Terrorism and Terrorist Leaders: Insights from Developmental and Ecological Psychology

摘要

A recent increase in terrorist actions where the terrorist's death is planned and intentional has raised interest in the psychological functioning, motivation, and reasoning of those who engage in terrorism and those who support it. No consensus exists among Western1 psychologists regarding terrorists who plan to die in their attack, and no Western psychological perspective has thus far contributed substantively to explaining or predicting it. Although most agree that groups engaging in such actions typically have a wider network of support, the psychology of supporters is also unexplained. This article proposes a developmental psychological model of the conditions that favor focused terrorist actions that have publicly discernible goals ascribed to a political or religious cause. The article describes a common pattern of cognitive complexity among terrorist leaders, using Osama bin Laden as a model, where entrenched cognitive simplicity in one key ideological domain (religious or political) is coupled with behavior reflecting the capacity for far greater complexity in other domains (organizational skills, planning, problem-solving.) This pattern, in specifiable historical and ecological context, makes terrorist tactics, including those in which the attacker intentionally dies, more likely, and increases the challenges associated with attempts at diplomacy or negotiated peace.