Essay Viewing Terrorism through Social Psychology

In Derren Brown’s reenactment of psychologist Stanley Milgram’s experiment done in 1963, he solidified Milgram’s results by having the same framework as Milgram’s experiment. Milgram tested to see how much harm a person were to inflict if told to by an authoritative figure. In this particular experiment, a learning environment was set up, subjects were told that the focus was to see how negative punishment affects learning and they were told that they would be either a teacher or learner in the set up. All of the subjects in both Milgram’s and Brown’s situation were teachers and an actor, who all the subjects assumed to be another subject, as a learner. Learners were attached to a shocking mechanism ranging from 15 to a lethal 450 volts,

Milgram (1963) conducted a study on obedience which investigated the extent people would obey to commands that involved harming individuals. There were 40 male participants from New Haven and the surrounding communities that partook in this study of learning and memory, at Yale University, by responding to a newspaper advert. The age range was between 20 and 50; and the participants’ occupation was diverse, ranging from unskilled to professional. Participants were paid $4.50 for entering the laboratory.

With each wrong answer came an electric shock that the teacher, a random male participant, had to physically cause. The teacher could hear the learner after a while begging to stop. At this point the teachers causing the pain are obviously uncomfortable. Some start by laughing nervously and other just immediately beg to stop the experiment. At this point the experimenter gives a series of orders to push the teacher to continue. As a result, two-thirds of participants carried on shocking the learner to the highest level of four hundred and fifty volts. All the participants involved continued up to three hundred

The experimenter’s job was to push the teacher to continue the experiment, even when the learner was screaming and pleading to be free. 65% of participants continued to the highest level of 450 volts, however all of the participants continued to 300 volts. I think this can teach us a lot on how our education system works. If we are taught to be obedient and civilized workers, what happens when an event starts up that is similar to the Holocaust? Do we stay silent and follow through with orders, or will we be educated enough to know the harm of what we have been conditioned to follow? Gatto brings up a man named Inglis who “...breaks down the purpose- the actual purpose -of modern schooling into six basic functions…” He tells us that the first goal is “...to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority” (Against School). Again, when you are in a class and have to obey and be respectful to the authority figure in the room, it becomes a norm. You do not question the things you obey when you get out of school, because you have been conditioned to think that it is the right thing to do, no matter what the command. The second reason is

In the past weeks we have explored what makes up the mind of a terrorist by considering various psychological and behavioral factors of terrorism. Another factor we discussed was Osama Bin Laden: Terrorist CEO and the evolution of Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. I will summarize categorizing the means of communication and influence they have upon advancing terrorist narratives, the psychological and behavioral factors within Al-Qaeda leadership and affiliate groups, compare and contrast his ability to communicate and exert influence upon these various audiences from the years preceding 9/11 until his death. All these factors play a part with one another in order to understand the big picture.

This caused them to feel needed. While calling them teacher, the participant continued to shock the student. Although they knew it was harming them, Milgram told the teacher it was crucial for them to proceed. Once Milgram told the teacher “ Excuse me ,Teacher we’ll have to discontinue the experiment” (889). The knew to stop the experiment.

This paper will seek to understand what really motivates terrorists to commit the acts that make them so infamous. We are assuming that the chief motivating factor behind the decisions of terrorist organizations is the political outcome of their acts balanced against the risk and collateral damage inflicted to achieve this end. We will also weigh in the appeal of terrorism on potential recruits in weak states and determine how the motivations of the group become the motivation of the individual and how this benefits the decentralized organization of terrorist organizations like al Qaeda.

Research into terrorism is another challenge in defining terrorism. According to James Rinehart, “those who write about terrorism, tend to possess a preconceived bias of a ‘problem-solution’ orientation in which he or she is simply attempting to justify a set of counterterrorist prescriptive” (4). This research is unreliable at best because as mentioned previously, preconceived biases and stereotypes tend to become involved. Furthermore, there is little research into the why of terrorism, and also very little research into the psychology of terrorists by actual psychologists. The scarcity of primary, first-hand research and due to the private nature of data that is out there, the challenge to defining

In this experiment, subjects are explained that this is “a ‘learning experiment’ to ... study the effects of punishment on memory” (4). Yet, the real intention here is to measure the participants’ compliance towards the experimenter. This controversy is unethical as subjects are volunteering for a cause that does not exist. They are misled since they are not exposed to the real purpose of this study.

During this week, I learned about the face of terrorism, as well as terrorist organizational models, and the psychology of terrorism. As a result, I am able to identify what terrorism is by identifying the political, psychological, violent, and deliberate objectives of a group. In addition, I now understand the structure of a terrorist organization and the four levels that make up a terrorist group, as well as the human behaviors that lead a person to become a terrorist.

The primary psychological component uses when describing terrorists is aggressiveness. When speaking of terrorist groups that work together to perpetrate violent and murderous acts, the most commonly cited psychological principle, at least relevant to the collective behavior of a group, is the social identity theory. This theory states that people in groups like terrorist entities forsake their own personal identity and mindset in favor of the collective mindset. When speaking of terrorist groups, this is mostly harnessed to attack Western interests or those that are known or perceived to be non- or anti-Muslim (Smith, 2008).

New York City. Washington D.C. London. Nairobi. Beirut. Yazidi. Beslan. Mumbai. Lockerbie. These are the locations of some of the world’s worst terrorist attacks, resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. The culprits of these attacks were nearly always a relatively small group of individuals that were labeled as terrorists. It has been said that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. This is the problem with understanding terrorism, a word that means many things to different people. Our different perspectives make it a difficult problem to define and solve. These incidents have occurred relatively infrequently but their impact has been long term and far reaching. What could drive human

The history of terrorism can be traced back as far as the French revolution. Some of these acts of terrorism only seem as distant reminders of our past, but at the same time, are not a far cry from today’s brutal acts; and although these acts seem distant, it doesn’t also mean they are no longer in the thoughts of individuals in today’s time.

The threats of terrorism are growing globally and it is crucial in understanding the history of how terror is obtained to better prepare ourselves and possibly predict future threats. The behavioral pattern of the extremist can be a combination of qualities, acts, or beliefs. It is believed that all terrorist events have political objectives behind them, even though these extremist use religious symbolism to seek a wider audience and resort to violent acts to prove their point. The terrorist’s events leading up to September 11, 2001 can be analyzed for the purpose of uncovering such a pattern to shed light on the possibility of preventing another horrific terrorist attack in the future.

It is in human nature to harness aggression towards one another for the cause of strong sentiments of religion and passion. Most people from differing cultures have large disregard and disagreement for another person’s cultural practices, and of course this is no different with Terrorism. Although terrorism has dated back to the 1920’s as far as United States history goes, the 21st century has brought on a new age of terrorism comparable to the Red Scare of the 1950’s. The frequency of terroristic threats and attacks in the 21st century outnumber the terroristic threats and attacks of the eighty years prior to the beginning of the 21st century, exhibiting the unfortunate fact that terrorism is a trending crime. Essentially, Terrorism has