Chapter 11

Question 1

• Type of terrorist attack in US
• %
• Lone-wolf terrorists
• sims to convent. ones
• differences

Answer 1

• most not by international groups but lone wolves
• btwn 1968-2007 42% LW
• generally psychologically diff from conventional ones who belong to more organized extremist group. They operate on own, design own plans, select own targest, choose own modus operandi, make own decisions
  −They have unique interps of world, percieve injustices that they wish to bring to public attention. Adopt ideological or philosophical learnings of an extremist group
• greater threat than conventional terrorists; more harder to track, predict, gather intelligence

Question 2

Weapon, targets, attacks, deaths of LW’s

Answer 2

− Explosives tend to be main weapons, then firearms. Usually target civillians.
− Attacks are premeditated, carefully planned, self-financed
− Unlike convenional ones, they usually don’t plan to die during attacks and often escape arrest for long period of time

Question 3

7 Characterstics of LW’s

1. operate
2. not
3. act w/out
4. claim
5. their attacks
6. more likely than terrorists
7. deomonstate

Answer 3

1) They operate individually.
2) They do not belong to an organized terrorist group, network, or organization.
3) They act without the direct influence of a leader or hierarchy.
4) They may claim to be acting on behalf of an interest group.
5) Their attacks are premeditated and carefully planned.
6) They are more likely than other terrorists to be emotionally disturbed.
7) They demonstrate poor interpersonal and social skills.

Question 4

• LW’s skills, attitudes
• behavior pattern vs convent ones
• ideological motivations of LW’s (3)
• other countries (3)

Answer 4

• poor interpersonal and social skills, adopt and isolationist attitude staying away from direct contact with society.
• Conventional ones do not have behavior patterns of emotional instability and psych probs higher among long-wolfs
  −Ideological motivation centers around white supremacy, antiabortion, or antigov issues; often assoc with hate groups
• nationalism, cultural divisions, religious conflicts most prev motivations

Question 5

Psychosocial context of terrorism

• psychosocial refers to
• Ervin Staub
• 3

Answer 5

• those social and psych circumstances that encourage certain behaviors to develop and expand. It is a cognitively consturcted world that is sustained thru the socialization process assoc with each culture. Culture may be an entire country or small group
• posits that certain cultural charactersitics are conductive to emergence of terrorist groups:
  1. cultural devaluation
  2. perceptions of inequality, deprivation, injustice
  3. strong hierarchy

Question 6

Cultural Devaluation

• is
• in US
• US values

Answer 6

is a process occuring when group or culture is selected by another group as a scapegoat or an ideological enemy; might consist of beliefs that other is lazy, limited intelligence, or manipulative, morally bad, dangerious enemy that is going to destroy society
−many see US as being indiffernet to world’s suffering and insentsitve to global cultural diversity and local identity; many convinced this indiff contributes to polictical suppression of poor on global basis. Some believe American culture is a real and tangible threat to cultural identities, religious affiliation, ways of life
−In the US, ppl assoc with racial, ethnic or religous groups often believe the dominant values of American society are inconsistent with their own values; vast majority either accept this or work to change the views however, some will take terroristic approach

Question 7

Perceptions of inequality, deprivation, injustice:

• the disadvantaged
• staub (conditions)
• prime candidates
• Taylor and Louis argue

Answer 7

• Disadvantaged, powerless ppl sometimes more likely to join terrorist groups to get some basic needs and gain sense of identity.
• Stuab calls these situations “difficult life conditions” charcaterized by hunger, sickness, no sense of community, lack of shelter.
  − Those with few resources have lil to lose are prime candidates for joing terror groups that promise better living conditions; promise of better living conditions and feeling sense of belonging
  −in adition to disadvantage economic and political factors, need for psych identiy draws some ppl into terror groups; what makes terrorists groups attractive is their simplistic world that offers a collective identity so it fills a psych void.

Question 8

Strong hierarchy

• most terrorist groups
• Staub calls this
• ppl who join
• summary: terrorism is learned/facilitated/maintained

Answer 8

• have strong hierarchy with leaders described as all powerful, convincing, charasimatic.
• Staub calls this charactersitc “strong repsect for authority”
• Some ppl who join simply wish to relinquish their unfulfilled selves, and submit themselves to powerful leaders
  −is a learned form of political action that is fascilitated by the social, cultural context and maintained by intrinstic rewards, group influences and indoctinration processes

Question 9

• Motives of terrorism
• roots of terrorism
• Monhan: evidence of risk factors
• Monhan: promising candidates include(4)
• therefore, research suggests terrorists have?

Answer 9

− There is no single motive for engaging in terrorism; motives are multiple and complex ranging from revenge and anger to attaing paradise, status, respect, and life everlasting
− Roots of terrorism are complex and reside in historical, political, economic, social and psych factors (psychosocial factors have been the leas studied and understood but most imp)
-little evidence of risk factors beyond nontrivial ones (age, gender) Risk factors for “common violence” (history of violence) do not typically apply to terrorists.
- include ideologies, affiliations, grievances, and moral emotions.
- strong beliefs in rightnessof their causes and willing to act on those beliefs, they have some grievnace against a group, experience strong moral emotions such as contemp or disgust

Question 10

Bandura: motives of terrorism

• explained by
• thru
• 3

Answer 10

• explained thru cognitive realm
  −Cognitive restructuring is way terrorists justify their horrific acts; a psych process that involves moral justification, euphemisitc lang, advantageious comparisons

Question 11

Moral justification

• is
• bandura: conversion into fighters

Answer 11

• enable ppl to engage in reprehensible conduct by telling themselves actions are socially worthy and have an ultimate moral and good purpose
  −conversion of socialized ppl into dedicated fighters achieved not by altering personality, aggressive drives or morals but by congitively redefining morality of killing so it can be done free from self-censuring restraints. Thru moral sanction of violent means, they see themselves as fighting ruthless oppressors or protecting values, preserving world peas, saving humanity and honoring country’s international commitments

Question 12

Euphemistic language

• is
• ex terms

Answer 12

• based on language shaping thought patterns which are based on actions. Ppl can display more cruelty and feel better about it when conduct is given neutral label.
• Terms such as waste people rather than kill, or collateral damage. Bombing missions referred to as “serving the target” and bombs called “vertically deployed anti-personal devices”

Question 13

Advantageous comparison

• is
• ex

Answer 13

is when terrorists convinced that their way of life and values are superiour to those they attack; when terrorists told and believe that enemy engages in widespread cruelties and inhumane treatment. Adv comparisons draw on history to justify violence
(ex: US seen by Arab as blameworthy for their problems bc of US policies)

Question 14

Bandura: disengagement practices (3)

Answer 14

states that other disengagment practices are also at play in developing motivations such as dehumanization, dispalcement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility

Question 15

Dehumanization

Answer 15

is based on premise that mistreating or randomly killing humanized persons increases the risks of self-condemation. Easier to kill strangers who are divested of human qualities; once dehumanized no longer viewed as persons but subhuman forms

Question 16

Displacement of responsibility

Answer 16

is when terrorists view actions as stemming form the dicates of authority rather than from own personal responsibility; avoid self-condemning reactions bc they are not personally resposible for conduct

Question 17

Deindividuation

- similar to

Answer 17

is sim to diffusion of responsibility; terrorism involves many ppl in organization performing small jobs that taken individ seem harmelss; collective sense of identiy allows member to participate in horrific actions that individ they may resist

Question 18

After 9/11 how many had stress? (2 %s)

• influences of psych reaction to terrorism (3)
• reduction of international terrorism
• causes (4)

Answer 18

• 44% of adults said that exp stress and 90% said they had some degree of stress following attack
  −Ethnic background, gender, age all influence
• is unlikely to be reduced until root cuases of violence are addressed. These cuases include real or imagined injustice in meeting basic needs for coping with difficutl life conditions, insecurity, lack of self-determination, and disrespect for one’s social identity

Question 19

Cognitive restructuring

• social psychologists say
• just-world bias
• Makiovich: terrorists with bias

Answer 19

• many ppl believe world is just place where you get what you deserve; ppl with just-world bias see a connection btwn what ppl do, are, or believe in and what happens to them
• ppl cannot believe in world governed by random events for sake of cognitive consistency; suffering of innocent ppl would be unjust. Thus when tragedy happens they tend to blame vics believing they deserved fate
• Makiovich links the same thinking pattern of terrorists: when terrorists view the current sociopolitical siuation thru just-world bias, attacks on victiims are not unjust but deserved, killing seen as right and moral

Question 20

• Disengaging personal standards

- Bandura, Staub, Milgram terms

Answer 20

-Many ppl disengage personal standards from conduct when they are told to do something by legit authority. When someone with legit authority commands someone to do something, the person is relieved of personal responsibility for conduct even if alien to their standards (displacement of responsibility by bandura) (stonrg respect for authority by Staub) (obedience to authority by Milgram)

Question 21

Bandura: 6 common disengagement practices for antisocial conduct

Answer 21

1) People don’t ordinarily engage in antisoical conduct until they have justified to themselves the rightness or morality of their actions.
2) People convince themselves that their violent acts are really trivial and not bad compared to what others have done. Advantag comparison similar
3) Power of language allows us to justify our actions with relative ease; we use euphemissms to neutralize reprehensible behavior and cause less disruption to moral beliefs
4) Diffusion of responsiblility (common in group violence) Just following orders or crowd; displaces responsibility for one’s action to other or to forces outside self
5) To not even think about consequence of one’s actions; convince self that consequences arent imp; detach themselves from aftermath of violent actions
6) Dehumanize the victim; enemies labeled vicicous animals; removes all human dignfying qualities from victim. Bandura stated many conditions of contemp life are conductive to dehumanization- bureaucratization, automation, urbanization and high social mobility lead ppl to relate to others in anymous impersonal ways

Question 22

Moral development

• difficult aspect/so?
• moral development refers to
• however
• violent cognitive complex ppl

Answer 22

One of most difficult aspects to understand about terrorism is willingness of supposedly capable leaders to sacrifice lives of themselves and others. To answer some look at moral development, a construct related to cognitive complexity

• the gradual development of a person’s concepts of right and wrong/ conscience, ethical and religious values, social attitudes, and behavior; a person who is highly cognitively complex is usally at a high level of moral development
• ppl who are cognitive complex in one task (leadership) may not show cognitive complex for another (moral development)
• Unlikely that cog complex ppl engage in reprehesnible violence against innocent vics can do so unless they justify the morality of actions

Question 23

Devlopmental Psychology

• focuses on
• Piaget
• Kohlberg
• similar to Piaget

Answer 23

• on moral development of moral judegement and reasoning
• studied how ppl mentally symbolize social rules and make judgments based on them; hypothesized that morality develops in series of stages, each depending on prev
• revised Piagets formulation and believed that morality process is fundamentally concerned with justices and fairness and is a process that continues thru lifetime.
• Sim to Piaget, he said moral development evolves in sequence of stages, sequence is invariant, each person must develop features, skills and judgemens of stage before moving on.

Question 24

• Kohlberg’s stages?
• progression of stages
• focuses of each stage (early/late)

Answer 24

three primary stages: preconventional morality, conventional morality, post conventional morality
- People progress thru stages at diff rates and at diff ages
1. Early preconventional- Avoid punishment
Late -Fair exchange; get something in return
2. Early conventional- Approval from others
Late- Duty, obedience to rules
3. Early postconventional- Rules important, but can be broken if questionable
Late- Universal principles of justice and ethics apply

Question 25

Early preconventional stage

- age

Answer 25

you behave on baisis of getting rewards and avoiding punishment; no development any notion of W/R, no morals. This orientation toward reward and punishment are characterstics of children under age 7 and some adults

Question 26

Late preconventional stage

Answer 26

the right action is one that satisfies own needs; this stage reflects selfish orientation that considers needs of others only to extent favors will be returned

Question 27

Early conventional stage

Answer 27

referred to as good boy/girl orientation; behavior directed toward gaining social approval and acceptance and much conformity to stereotyped images of what majority regards as good behavior. Conscience (ability to feel guilt) begins to emerge

Question 28

Late conventional stage

Answer 28

orientation is to do things out of duty and to respect authority of others; aware of rules necessary for smoothing funct society; socially approved behavior motivated by andticpation of dishonor and blame if one is derlict in their duty. At this stage there is an avg level of moral development and where many young recruiters of terrorist begin journey

Question 29

Early post conventional stage

Answer 29

• this stage only reached by small sector of population
• requires ability to be reasonably abstract and possess good cog ability; correct action is determined by understanding of gen rights of indivd as compared to standards that have been agreed upon by society.
• person sees flexibility in laws of society

Question 30

Late post conventional stage

Answer 30

person has decisions toward conscience and toward self-chosen ethic principles appealing to logical comprehnesivness, universality, and consistency. Moral principles are abstract and ethical and reflect universal principles of justice and of equal human rights. Require cog complexity.

Question 31

Criticism of kohlberg’s theory (3)

Answer 31

1. Many argue that it emphasizes a justice perspective to the exclusion of empathy or other moral values such as caring and sensitivity to others.
2. only focued on males; now found that females outperfom males on moral development espec in empathy and prosocial behavior
3. developed his stages within context of westerner’s concept of justice so may not be applicable to Islamic fundamentalism

Question 32

Fundamentalism

• major approach
• ex

Answer 32

is the dogmatic ability to see the world in black and white terms. - AlQaeda groups tend to have very narrow def of what constitues proper muslim

Question 33

• High moral development ppl?

- ex

Answer 33

• Persons of high moral development have often broken laws on basis of ethical principles
• for ex civil disobedience involves the breaking of a law that one considers unjust. Can also be broken to bring attention to what person considers greater evil. Although we don’t agree on their tactics we often don’t question moral development of those who use civil disobedience (but draw line at violence) therefore, its hard to conceptualize terrorists as ppl advancded in moral development although they believe they are