Terrorism is the current phenomenon that is spreading globally ever with more strength in today’s society.
We can consider terrorism as a complex phenomenon and a type of “strategy that uses public violence with the intent to obtain changes at a socio-political level, (..) through acts aimed at terrorizing the population or groups of people to affect protagonists or organizations on a deeper level as governments and international organizations. From 2001 to today, up to the most recent attack in Barcelona this phenomenon seems to constitute an increasingly impending threat.
The maximum propaganda tool is the web that becomes a powerful means of virally spread its content through social networks such as You Tube, Facebook and Twitter and represents fertile ground at the service of the jihad to recruit and indoctrinate new followers.
Thus was born the need for a psychology of terrorism that investigates the psychological and social variables that underlie the phenomenon, in addition to the consequences of terrorist acts for people and political opinions. Unlike the first theories on the attacker’s psychology who were aimed at tracing a “terrorist pathology”, several studies and the most recent article by Haslam and Reicher (2016) have hypothesized that the minds that are most conditioned by the factors involved in the psychology of terrorism and in group dynamics are not people with psychopathic or serious psychopathologies, but ordinary people.
Other theories focus on the social causes of terrorism: poverty, education, ideology, religion, but once again, no strong proof emerges from this hypothesis (see Stout, 2004).
In a recent article Gill and Corner (2017) has traced a broad consensus in the literature on terrorism psychology in support of the fact that events and situations, not the personal qualities that determine terrorist behavior. But this does not mean that the personal disposition does not play any role. Already starting from the studies of Millgram (1978) on obedience to authority it is possible to demonstrate in social psychology that healthy subjects and without psychiatric disorders were perfectly able to inflict a certain degree of pain with consequences even seriously to other individuals, without particular forms of remorse.
In the aforementioned experiment, the subjects of the experimental sample of Millgram were willing to submit other participants in lethal electrical discharges only because this was requested by researchers to whom they were ready to obey. The Zimbardo experiment (1972) also showed that most of the students were assigned the role of prison guards were ready to reserve the other students who represented the role of prisoners, any kind of humiliation.
Millgram and Zimbardo subsequently investigated the role of conformism in group dynamics regarding submissive and obeying a leader or majority. These studies note that in certain conditions, many people could be led to perform violent acts, however and also true that a careful analysis of the results shows that most subjects have not completed this intent.
Haslam and Reicir (2016) then resume the studies of Tajfel and Turner on thesocial identity and on the identification and decentification processes implicated in group dynamics. So that someone is influenced, it is necessary that it is recognized at an identity level in the members of the group from which it is influenced and moves away from the members outside the group, differentiating themselves from them.
The connections between the theory of social identity, self-esteem and polarization of e-Group in the literature were in fact widely discussed. The construction of a social network as part of an identity structure is the thesis mainly supported by Sageman (2004). Social affiliation is described by it as an important problem in joining adhesion and rejects the idea of washing the systematic brain of believers.
Potential terrorists would be pushed to violence from undergoing the group’s social structure an identity attributed to them strongly negative and this would produce negative emotions that could lead to dangerous faces strategies. This phenomenon could represent a recruitment terrain for most terrorists related to international jihadism.
Smith (2008) notes that in a number of terrorist groups, the affiliation reasons are very strong. The social identity is strongly linked to group members who are positively perceived and therefore, those who feel they have lost the community of their friends and family (Sageman, 2004), will try a new community capable of helping them to create new social networks and more “share capital“(Putnam, 2000).
By share capital we mean “the sum of resources, materials or not, that each individual or social group obtains thanks to the participation in a network of interpersonal relationships based on principles of reciprocity and mutual recognition”. In addition, the strong collective identity provided by the terrorist groups seems to respond to the needs of some people who experience a certain lack of identity and meanings in their life (Taylor & Louis, 2004).
McCauley and Moskalenko (2011) also underlined the importance of the perception of the threat and identity of the group as fundamental factors that can explain the choice of violent struggle. Smith (2008) studied most of the terrorist documents declaring that he often tracked down affiliation needs and the search for a group from belonging. This need to belong is even stronger when the group’s ideology becomes more extreme.
Sageman (2004) also investigated the role of leaders and while not atvaluating their charismatic influence and their credibility in promoting violence, he supported how the behavior of opponents is equally important.
Haslam and Gleibs (2016) have hypothesized that individuals are more willing to follow a leader with war carefully if he is in conflict with another group deemed dangerous. Terrorism can therefore influence some potential followers by leading them to consider its own group as an enemy. For example, leaders of radical minority groups are not sufficient to radicalize other members, but the use of violence is often necessary as the provocation of the authorities belonging to the majority culture to create a climate of control against minorities.
This cultural phenomenon causes an experience of miso-recording which can contribute to decentification with respect to majority culture.
However, a global terrorism psychology should transcend from analyzes on an individual level. Although the acts of terrorist violence are conducted by individuals or small groups, these protagonists typically belong to larger organizations. These organizations inspire, radicalize and recruit followers. They command, build resources and support the legitimacy and claim of responsibility for their own terrorist actions.
The method of how terrorist organizations manage the recruitment and selection processes, in some way, does not differ from any other great organization. However, terrorism in itself seems to be not a rational means to achieve political purposes (Abrahms, 2008), and seems to be, on the other hand, quite effective as a response to the needs of social solidarity.
To conclude psychological research, it is necessary that it is based on the integration of multiple different perspectives to understand the phenomenon of terrorism and violent extremism, and thus the processes of radicalization and de-radicalization keeping in mind in addition to individual and social aspects, the weight of political and economic factors.
Bibliography
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- Gill, P., & Corner, E. (2017). There and Back Again: The Study of Mental Disordranderroristinvolvement.americanpsychologist, 72.231–241.
- Gleibs, IH, & Haslam, SA (2016). Do we want to fighter? The Influence of Group Status and the Stability of Intergroup Relations On Leader PrototyPicality and endorsement. The Leadership Quarterly.
- Haslam, Sa, Reicir, SD, & Bneyny, me (2016). Authority Questioning: New Perspectives on Milgram’s’ Obedience’research and its implications for Intergroup Relations. Current Opinion in Psychology, 11, 6-9.
- McCauley, C., & Moskalenko, S. (2011). Friction: How Radicalization Happens To Them and Us. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. McCauley, C., & Moskalenko, S.
- Milgram, S., & Gudehus, C. (1978). Obedience to Authority.
- Putnam, RD (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New-York: Simon & Schuster.
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- Smith, AG (2008). The Implicit Motives of Terrorist Groups: How The Needs For Affiliation and Power Translate Into Death and Destruction. Political Psychology, 29 (1), 55-75.
- Stout, CE (2004). Psychology of Terrorism: Coping With the Continuing Threat, Condense Edition. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers/Greenwood Publishing Group.
- Tajfel, H., & Turner, JC (1979). An Integrativi Theory of Intergroup Conflict. The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, 33 (47), 74.
- Taylor, MD, & Louis, W. (2004). Terrorism and the Quest for Identity. In FM Moghaddam & Aj Marsella (Eds.), Undersanding Terrorism: Psychological Roots, Consequences, and Interventions (pp. 169-185). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association
- Zimbardo, Pg, Haney, C., Curtis Banks, W., & Jaffe, D. (1972). Stanford Prison Experiment: A simulation study of the psychology of imprisonment. Philip G. Zimbardo, incorporated
