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ISIS Research Paper

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Social-Psychological Principles and the Islamic State
ISIS, or the Islamic state, remains an in-group. They maintain control over all information. According Schmitt and Hubbard, ISIS is structured to allow officers in modest positions, to possess a certain degree of power. All individuals in the group prioritize the well-being of ISIS before their personal needs. All officers are granted varying degrees of autonomy. The autonomy is to ensure that the group will survive if one high ranking officer passes away. The group is so exclusive that the United States department of intelligence are not sure how the group is organized. There is still a debate as to how local officials are placed. Doubts have surfaced about the existence of a hierarchy …show more content…

ISIS recruitment tactics have increasingly been targeted at women and girls. Recruiting young girls and women encourages jihadist men to commit themselves to ISIS as fighters. According to Susan Lehman, the presence of young women, looking to marry, is crucial in attracting male fighters. She notes that the news of British Muslims joining ISIS forces further isolates the Muslim community in the West. Many British citizens fear that the Muslim minority is an enemy that lives among them (Lehman, 2015, p. A1). The isolation of the Muslim community heightens Western fears of the Muslims. Western women are attracted to ISIS ranks because of their need to belong. Women who have joined ISIS often use social media as a way to romanticize female membership in ISIS ranks. According to Susan Lehman, there are tweets about a sisterhood between Muslim women. Recruitment also plays on self-esteem and culture. The head scarf is a powerful symbol to many women. It provides an escape from the objectification of women that is found in most Western cultures (Lehman, 2015, p. A1). There exists an even more exclusive minority group within the Western Muslim minority group. This exclusive group is the subculture that empowers jihadi women. It may be that Muslim women living in the West cannot fully indulge in the freedoms of Western cultures. Failing to meet the conditions of the contact hypothesis …show more content…

The general population makes situational attributions regarding the cause of peace after prolonged conflict. According to Kassin, Fein and Markus, as described in chapter four, a situational attribute is the attribution of events to external factors, similar to a group of people, or a circumstance (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2014, p. 117). Members of ISIS, and civilians in Afghanistan and Syria, experienced a brief period of perceived stability under the authority of ISIS. Civilians often perceived ISIS members, the external group, as being the cause of local stability. They did not attribute local stability to the personal attributions of ISIS members; including the ability, or brutality, of current leaders. The tendency to defend the existing political structure is also indicative of the system justification theory. According to Kassin, Fein and Markus, the system justification theory is a theory that assumes people are driven to justify the political, social and economic environment in which they live (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2014, p. 174). Instead of attributing stability to a brief period of peace from decades of violence, civilians attribute the cause of stability to ISIS. This attribution justifies the political role of ISIS in modern Afghanistan, and

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