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Martyrdom's would-be myth buster

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2014

Scott Atran
Scott Atran*
Affiliation:
CNRS – Institut Jean Nicod, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, [email protected]://sitemaker.umich.edu/satran/home
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Abstract

Lankford overgeneralizes individual psychology from limited, fragmentary and doubtful materials, and underplays strategic, ideological, and group dynamical factors. His speculative claims manifest a form of fundamental attribution error: the tendency – especially evident in popular attachment to moral presumptions of individual responsibility and volition – to overestimate effects of personality and underestimate situational effects in explaining social behavior. The book's appeal may owe more to ideological preference than to interests of science or national security.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , August 2014 , pp. 362 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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