Psychological Theories of Terrorism

Psychological Theories of Terrorism

Terrorism has existed for long even before the advent of recorded history. Terrorism clearly indicates that the nature of man has not changed, but three significant issues including commerce globalization, transfer of information and travel. The definition of terrorism has been a difficult issue because of the heterogeneity of the behaviors of the terrorists. However, two components characterize the contemporary definitions. The first is the fact that terrorist activities include aggression against non-combatants. The second fact is that the terrorist action is meant to influence a target audience and change their behaviors to serve the terrorists’ interests. There are three major psychological theories that explain terrorism including, psychological/ psychopathology Theory, Rational Choice Theory and Frustration-Aggression Theory.

The psychological approaches to terrorism focus on terrorist profiles, recruitment to terrorist gangs, motivations and beliefs the psychopathological theory assumes that terrorists are mentally ill or insane individuals. This approach explains the mindset of terrorists and that terrorists commit violent and aggressive acts because of psychological factors. This approach assumes that terrorists have a special psycho-logic forces that is constructed to rationalize the aggressive and violent acts. This approach alienates acts of terrorism from ideological, political, economic and social factors that may influence one to become a terrorist. For example, this approach also assumes that terrorists exhibit Axis 1 disorders such as anxiety disorders, schizophrenia and major depression disorders. The theory also assumes that terrorists are antisocial individuals. For example, the psychopathological approach assumes that the German student who joined the Red Army Faction in the 1970s and stood against his own was an antisocial person (Victoroff, Feb., 2005).

The Rational Choice Theory of terrorism was established from economics and applied mathematics, specifically from the game theory. Here, the game theory posits that the choices or actions of a person depend on the choices of other people or groups. Therefore, the actions of terrorists are meant to maximize their goals. For instance, in the 1970s, hijacking had become prevalent in airports. However, when metal detectors were introduced, kidnappings took the place of hijacking (Sandler & Arce, 2003). This shows that the people who were engaging in hijackings changed their tact to maximize on their goals. In addition, the theory observes that terrorism increases the probability that the perpetrators can realize their sociopolitical goals. For instance, the Irgun, a paramilitary Zionist group perpetrated bombings that helped to facilitate the independence of Eretz Israel from British Occupancy. Another example exemplifying the rational choice theory is the suicide bombings that occurred in 1980s as propagated by the Hezbollah group. These bombings were done to ensure that Shia would control certain parts of Lebanon and influence the Americans, the French and the Israeli forces to withdraw from Lebanon. In addition, the 9/ 11 attacks that happened in the US have attracted new recruits to the Al Qaeda group because they saw it as a major victory (Whittaker, 2001).

The perpetrators of terrorist activities, as observed by the rational choice theory, are individuals who are educated and seem rational. For example, Wiktorowicz (2005) did a research on the Al-Muhajiroun militant group in the United Kingdom that uses violence to influence the establishment of an Islamic state. He found out that thee members of the militant group seemed rational and some of them were highly educated. Therefore, the rational choice theory explains terrorism as an act used to maximize terrorists’ goals and influence certain things to happen (Wiktorowicz, 2005).

The Frustration Aggression Hypothesis asserts that a relationship exists between frustration and aggression, and that terrorism is an aspect of this relationship. The theory asserts that the occurrence of aggression presumes the existence of frustration (Cottam, Dietz-Uhler, Mastors, & Preston, 2009). Therefore, the Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis assumes that terrorist acts are a response to various economic, political, social and personal needs frustrations. The hypothesis asserts that a terrorist act happens in order to elicit a response that demonstrates that a government or another body will frustrate the legitimate aspirations of the terrorist group. Terrorist groups do not exist without aspirations or goals. Most terrorist groups have aspirations of achieving political and economic power. Therefore, when these aspirations are frustrated, terrorist groups engage in aggressive and violent acts, to show that their aspirations are being frustrated. A good example explaining the Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis is the LTTE group in Sri Lanka (Atkins, 2004). When the government in Sri Lanka frustrated the terrorists in the LTTE group, they became aggressive and violent against innocent civilians. The LTTE terrorists massacred civilians from the three communities residing in the country, launched suicide bombers and set vehicle bombs all over the place. They did this because the government had frustrated them and wanted to have the confidence of the Tamil community in both Tamil diaspora and Tamil diaspora. This happened during the war in Sri Lanka that lasted for 30 years. This shows that terrorist actions occur because of frustration making them become overly aggressive and violent (Atkins, 2004).

In conclusion, the psychological theories of terrorism focus on the causes of terrorist acts and the justification of the existence of terrorist groups. The three theories including the psychopathological theory, the rational choice theory and the frustration-aggression hypothesis are all psychological theories of terrorism and explain the existence and activities of terrorism.

References

Atkins, S. E. (2004). Modern Worldwide Extremists and Extremist Groups. New York: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Cottam, M. L., Dietz-Uhler, B., Mastors, E., & Preston, T. (2009). Introduction to Political Psychology: 2nd Edition. New York: Psychology Press.

Sandler, T., & Arce. D. G. (2003). Terrorism and game theory. Simulation & Gaming, 34, 319-

337.

Victoroff, J. (Feb. 2005). The Mind of the Terrorist: A Review and Critique of Psychological

Approaches. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 49(1), 3-42.

Wiktorowicz, Q. (2005). Radical Islam Rising: Muslim extremism in the West. Lanham: Roman & Littlefield.

Whittaker, D. J. (2001). The terrorism reader. London: Routledge.

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