Social Science and Historical Perspectives by Jack David Eller

Author:Jack David Eller [Eller, Jack David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, General
ISBN: 9781317198246
Google: bwUxDQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-10-04T03:23:58+00:00

Disciplinary Case #4: Psychology of Terrorism

Ask most people for an explanation of terrorist behavior and they will give you a psychological explanation, typically that terrorists are irrational or crazy or at least angry and hateful. And no doubt this profile fits some individual terrorists. However, as in the previous chapter, if a mature and educated person makes a better terrorist, then presumably so does a sane person.

There has been a great deal of research on the psychology of terrorism— or of terrorists—some of it supporting the popular pathological view. Richard Pearlstein, for instance, in his The Mind of the Political Terrorist, concluded that “the individual who becomes and remains a political terrorist generally appears to be psychologically molded by certain narcissistic personality disturbances” (1991: ix). However, terrorism expert Martha Crenshaw, writing in the journal Political Psychology, countered that

most analysts of terrorism do not think that personality factors account for terrorist behavior, nor do they see significant gender differences. One of the basic research findings of the field is that terrorism is primarily a group activity. It is typically not the result of psychopathology or a single personality type. Shared ideological commitment and group solidarity are much more important determinants of terrorist behavior than individual characteristics.

(2000: 409)

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