Understanding the psychology of terrorism is a problem of atypical human behavior, and it is crucial for developing effective policies to manage the risk of catastrophic attacks. Despite the compelling need for such insight, the field of terrorism studies, particularly from a psychological perspective, is largely characterized by theoretical speculation based on subjective interpretation of anecdotal observations, with very few controlled empirical studies having been conducted. This lack of systematic scholarly investigation means that policymakers often design counterterrorism strategies without the benefit of facts regarding the origin of terrorist behavior, or worse, are guided by theoretical presumptions presented as facts.
A significant challenge in this endeavor is the great heterogeneity of terrorists. Terrorism itself is complex and controversial to define, with over 100 academic definitions existing due to the variety of behaviors, motivations, and perspectives involved. Terrorist actors can be characterized across multiple variables, including perpetrator number, sponsorship, relation to authority, locale, military status, spiritual/financial motivation, political ideology, hierarchical role, willingness to die, target, and methodology. Crucially, a single “terrorist mind” does not exist; rather, inquiries are likely to uncover a spectrum of terrorist minds, with heterogeneity in temperaments, ideologies, thought processes, and cognitive capacities across different political categories, hierarchical levels, and roles within groups. Individuals with different predispositions may assume various roles within a terrorist hierarchy, playing their parts due to profoundly different psychological factors.
This article, “The Mind of the Terrorist: A Review and Critique of Psychological Approaches,” aims to address these gaps by reviewing the state-of-the-art of available theories and data regarding the psychology of terrorism. It critically examines published theories of the psychological bases of terrorism, reviews psychosocial data describing terrorists, defines the limits and impediments to inquiry in this field, and offers a preliminary political-psychological classification of terrorism. By advancing a more scientific study of terrorist mentalities, psychological scholarship has the potential to mitigate the risk of future attacks.
Reference for the article:
Victoroff, J. (2005). The mind of the terrorist: A review and critique of psychological approaches. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 49(1), 3–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002704272040
