order to understand these attacks as the expression of different insurgent priorities at different times.
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 because they fear being captured by the enemy, and (4) indirect suicide terrorists, who become suicidal at an unconscious level and orchestrate their deaths in ways that disguise their desire to die. It then outlines behavioral expectations for each type, in terms of warning signs, tactical experience and attack styles, and concludes with recommendations for security countermeasures and future research.
Two studies investigated children's reasoning about their mental and bodily states during the time prior to biological conception-"prelife." By exploring prelife beliefs in 5- to 12-year-olds (N = 283) from two distinct cultures (urban Ecuadorians, rural indigenous Shuar), the studies aimed to uncover children's untutored intuitions about the essential features of persons. Results showed that with age, children judged fewer mental and bodily states to be functional during prelife. However, children from both cultures continued to privilege the functionality of certain mental states (i.e., emotions, desires) relative to bodily states (i.e., biological, psychobiological, perceptual states). Results converge with afterlife research and suggest that there is an unlearned cognitive tendency to view emotions and desires as the eternal core of personhood.
Using social dominance theory and structural balance theory to analyze the political and psychological perspectives of subordinated peoples, we argue that struggles between dominant and subordinated polities are embedded in layered power structures. In such contexts, it is important to examine publics' political desires and interests in relation to their political elites' positions or choices of political tactics and allegiances. To illustrate these arguments, we used random urban samples surveyed in March 2010 to examine Lebanese and Syrian citizens' favorability toward their governments and Hezbollah (a quasi-government faction with significant relations to the governments of Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and the United States). As theorized, citizens' favorability depended on (i) how much they view their government as providing services for them, (ii) opposition to general group dominance, (iii) opposition to US oppression, and (iv) their governments' alignments vis-à-vis the US. Implications for political psychology and international relations theory are discussed.