Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:59:00.480Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Organizational structures and practices are better predictors of suicide terror threats than individual psychological dispositions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2014

Hector Qirko
Hector Qirko*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29424-0001. [email protected]://qirkoh.people.cofc.edu/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , August 2014 , pp. 374 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andersson, H. & Lundborg, P. (2007) Perception of own death risk: An analysis of road-traffic and overall mortality risks. Journal of Risk Uncertainty 34:67–84.Google Scholar
Atran, S. (2003) Genesis of suicide terrorism. Science 299:1534–39. Available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/299/5612/1534.full Google Scholar
Atran, S. (2013) Black and white and red all over: How the hyperkinetic media is breeding a new generation of terrorists. Foreign Policy. April 22. Available at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/22/black_and_white_and_red_all_over_boston_bombing_terrorists_media (Online publication).Google Scholar
Buss, D. M. (1997) Human social motivation in evolutionary perspective: Grounding terror management theory. Psychological Inquiry 8:22–26.Google Scholar
Ditto, P. H. (2009) Passion, reason and necessity: A quantity-of-processing view of motivated reasoning. In: Delusion and self-deception: Affective and motivation influences on belief formation, ed. Bayne, T. & Fernandez, J., pp. 23–54. Taylor and Francis.Google Scholar
Emlen, S. T. (1995) An evolutionary theory of the family. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 92:8092–99.Google Scholar
Emlen, S. T. (1997) Predicting family dynamics in social vertebrates. In: Behavioural ecology: An evolutionary approach, 4th edition, ed. Krebs, J. R. & Davies, N. B., pp. 228–53. Blackwell Science.Google Scholar
Hamilton, W. D. (1964) The genetical evolution of social behavior, I and II. Journal of Theoretical Biology 7:1–16; 17–52.Google Scholar
Johnson, G. R. (1986) Kin Selection, socialization, and patriotism: An integrating theory. Politics and the Life Sciences 4:127–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, G. R. (1989) The role of kin recognition mechanisms in patriotic socialization: Further reflections. Politics and the Life Sciences 8:62–69.Google Scholar
Lankford, A. (2013c) The myth of martyrdom: What really drives suicide bombers, rampage shooter, and other self-destructive killers. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Madsen, E., Tunney, R., Fieldman, G., Plotkin, H., Dunbar, R. I., Richardson, J.-M. & McFarland, D. (2007) Kinship and altruism: A cross-cultural experimental study. British Journal of Psychology 98:339–59.Google Scholar
Merari, A. (2005) Suicide terrorism. In: Assessment, treatment, and prevention of suicidal behavior, ed. Yufit, R. I. & Lester, D., pp. 431–53. Wiley.Google Scholar
Merari, A. (2010) Driven to death: Psychological and social aspects of suicide terrorism. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Navarrete, C. D. & Fessler, D. M. T. (2005) Normative bias and adaptive challenges: A relational approach to coalitional psychology and a critique of terror management theory. Evolutionary Psychology 3:297–325.Google Scholar
Nock, M. K., Park, J. M., Finn, C. T., Deliberto, T. L., Dour, H. J. & Banaji, M. R. (2010) Measuring the suicidal mind: Implicit cognition predicts suicidal behavior. Psychological Science 21:511–17.Google Scholar
Pape, R. A. (2005) Dying to win: The strategic logic of suicide terrorism. Random House.Google Scholar
Park, J. H. (2007) Persistent misunderstandings of inclusive fitness and kin selection: Their ubiquitous appearance in social psychology textbooks. Evolutionary Psychology 5:860–73.Google Scholar
Qirko, H. N. (2009) Altruism in suicide terrorism organizations. Zygon 44(2):289–322. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.2009.01001.x.Google Scholar
Qirko, H. N. (2013) Induced altruism in religious, military, and terrorist organizations. Cross-Cultural Research 47(2):131–61. doi:10.1177/1069397112471804.Google Scholar
Trivers, R. (1985) Social evolution. Benjamin/Cummings.Google Scholar
von Hippel, W. & Trivers, R. (2011) The evolution and psychology of self-deception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34(1):1–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed