Political deviance and the assumption of responsibility

Political deviance is a broad concept, less frequently invoked than the concept of political crime. It can be perpetrated by those in power, in the name of the state or individually, or by those struggling to effect social change. The focus on the latter brings to the fore two types of movements, terrorism and civil disobedience, with their partial similarities in goals and their apparent dissimilarities in the means employed to achieve these goals. Both groups tend to assume responsibility for their acts, although for different reasons. The assumption of responsibility itself is a clouded and sometimes ambiguous notion, both linguistically and in its ramifications in the political arena.     

Moral Dilemma in the War against Terror: Political Attitudes and Regular Versus Reserve Military Service

The current study examines moral dilemmas related to the war against terror: the amounts of force used to arrest or harm a “most wanted” terrorist: the greater the use of force, the higher the risk for harming civilians and the lower the risk to the soldiers and vice versa. The study focuses on the association between moral decisions, confidence, and level of difficulty in making the decisions and political attitudes among Israeli Defense Forces soldiers. In addition, the study examines the differences between regular (202) and reserve (144) combat infantry soldiers regarding these variables. According to study hypotheses results indicate (a) more right-wing political attitudes predicted greater use of force and fewer difficulties in making moral decisions, and (b) reserve soldiers reported higher use of fire, higher confidence, and lower level of difficulty in making moral decisions compared with regular soldiers.     

Terror management in Japan

Do terror management effects generalize to non‐Western cultures? This question is significant because terror management theory offers an explanation of the origin of self‐esteem, whereas other research finds divergent self‐esteem motivations across cultures. The effects of mortality salience (MS) on the dual‐component anxiety buffer were investigated in Japan. A control group and a MS group were given an opportunity: (i) to defend their cultural worldview by derogating an anti‐Japan essay writer; and (ii) to boost their value within their cultures by indicating a greater desire for high‐status over low‐status products. Replicating past research with Western samples, Japanese in a MS condition were more critical of the anti‐Japan essay writer and they indicated a marginal tendency to prefer high‐ over low‐status products, compared with a control group. The theoretical implications are discussed.     

Terror Management Theory: Implications for Understanding Prejudice,Stereotyping, Intergroup Conflict,and Political Attitudes

Terror management theory posits that to maintain psychological security despite the awareness of personal mortality, humans must maintain faith in cultural worldviews. These worldviews provide ways for humans to believe they are significant enduring beings in a world of meaning rather than mere animals fated only to obliteration upon death. We review basic support for terror management theory and research exploring the implications of terror management theory for understanding prejudice, stereotyping, intergroup conflict, and political attitudes. This research shows that when the psychological need to defend these worldviews is heightened by reminders of death (mortality salience), prejudice, stereotyping, and support for charismatic leaders and aggression against outgroups is increased. Terror management concerns also lead targets of prejudice to disidentify with their ingroup and confirm negative stereotypes of their group. We conclude by considering the implications of terror management theory and research for the alleviation of prejudice and intergroup conflict.     

法国大革命中的暴力与恐怖

"恐怖时代"一词和恐怖手段的使用与1789年大革命同时产生。1789年的政治文化,甚至在其自由的主张里,都蕴含着一些潜在的专制主义与不自由,最终转化成1793年的情形。此外,恐怖也出于事后看来难以理解的集体激情,活跃的激情力量以暴力反对大革命中真正的或假象的敌人。然而,在大革命的恐怖中,意识形态所起到的作用微乎其微。革命逐渐升级是出于言论的不断激进,是真正的"激进化的竞赛",在此过程中多个势力同时寻求合法性与权力。     

Religious Fundamentalism and Terror Management

The study reported herein tested the following hypothesis: Religious fundamentalism can serve a protective function against existential anxiety, such that the need to engage in secular worldview defense when mortality is made salient is reduced for high fundamentalists. The results showed that high fundamentalists engaged in less worldview defense after thinking about their own death versus a control topic. Low fundamentalists, however, engaged in more worldview defense after thinking about their deaths versus a control topic. Exploratory analyses revealed that high fundamentalists' writings about death had a more positive emotional tone and that reactions to the death salience manipulation moderated the impact of fundamentalism on worldview defense. Fundamentalists who saw their deaths in terms of peace and acceptance appeared most protected against terror management concerns.     

Terror,Trauma, and Bereavement

Abstract

How is interpersonal loss incurred in a terror event similar and different from loss under non-terror conditions? Because terror and bereavement are located in the individual's experience of the event, this has important implications for assessment and intervention. In the Two-Track Model of Bereavement (TTMoB), the relationship between life threat, symptomatic response, and the ongoing relationship to the deceased allow therapy to target difficulties in functioning as well as relationship to the deceased. Two case vignettes are presented to ground the discussion.     

Terrorism and the Uses of Terror

“Terrorism”' is sometimes defined as a “form ofcoercion.” But there are important differences between ordinary coercion and terrorist intimidation. This paper explores some of those differences, particularly the relation between coercion, on the one hand, and terror and terrorization, on the other hand. The paper argues that while terrorism is not necessarily associated with terror in the literal sense, it does often seek to instill a mental state like terror in the populations that it targets. However, the point of instilling this mental state is not necessarily coercive or intimidatory: one can try to instill terror as an act of punishment, or as an expressive or therapeutic act, or because one values the political consequences that might follow, or because one thinks terror is preferable, from an ethical point of view, to the inauthentic complacency that characterizes the targeted population at present. Though this paper asks questions about the definition of “terrorism,” these questions are not asked for their own sake. The quest for a canonical definition of “terrorism” is probably a waste of time. But asking questions which sound like questions of definition is sometimes a fruitful way of focusing our reflections on terrorism and organizing our response. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Theater of Terror

Summary

Modern terrorists became aware of the new opportunities for exerting mass psychological impact using the latest means of mass communications. Academic observers remarked increasingly on the theater-like nature of terrorist operations. According to this notion, modern terrorism can be understood in terms of the production requirements of theatrical engagements. Several terrorist organizations realized the potentials of media-oriented terror, in terms of effectively reaching huge audiences. This article examines the strategies and tactics of this new pattern of media-oriented terrorism and their impact on the audiences who, through the media's mediation, join the widening circles of victims of terrorism.     

自尊的恐惧管理理论研究述评

恐惧管理理论（TerrorManagementTheory,TMT）从人们对自己生命的意义感和价值感的需求角度对自尊进行了阐释。大量实证研究对该理论的基本假设进行了验证。该文对TMT的理论起源和基本观点进行了介绍,分析了TMT关于自尊的“焦虑缓解器假设”和“死亡突显性假设”以及“防御的双重加工模型”,并对TMT及其相关研究进行了评价和展望     

Terror threat perception and its consequences in contemporary Britain

The terrorist attacks of 9/11, and subsequent terrorist acts around the world, have alerted social psychologists to the need to examine the antecedents and consequences of terrorist threat perception. In these two studies, we examined the predictive power of demographic factors (age, gender, location), individual values and normative influences on threat perception and the consequences of this perception for behavioural change and close relationships. In Study 1 (N=100), gender, benevolence values and normative influences were all correlates of threat perception, whilst sense of personal threat was correlated with increased contact with friends and family. In Study 2 (N=240) age, gender, location, and the values of openness to change and hedonism, all predicted threat perception, which, in turn, predicted behavioural change and relationship contact. Such findings point to the important role social psychologists should play in understanding responses to these new terrorist threats.     

Association between Terror Attacks and Suicide Attempts

Based on Durkheim's ‘Control theory,’ we explored the association between frequency of terror attacks in Israel and the frequency of suicide attempts admitted to the Emergency Room of a major general hospital in Tel‐Aviv (1999–2004). Analysis of the six‐year study period as a whole revealed no significant correlation between the variables, with the exception of one 11‐month segment within it (December 2000–October 2001) that did show a statistically significant positive correlation, and in opposition to Durkeim's hypothesis. It is suggested that suicide attempts as a phenomena should be seen as a product of a multivariate model, in which the social context plays a role as well.     

恐怖主义与对公民自由的袭击

"九一一"的惨剧迄今已两年了,美国人仍身处巨大的危险之中.这危险来自两个方面.第一点是显而易见的,那就是将来还可能发生的恐怖主义袭击.资金充备的恐怖主义分子在一些国家生活并受训,他们抱着必死之决心,决意要夺去美国人的生命.一旦他们获得核武器,就可能制造出更加惨不忍睹的悲剧.     

In the Shadow of Terror

Summary

This study examined the effects of terror on world assumptions in Israeli youth. The sample comprised 2,999 adolescents aged 13-16 who were exposed to different levels of terror. Relations of objective and subjective exposure to terror, life events, ideological, religious commitment, and social support with world assumptions were assessed. Results show that personal and social resources made a more substantial contribution to the explained variance of world assumptions than exposure to terror. Implications of the associations between religious and ideological commitment and social support with world assumptions are discussed.