Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Terrorism – Psychological aspects'

Terrorism poses a significant challenge for psychology. Motivation to engage in such violent and anti-nonnative behavior has yet to be understood. The two studies described in the present thesis examined what psychological motivations might account for peoples' involvement in terrorism. Study 1 explored the collective narratives of participants with ties to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Participants' narratives conveyed the explicit theme of justice and the implicit theme of identity as motives for extreme violence. Based on these findings, study 2 investigated if social identity and justice motives would exceed a control condition in inciting participation in terrorism. In a laboratory setting, participants were recruited to partake in a fictitious terrorism plot. Recruitment that emphasized social identity motives was relatively more compelling for participants than justice motives. Results for both studies warrant further research into the psychological role that justice and identity might play in the use terrorism.

Two hundred and fifty-three subjects were used in an experiment to try to determine how differences in news media presentations affect the reader's view of terrorism. Two stories about a terrorist attack were used, one describing a bombing, the other a hijacking. Both stories had two versions using no one injured or eight innocent people injured. One group of subjects was given no additional information about terrorism. The second group was given information after the description that emphasized the salience of terrorism. The third group received information that de-emphasized the seriousness of terrorism. Subjects were also given a questionnaire designed to measure authoritarianism and one to measure conservatism. It was found that subjects scoring high on authoritarianism or conservativism favored more severe punishment for terrorists than did those scoring lower on the two scales. Findings did not support the hypothesis that providing people with information about terrorism could lessen the impact of terrorist events.

This item is only available in print in the UCF Libraries. If this is your Honors Thesis, you can help us make it available online for use by researchers around the world by following the instructions on the distribution consent form at http://library.ucf<br>Bachelors<br>Arts and Sciences<br>Psychology

The terrorist attack of September 11th has been widely viewed as a traumatic event. Traumatic events have demonstrated psychological, emotional, behavioral, developmental and physiological detriment to individuals. Among older adults there may be compounding factors such as losses of function, resources, friends, family, and support.

This study examines the phenomenon of abusive violence (AV) in the context of the American Post-9/11 Counter-terrorism and Counter-insurgency campaigns. Previous research into atrocities by states and their agents has largely come from examinations of totalitarian regimes with well-developed torture and assassination institutions. The mechanisms influencing willingness to do harm have been examined in experimental studies of obedience to authority and the influences of deindividuation, dehumanization, context and system. This study used Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to examine the lived experience of AV reported by fourteen American military and intelligence veterans. Participants were AV observers, objectors, or abusers. Subjects described why AV appeared sensible at the time, how methods of violence were selected, and what sense they made of their experiences after the fact. Accounts revealed the roles that frustration, fear, anger and mission pressure played to prompt acts of AV that ranged from the petty to heinous. Much of the AV was tied to a shift in mission view from macro strategic aims of CT and COIN to individual and small group survival. Routine hazing punishment soldiers received involving forced exercise and stress positions made similar acts inflicted on detainees unrecognizable as abusive. Overt and implied permissiveness from military superiors enabled AV extending to torture, and extra-judicial killings. Attempting to overcome feelings of vulnerability, powerlessness and rage, subjects enacted communal punishment through indiscriminate beatings and shooting. Participants committed AV to amuse themselves and humiliate their enemies; some killed detainees to force confessions from others, conceal misdeeds, and avoid routine paperwork. Participants realized that AV practices were unnecessary, counter-productive, and self-damaging. Several reduced or halted their AV as a result. The lived experience of AV left most respondents feeling guilt, shame, and inadequacy, whether they committed abuse or failed to stop it.

Understanding temporal relations among posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom dimensions has received increasing attention in research. However, current findings in this area are limited by group-level approaches, which are based on inter-individual variation. PTSD is a heterogeneous syndrome and symptoms are likely to vary across individuals and time. Thus, it is important to examine temporal relations among PTSD symptom dimensions as dynamic processes and at the level of intra-individual variation. The aim of the present study was to capture temporal dynamics among PTSD symptom dimensions at an individual level using unified structural equation modeling (uSEM). World Trade Center (WTC) 9/11 responders (N = 202) oversampled for current PTSD (18.3% met criteria in past month) were recruited from the Long Island site of the WTC health program. Using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), PTSD symptoms were assessed three times a day over seven consecutive days. The person-specific temporal relations among PTSD symptom dimensions were estimated with individual-level uSEM. For the sample as a whole, hyperarousal played a key role in driving the other three symptom dimensions longitudinally, with the strongest effect in intrusive symptoms. However, daily temporal relations among PTSD symptoms were idiosyncratic. Although hyperarousal was a strong predictor of subsequent symptom severity, only 33.95% of the sample showed this predictive effect while others showed more evident temporal relations between intrusion and avoidance. Implications for personalized health care and recommendations for future research using individual-level uSEM in psychopathology are discussed.

Following the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, many turned to the field of psychology for greater understanding of the impact of such events and guidance in supporting our citizens. This study sought to gain greater understanding of the differential impact of the September 11th attack on individuals by investigating the influence of age, psychological hardiness, and repression versus sensitization as forms of coping behavior on psychological health. Both an initial cross-sectional sample (172 young adults & 231older adults) and a short-term longitudinal follow-up (39 young adults & 58 older adults) were included in the study. Older age, psychological hardiness and the use of a repressing coping style were found to each individually relate to greater resilience/less dysfunction at both time one and two. For young adults, high hardy repressors faired best, followed by high hardy sensitizers. Low hardy young adults demonstrated similar levels of dysfunction regardless of coping style (repressions/sensitization). For older adults, coping style impacted both high and low hardy individuals equally, with high hardy repressors demonstrating greater functioning. This study attempted to gain greater insight into explanations for these and previous findings of greater resilience among older adults. In explaining the greater resilience of older adults, it seems that coping style is highly important, while hardiness and the impact of history-graded events does not explain the resilience of older adults.

The purpose of this study was to examine what, if any, symptoms of a traumatic stress reaction were still being experienced by police officers, as a result of the events of September 11, 2001, who were geographically distant from the events of that day. Participants included 60 police officers at two southern California law enforcement agencies.

Why do ordinary people become supportive of violent, extremist ideologies? Over the past several years, tens of thousands of individuals across the world have become attracted to propaganda disseminated by the Islamic State (ISIS), and many have left their home countries to join the organization. This dissertation closely examines possible explanations for pro-ISIS radicalization in Europe and the United States. I argue that anti-Muslim hostility is an important driver of pro-ISIS radicalization, leading individuals who feel isolated to become attracted to the organization's propaganda. I also contend that groups like ISIS are aware of this pattern, and thus seek to purposefully provoke hostility against potential supporters by carrying out terrorist attacks. I maintain that efforts to stop radicalization should focus on ways to reduce hostility and increase inclusion of minorities in the West. The various dissertation papers empirically examine different aspects of these arguments. In the first paper, I examine whether anti-Muslim hostility might be driving pro-ISIS radicalization in Europe, by analyzing the online activity of thousands of ISIS sympathizers in France, Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. Matching online radicalization indicators with offline data on vote share for far-right, anti-Muslim parties, I show that the intensity of anti-Muslim hostility at the local (neighborhood/municipality) level strongly correlates with support for ISIS on Twitter. In addition, I show that events that stir anti-Muslim sentiment, such as terrorist attacks and anti-Muslim protests, lead ISIS sympathizers to significantly increase pro-ISIS rhetoric, especially in areas with high far-right support. In the second paper, I argue that armed groups strategically use terrorism to manipulate levels of anti-Muslim hostility in Western countries. I test whether terrorism leads to greater expressions of anti-Muslim hostility using data on thirty-six terrorist attacks perpetrated by radical jihadists in the West from 2010 to 2016, examining how they shaped anti-Muslim attitudes among individuals in targeted countries. I find that individuals systematically and significantly increase posting of anti-Muslim content on social media after exposure to terrorism. The effect spikes immediately after attacks, decays over time, but remains significantly higher than pre-attack levels up to a month after the events. The results also reveal that the impact of terrorist attacks on anti-Muslim rhetoric is similar for individuals who already expressed hostility to Muslims before the attacks and those who did not. Finally, I observe that the impact of terrorist attacks on anti-Muslim hostility increases with attacks resulting in greater numbers of casualties. In the third paper, I examine what might be done to stop online radicalization and support for ISIS in the West. I collected data on community engagement events performed in the United States by the Obama Administration, which aimed to increase trust and relationships between the Muslim population and the American government, and combined them with high-frequency, geo-located panel data on tens of thousands of individuals in America who follow Islamic State accounts on Twitter. By analyzing over 100 community engagement events in a Difference-in-Differences design, I find that community engagement activities are systematically and significantly associated with a reduction in pro-ISIS rhetoric on Twitter among individuals located in event areas. In addition, the observed negative relationship between community engagement activities and pro-ISIS rhetoric is stronger in areas that held a large number of these events.

This study (N = 557) explored how empathy towards victims and perpetrators of terrorism were associated with broadband (e.g., HEXACO traits; Dark Triad traits) and narrowband individual differences (e.g., beliefs in a competitive and dangerous world, social dominance orientation, religiousness, and right-wing authoritarianism) in samples drawn from Turkish and Australian undergraduates. Country differences revealed Turkish participants were higher in Dark Triad traits, social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, and religiousness than Australian participants. Australian participants had more empathy towards both victims and perpetrators of terrorism than Turkish participants. Sex differences in personality traits showed men displayed a “darker” personality, than the “lighter” personality of women. The implications of these findings were discussed in relation to the current threat of terrorism in Australia and Turkey. This study provided one of the first quantitative, cross-cultural assessments of empathy towards terrorism using the methods of personality psychology.

The unprecedented nature of the September 11 terrorist attack in 2001 heralded a decade that would see numerous high-profile assaults on western targets and interests. While Australia did not experience acts of domestic terrorism during this period, many of its citizens were killed or injured in a spate of regional attacks; large-scale bombings aimed at western tourists in Bali (2002 and 2005), bombings in Jakarta targeting the Australian Embassy (2004) and Marriot Hotel (2009), and mass shootings in Mumbai (2008) and the Westgate shopping complex in Kenya (2013). These well-publicised incidents have heightened concerns about such attacks within Australia, and raised community expectations for effective planning to protect public safety and health should this occur. Research from countries with recent major incidents highlights that people frequently overestimate their risk of personal harm related to terrorism threats. Such perceptions are associated with higher levels of distress and potentially maladaptive responses, such as location avoidance, altered transport use and increased substance use. Importantly, specific demographic groups may be more susceptible to these outcomes and their impacts on quality of life. A central challenge for emergency planners is to deploy educational programs and risk communication, pre and post incident, which can address these threat perceptions and promote more adaptive responses. Research that identifies sub-populations at greater risk of adverse affective and behavioural outcomes, as well as those factors that increase preparedness, can critically inform the development of such interventions as part of community resilience strategies for terrorism. Less is known about terrorism threat perceptions and responses in ‘pre-incident’ countries such as Australia. Canadians reported low levels of concern and preparedness in the period after the September 11 attack, despite their common border with the United States. The appraisal of local and wider geopolitical factors affecting Canada was found to strongly influence risk assessments. Such findings suggest that recent, context-specific data is needed to inform national planning and interventions. Australia’s ‘mixed’ exposure indicates that data about two primary groups is needed to inform its planning: threat perceptions and likely responses of the general public in a context of potential threat; and the support needs of individuals directly affected by an attack. This thesis provides such data, presenting six recently published studies which examined these differentially exposed populations.

,, What is despicable on terrorists is not so much their extremism as intolerance and disregard for others. " Robert Francis Kennedy In my opinion this quote best reflects the core of terrorism, which is based on extremism and its supporters that are trying to achieve their goals by using all possible and for us often impossible instruments. The purpose of this work is to explain terrorism and terrorists in the terms of their behavior and actions and try to reveal the true motives and mindset of advocates the terrorist acts and attempt to find the exemplary and decisive punishment which could potentially have an impact on their future actions. I decided to investigate this issue after seeing several events connected with the terrorist organization, Islamic State, whose horrific crimes shocked the world such as the murder of US journalist James Foley, attacks in several locations in Paris and the proclamation of Caliphate on the territory of Syria and Iraq. In the following chapters I will endeavor to outline the terrorism in terms of its definition, typology and specific types of groups. Furthermore, I will explain ways of terrorists' thinking and contemplation and their motives for terrorist acts. Finally, I will attempt to describe the entrance to a terrorist organization and the process of...

Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) represent one of the longest wartime deployments in the history of the American military. To date, 1.6 million American military members have deployed. Of these, an estimated 300,000 have returned with a mental health condition, such as depression or PTSD. The Department of Defense has established a robust screening program to identify and track deployment-related physical and psychiatric illnesses. The Post-Deployment Health Reassessment (PDHRA) is a primary tool to identify physical and psychiatric risk following a deployment. The PDHRA is a web-based survey, which is administered between 90-180 days after a deployment. This study seeks to evaluate the psychometric properties and clinical utility of the Post-Deployment Health Reassessment (PDHRA) for accurately identifying truama and depression among Airmen following a deployment. Descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to address separate research aims. Study aims assessed the impact of deployment on military members and the clinical utility and psychometric properties of the Post-Deployment Health Reassessment. Findings suggest that the Post-Deployment Health Reassessment is a useful triage tool to identify trauma and depression among Airmen following deployment. The study makes recommendations for improving the clinical utility and psychometric properties of the Post-Deployment Health Reassessment (PDHRA).<br>text