The Psychological Explanation of Terrorism

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The advantages of the psychology of terrorism
Limitations of the psychology of terrorism
Conclusions
Reference List

Introduction

Terrorism can be defined as an act of violence, terror, or aggression whose objective is to achieve coercion and fear in non-violent individuals. However, there is no generally accepted definition of terrorism because of its broad and extensive application in different circumstances and behaviors.

Therefore, according to the constitutional meaning given in the Terrorism Act of 2000 in the United Kingdom, terrorism entails those actions carried out by non-state individuals with the aim of influencing the government’s policies and decisions besides intimidating the general public (Randy 2004, p. 9). These terrorist actions include violence against individuals, damage to property, engaging in activities that endanger or threaten the security of other people, and the use of firearms to threaten the State or its citizens.

On the other hand, terrorism can be sub-divided into several categories, which include terrorist activities carried out by regimes and governments; non-state terrorism, national terrorism, and international terrorism (Moghadam 2006, p. 18). Moreover, terrorism as a whole can be categorized into corrigible and incorrigible terrorist acts.

Under corrigible terrorism, there is always a way of reaching a compromise between the two conflicting parties, thus ending violence and aggression. However, under incorrigible terrorism, the terrorist group employs maximalist approaches in attacking their target and the only solution to stopping their activities is to use force in containing violence and aggression (Schmid & Jongman 2005, p. 33).

Therefore, terrorism is a broad phenomenon that is driven by ideological (Political and religious), social, and economic factors. Furthermore, there are different types of violent and aggressive behaviors associated with terrorism. Thus, it is not possible to indeed underpin the underlying motivations and determinants of terrorist activities.

Furthermore, there is no generally accepted theoretical and conceptual explanation of the motivations and determinants of terrorist activities. Consequently, many nations in the world are forced to employ a large amount of national resources in trying to eradicate or prevent terrorism but with little success (Randy 2004, p. 12). However, many psychologists argue that terrorism has a psychological basis as envisioned in the psychoanalytic and the non-psychoanalytic theories of terrorism.

On the other hand, the opponents of the psychological claims identify several pitfalls of the psychology of terrorism. This paper examines the advantages and limitations of the psychology of terrorism with the aim of showing that psychology can actually explain why a normal person perpetrates terrorist activities against others.

The advantages of the psychology of terrorism

Being a social science that studies human behavior, psychology has a lot to offer in terms of examining the motivations and causes of terrorist activities. Early studies in the field of psychology of terrorism identify narcissism as a possible approach towards explaining the origin of terrorism.

Here, the proponents of the psychoanalytic theories of terrorism argue that there is the need to develop strong attachments and relationships with infants during the early stages of their life-span development. This ensures that the infants undertake all the normal stages of development besides sharing the feeling of parental love (Crenshaw 2001, p. 21).

This is the basis of the narcissism theory, which holds that an infant who is deprived of parental or societal love develops an altered self-image, hostility, and an abnormal self-identity that culminates into narcissistic injuries. These injuries create feelings of anger, violence, and aggression in the affected individuals who tend to spend most of their time trying to eliminate what they perceive to be the cause of their inner pain and injuries.

Despite that the narcissistic theory offers a possible cause of violence and hostility characteristic of many terrorists, it fails in capturing the possible motivation of all types of violence associated with terrorism. Therefore, current psychoanalytic studies use different approaches to explain the causes of terrorism.

Besides, most psychoanalytic studies indicate that terrorists opt to engage in terrorist activities because of different reasons. Also, normal persons become terrorists in different ways and with different motivations. Therefore, most psychologists argue that in the quest to underpin the possible causes of terrorist activities, there is the need to discriminate between the motivations for joining, being retained, and disserting terrorist factions (Schmid & Jongman 2005, p. 61).

As a result, current psychoanalytic studies propose the identity theory as one of the psychoanalytic theories of terrorism. These theories were put forward by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) who in agreement with other neo-Freudian psychologists argue that the human mind and its associated mental processes are unconscious. Therefore, the psychological process of life-span development follows a distinct and highly organized procedure involving several stages that depend on one’s childhood desires (Crenshaw 2001, p. 405).

In case any one of these stages is omitted, or an individual’s childhood fantasies are unresolved, the affected person becomes psychologically distressed.

According to the identity theory, individuals who are bound to perpetrate terrorist activities are usually young and energetic persons suffering from low self-esteem, which subsequently alters their way of thinking in that they are willing to do anything which makes them honored. Therefore, the search for self-identity can make a normal person vulnerable to becoming a potential terrorist.

Furthermore, psychoanalytic studies show that there is no one personality that can be used to identify potential terrorists. However, most terrorists share common biographies characterized by cases of humiliation, childhood abuses, and social injustices.

These histories may be the possible causes of violence and aggression perpetrated by most terrorists against their victims. Additionally, the paranoia theory holds that individuals with paranoid personality challenges develop feelings of distrust and suspicion towards other individuals and they are bound to develop ill motives towards these people (Schmid & Jongman 2005, p. 61).

Therefore, according to most psychologists, these individuals also have specific personality attributes such as excitement-seekers; action-oriented personalities; violent and aggressive personalities; and social failures. These characteristics are associated with the increased probability of these individuals organizing themselves in terrorist groups to achieve their malevolent motives.

Furthermore, the paranoia theory agrees with other observational studies conducted by psychologists on terrorists suffering from narcissistic personality challenges, which shows that terrorists must have encountered splitting experiences before they decided to engage in terrorist activities (Moghadam 2006, p. 20). Here, splitting experiences entails the pain and narcissistic injuries that individuals are exposed to earlier in life. Therefore, these persons suffer from a damaged image of their personal identities and inner pain.

Inside of these individuals, the conflict between what is good and bad is unresolved and thus, one forms wounds that are externalized through blaming others for one’s pain, weaknesses, financial problems, and low self-esteem. Also, terrorists tend to compare their inner weaknesses against the perceived strength and power of their enemies and thus they will spend most of their life-time trying to destroy the inner weaknesses through aggression and violence (Crenshaw 2001, p. 410).

Most importantly, the discussions above show that terrorists are normal, intelligent, and critical planners of their activities. This refutes any possibilities of terrorists being mentally ill (Hoffman 1999, p. 337; Hoffman 2006, p. 409). Therefore, there must be a driving force that keeps terrorists together in promoting their course while destroying their perceived enemies.

One of the possible drives for terrorist activities is their political and religious ideologies. In most terrorist factions, there are religious ideologies providing the moral justification of terrorist activities. Here, psychologists claim that in normal societies, there are rules and sanctions that prevent individuals from acting maliciously (Wilkinson 1997, p. 415).

However, under certain circumstances, violence and aggression can be justified in the society relative to its moral objective as observable in the histories of the Islamic religion, Christianity, and Judaism. Moreover, the extremist ideologies keep the terrorists together in groups and any misunderstanding, mistrust, or violation of the factions’ rules can threaten the group’s existence.

Limitations of the psychology of terrorism

From the discussions above, it is worth noting that the psychology of terrorism studies the behavior of terrorists that can be attributed to their acts of violence and aggression. Relative to studies conducted on the behavior of terrorists, it is evident that there are different types of violent and aggressive behaviors. Also, the studies show that not all violent behaviors can lead to terrorist activities.

Therefore, psychology fails to draw a clear link between violence and terrorist activities. Furthermore, most the psychoanalytic studies claim that most terrorists use certain ideological beliefs to perpetrate violence against their enemies.

However, it is possible for someone to show that not all extremist political and religious ideologies are based on violence. Besides, it is not logical to claim that all extremists are violent. In some cases, some extremist ideologies are in place to drive economic and cultural agendas. Therefore, there is the need to show the ultimate purpose of the extremist ideologies in terrorism, which psychology fails to provide (Abrahams, 2008, pp. 86-89).

Besides, psychology attempts to show how normal persons end up becoming terrorists but fails in terms of providing a clear explanation of how terrorist factions identify and recruit their members. Historical studies of terrorism show that most terrorist factions are largely found in regions where the greatest number of people are deprived of national resources or in areas where the people are dissatisfied with the activities of the national or international governments.

Here, the psychological theories may fail to show how a whole population turns violent and decides to engage in terrorist activities (Wilkinson 2006, p. 23).

Relative to the psychoanalytic and non-psychoanalytic theories of terrorism, most psychologists point a finger at the childhood histories, life experiences, and biographies of terrorists as the possible determinants of an individual’s behavioral changes as one develops.

Thus, psychology claims that any possible injustices along the developmental line of an individual can make one to revenge against the perceived sources of the injustices. Here, psychology does not indicate that a person can do harm oneself in the process of seeking justice. Therefore, it is not possible to explain the motivations behind suicide bombing through psychology (Randy 2004, p. 35).

Generally, the psychological studies of terrorism are wanting in terms of providing one possible definition of terrorism. Studies show that in their quest to provide a clear meaning of terrorism, most psychologists have come up with more than 100 definitions (Randy 2004, p. 47).

This makes it impossible for anyone individual to collect a single coherent body of knowledge concerning terrorism. Besides, the current psychoanalytic studies in terrorism are not based on any data and thus, they cannot be reproduced. Lastly, most psychoanalysts do not provide any practical implications or applicability of their studies because most terrorists cannot be contacted in case other researchers wish to verify the claims made (Silke, 2001, p. 14).

However, it is worth noting that most psychoanalytic studies are practical and that there is a high possibility of operationalizing them in future studies. Besides, the advantages of using psychology in explaining the motivations and determinants behind terrorist activities outweigh its limitations. It then follows that psychology is a possible starting point in the quest to underpin the possible causes of terrorist activities.

Conclusions

The paper examines the possibility of using psychology in the quest to explain the possible causes and motivations of terrorist activities by considering the advantages and limitations of the psychology of terrorism. From the discussions above, terrorism is defined as the act of violence perpetrated against other innocent and non-violent individuals.

Furthermore, it is notable that psychology offers several avenues upon which the motivations and determinants of terrorism can be examined. For instance, through the psychoanalytic and non-psychoanalytic theories, it is possible to show the link between the process of life-span development and the probability that an individual will become a potential terrorist. The theories that attempt to explain the origins of terrorism include the identity theory, the narcissism theory, the paranoia theory, and the humiliation-revenge theory.

However, basing scientific studies on theories has proven inapplicable in some circumstances where violent behaviors translate to terrorist activities. Furthermore, many psychologists have failed in agreeing upon one universally accepted definition of terrorism that can guide the collection of a body of knowledge, which explains the possible causes and motivations of terrorism.

In addition, most psychoanalytic studies are not based on statistical data and thus, it is not possible to reproduce them to determine their applicability and practical implications. In spite of these limitations, psychology is a possible line of investigation for researchers wishing to explore the possible determinants and causes of terrorist activities.

Reference List

Abrahms, M 2008, ‘What terrorists really want: terrorist motives and counterterrorism strategy’ International Security, vol.32, no. 4, pp. 86–89.

Crenshaw, M 2001, ‘The psychology of terrorism: An agenda for the 21st century’, Political Psychology, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 405-420.

Hoffman, B 1999, ‘The mind of the terrorist: Perspectives from social psychology’, Psychiatric Annals, vol. 29, no. 6, pp. 337-340.

Hoffman, B 2006, Inside Terrorism (2^nd ed.), Columbia University Press, New York.

Moghadam, A 2006, The roots of terrorism, Infobase Publishing Ltd., New York.

Randy, B 2004, Psychology of terrorism, University of Florida, Tampa, Florida.

Schmid, PA & Jongman, AJ 2005, Political terrorism, Routledge, New York.

Silke, A 2001, ‘The devil you know: Continuing problems with research on terrorism’, Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 1-14.

Wilkinson, P 1997, ‘The Media and Terrorism: a Reassessment’, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.9, no.2, pp.51–64.

Wilkinson, P 2006, Terrorism vs. democracy: the liberal State response (2^nd ed.), Routledge, New York.

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