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The Benefits Of Operant Conditioning

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The purpose of this report is to go through the psychological, aspects of the group; to see how they work together to achieve their goals, with the social science perspective of psychology. ISIS or also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a jihadist militant group that follows a fundamentalist doctrine of Islam. (Shirlow, Peter, 2013, para. 3). ISIS uses Operant conditioning to keep their members and possible members thinking that life under ISIS is better than their current state. Operant conditioning is used in ISIS to enforce their own morals and values, and isolate the rest of the world's views to their followers. Finally, ISIS has a ranking system that encourages members to commit acts of terror. All of these topics …show more content…

(Mcleod, Saul, 2007, para. 8). ISIS takes advantage of this psychological effect to motivate it’s members to commit the acts of terror. Once you are in ISIS, there is no leaving, you are killed if you attempt to leave. With that being said, it’s either you remain a peasant in the group or go up in the rankings, and the only way to do that is through it’s conditioning system. Since ISIS is based off of Islam, all of it’s followers are as well, and that comes with beliefs. ISIS members believe that when they are dead, they respawn in Jannah, which means paradise. A lot of ISIS members don’t fear death, their is such a strong bond between them and their religion that when they die, they believe they will go to paradise. But their more personally important reward is what happens to them in the afterlife. They are promised a great afterlife for the acts of terror they commit. Some include killing non-believers, or killing anyone who breaks their religious law’s rules. This relates to my subtopic of beliefs, since it’s related to a religion, which every religion is psychological in it’s creation and continuous belief in it. Since they believe they are going to go to paradise after death, there are rules and orders that must be followed throughout life for them to get in, ISIS members firmly believe that continuing to do what …show more content…

Sometimes the prizes are bigger than the other, this can be compared to ISIS’s system. The worse the crime you commit, the better the reward is. ISIS’s rewards go much further than just a physical object or some money, it pushes it further into rewards for an afterlife or in the afterlife. ISIS is so isolated from the rest of the world, that they’ve created their own currency in which it’s citizens use for everything. It’s also very profitable for the people who commit the terror acts. The rewards are given for those who, killing an unbelieving soldier or capturing an unbelieving soldier, as well as reporting anything that goes against their religious law. (MacIntyre, Sara, 2016). Since the people in the areas controlled by ISIS are very religious and isolated from the rest of the world's views, the rewards are their path to rich and fame within its cities. This is a psychological motivator for them and helps them cope with what they are doing, and continue it to please their god and prepare for a glorious afterlife. (Blair, Leonardo, 2014). The chances of the rewards being given out to those who follow through are slim, this encourages them to commit the killings more often to have a higher chance at getting the rewards. Although, videotaping the killings or capturings drastically improves the chances of the rewards being given out, this is another contributing factor to the

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