Expert claims HUMILIATION makes people become terrorists
- Expert believes humiliation is vital for understanding government terrorism
- Programmes should distinguish between extreme ideas and people who can kill
- Weak governments who are unable to retaliate directly might resort to terrorism
Phoebe Weston For Mailonline
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Humiliation is the key reason why some people with radicalised views become terrorists, according to new research.
When weak governments are unable to retaliate directly to perpetrators, the humiliation of the attack often leads them to terrorism.
Experts believe research on humiliation as a psychological construct has barely begun and could dramatically improve our understanding of extremism.
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Professor of Psychology Clark McCauley from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania believes that humiliation is a key cause of terrorist conflict (stock image)
HUMILIATION AND TERRORISM
Professor of Psychology Clark McCauley believes that humiliation is vital for understanding government reactions to terrorism.
He defines humiliation as a corrosive combination of shame and anger.
Research on humiliation as a psychological construct has barely begun, he says.
Summarising the last 40 years of research on the connection between mental disorders and terrorist involvement, the authors conclude there is no common psychological profile for a terrorist.
Clark McCauley, Professor of Psychology from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania believes that humiliation – defined as a corrosive combination of shame and anger – is an important psychological part of terrorist conflicts.
‘When analysts discuss the role that humiliation plays in warfare, terrorism and genocide, they often speak as though we know what humiliation is and what it does,’ he said.
‘But the fact is that humiliation will have to be better understood before it can help us understand intergroup violence.’
His comments are made as part of a special issue of the American Psychologist journal which presents the work of various academics on how to predict who will become a terrorist.
‘Perhaps the most startling implication of this analysis is that it is not only the weak who can be humiliated,’ said Dr McCauley.
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‘The powerful can be humiliated by the weak if – as is often the case in terrorist attacks – the government targeted is unable to retaliate directly against the perpetrators.’
Dr McCauley believes that humiliation is vital for understanding government reactions to terrorism.
Summarising the last 40 years of research on the connection between mental disorders and terrorist involvement, the authors conclude there is no common psychological profile for a terrorist.
Paris is one of many European cities which have been targeted by terrorists in recent years. (stock). New research suggests that humiliation is a key cause of terrorism
Researchers from Bryn Mawr College describe an ‘opinion pyramid,’ consisting of people who share accelerating levels of extremist ideas, and an ‘action pyramid’ with people who actually engage in terrorist activity.
‘The warrant for the two-pyramids model is the observation that 99 percent of those with radical ideas never act,’ researchers said.
‘Conversely, many join in radical action without radical ideas.’
Anti-terrorism programmes that cannot distinguish between people who have extreme ideas and people who can kill will multiply the terrorism threat, experts warned.
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