What Drives Someone to Complete the Devastating Acts of Terrorism?

The use of terrorism started in 1795 relating to the reign of terror leaded by the French Government. The reason people become terrorist is because they see it as their only choice or is a sign for defending their religion. “The personal pathway model suggests that terrorists came from a selected, at risk population, who have suffered from early damage to their self-esteem,” (psychologist Eric D. Shaw). This explains how young adults are becoming terrorist to find themselves, also because they are not happy with who they are. Terrorist technology has changed over the course.

We are all individuals. As individuals, we do not all live the same lives and share the same interests. It is greatly because of this, there are many psychological and behavioral factors that can impact the radicalization of an individual. Not everyone is going to be as receptive to certain things as other people may be. We must understand what the factors are that can increase the likelihood of someone turning to a life of terror in order to have a more significant chance at countering them. It is important to know why someone joins an organization such as al Qaeda or a white supremacist group in order to know which

political and social circumstances; that is, terrorism involves variables that can be measured on a criminological scale. The measurable by-product can be examined through psychological factors that vacillate with political circumstances. Ross's conclusions lead to two practical considerations.

The character of types of terrorists is important to look at in order to understand possible causes for them to continue

Post (1998) underline the importance of the family composition (single parent, uncomplite family) and the relations inside of the family. Post (1998) “ also cites studies that show how many terrorists were reared in families that were fragmented, with fathers who were hostile.”

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 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.

In his book Talking to the Enemy (2010), Scott Atran uses his experiences in the countries often perceived as the origin of most global terrorist actions against the United States combined with scientific proof from a wide variety of sources to argue for new methods of understanding and stopping terrorism as it exists today. Though many examples and analyses of terrorist acts are examined in the book along with many different explanations for the social and psychological mechanisms that may cause them, one of the central ideas is the power of social bonds to drive people to commit actions that they never would have considered alone. This paper will analyze Atran's argument as

When psychologists study motivation, it’s sometimes puzzling to understand the motivation behind suicide bombers. Why would someone kill tens, hundreds, or even thousand people while killing themselves in the process? The Intersection addresses this. I feel that if psychologists can understand why suicide bombers do what they do, they might be able to prevent it. Many attacks like these are made because the terrorizer wants to make a social change. It’s a big challenge trying to get inside the brain of these bombers because you can’t really talk to them after the fact. However, we can read their farewell letters, wills, watch farewell videos. Just the fact that they have these documents means that they probably want to be remembered after

Terrorism is a difficult issue to understand and grasp for many people. What is even more difficult to understand is what drives an individual to become radicalized to the point of joining a terrorist organization and committing terrorist acts. While there is not specific criteria or a “cookie cutter” approach to understanding what motivates and radicalizes an individual to participate in such atrocities, there are however, several psychological and behavioral factors that have been common among these individuals. The following paper will outline some of the psychological and behavioral factors that attribute to an individual’s radicalization and eventual willingness and even perhaps

There are many things can be seen in the psychology of terrorism. Unfortunately there is not good science on psychological factors of terrorism; there are theories and educated opinions (DeAngelis, 2009). The one overarching factor is the fear with which terrorism is based. By definition, terrorism is acts that cause terror by one group on to another, usually for political goals (“Terrorism”, n.d.). Why people suffer from these fears is related to their psychological behavior. Terrorist activity can be described as “fostering a sense of helplessness and hopelessness, in demonstrating the incompetence of the authorities, destroying a sense of security and safety, and in provoking inappropriate reactions from individuals and authorities.” (Alexander & Klein, 2005). Terrorists themselves are affected by psychological behavior; their own and that of others around them. They may even be affected by the behavior of victims and potential victims. Osama Bin Laden has even been known to admit that in the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, his

I am sure there are many reasons why individuals join, or associate themselves with terrorist organizations. After watching this week’s video of the three men discussing the basic indoctrination of children in these societies, it is not surprising why many of these people hate western ideology, and why they hate non-believers. If you are taught to hate a certain group of people from a young age, by the people you look to for guidance, there is a good chance you are going to turn out pretty messed-up. Obviously detonating yourself to kill people, or using woman and children to carry out attacks isn’t normal thinking. I think the paper “The Development of a Jihadist’s Mind” does a great job highlighting this point. It shows how the author went

As I look at the psychological reasoning behind terrorism it amazes me, because I always thought that every terrorist was more than likely mentally-ill and didn’t have any family support or no one that cared and sort of went off edge and wanted to hurt innocent people as an outlet, whether they were risking their lives or not, and in some cases that might be true, but not all. As I read the critical thinking statement in my psychology book I find out that most terrorist have plans and they process what they are doing and they want to hurt their own communities and this nation, and to get help they win over people’s hearts and minds and people believe the things that they are being told and go along with the sheer evil plans. Also terrorist

From this chapter I have learned that why some people willing to become a terrorist and the psychological reason for terrorism to commit crimes against innocent civilians. However, some of them want to correct what they believe is an injustice to them moving on from here when you look at Iraq you can see why someone wants to become a terrorist because they murder one of their family members and they decide to engage in terrorist activities as a revenge.

In both examples mentioned above, there are exact motivating factors. In both cases the motivating factors are ideology and religion. But there are also many other factors which make people become terrorists and take guns in their hands or blow themselves