Why People Join Terrorist Groups in Kuwait: A Qualitative Examination

Qualitative interviews were conducted with nine members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda currently incarcerated in Kuwait's Central Prison. The semistructured interviews attempted to understand psychosocial factors in Kuwait that contributed to their decision to join extremist organizations. Interviews were analyzed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and the emergent themes identified the following core themes explaining their involvement: (1) religious identity development; (2) personal connections; (3) propaganda; (4) defense of Islam; and (5) social marginalization. Participants described a process whereby their religion became a central part of their personal identity. As their religious identity developed, they became involved in Islamic organizations where they met people involved with ISIS or Al-Qaeda. These social connections exposed them to jihadi propaganda which, in addition to increased military conflict in the Middle East, crystallized their beliefs that Islam is under attack, and they were religiously obligated to defend it. The results also identified societal factors that increased the probability of engaging in terrorism including relatively low levels of education, coming from low socioeconomic groups in Kuwait, and feeling socially marginalized by broader Kuwaiti society.     

The Implicit Motives of Terrorist Groups: How the Needs for Affiliation and Power Translate into Death and Destruction

This study explored the dynamics of terrorism through a quantitative content analysis of documents issued by terrorist groups and nonterrorist comparison groups. Thirteen terrorist groups were matched with comparison groups that shared the same ideologies, and their documents were coded for ingroup affiliation, outgroup affiliation, and power motive imagery. As hypothesized, compared with nonterrorist groups, terrorist groups were significantly higher in ingroup affiliation motive imagery and significantly lower in outgroup affiliation motive imagery in the full sample of documents and in an indicator sample that included only terrorist groups' preterrorism documents. Terrorist groups were significantly higher than comparison groups in power motive imagery in the full sample and marginally significantly higher in power motive imagery in the indicator sample. These results highlight the important role that group dynamics play in terrorist groups.     

Malevolent Creativity in Terrorist Organizations

Terrorist organizations are both imitative and innovative in character. While the drivers of imitation have been extensively modeled using concepts such as contagion and diffusion, creativity and innovation remain relatively underdeveloped ideas in the context of terrorist behavior. This article seeks to redress this deficiency by presenting a conceptual framework with which we can understand the complex nature and multiple drivers of creativity and innovation within terrorist organizations. The overriding questions we address are: what factors spark creativity and innovation within terrorist organizations, and are there particular organizational traits that increase an organization's propensity to be creative and innovative? Using insights from industrial and organizational psychology and aided by illustrative examples and case studies from the history of terrorism, we aim to show that the multiple drivers of creativity and innovation are identifiable. By providing a conceptual framework that explores these key issues, we suggest that a much clearer research agenda for these issues may emerge. We conclude with a discussion concerning how our framework can help inform counter‐terrorism practices.     

Measuring Tactical Innovation in Terrorist Attacks

Terrorism provides a unique context for examining innovation, as the generation of novel, effective, and complex ideas are essential for survival in destructive and malevolent groups. Despite this, innovation remains an underdeveloped concept in terrorism research, at least from the creativity scholars. One reason for this is the limited empirical data about this phenomenon, making it unclear which tenets of creativity research hold versus which do not translate in the domain of terrorism. This two-part study explores this rich domain by examining the dimensions of innovation in a robust sample of terrorist attacks. Findings indicated that three dimensions of innovation (i.e., novelty, relevance, and elegance) emerged from the attack data and that these dimensions were related to different attack characteristics. This article expands our understanding of terrorist innovation by drawing from established theory and methods from creativity research and highlights their manifestations in this understudied domain.     

论弱势群体的道德底线

弱势群体因为贫困的物质利益状况与不平等的物质利益关系而陷入于生存危机之中。生存危机造成道德主体危机,表现为道德能力贫困和主体被边缘化。生存危机导致生存与道德冲突,产生非道德化生存;建构基于生存平等的社会底线公平是建构弱势群体道德底线的根本途径。     

Reading religion back into Terrorist Assemblages: Author's response

In this author's response, Jasbir Puar furthers the conversation between her book Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (2007. Durham, NC: Duke University Press) and contemporary trends in theories of the theological, religious and secular. It begins with a consideration of the ‘viral’ travels of ‘homonationalism,’ a term that has moved across many geographies and political terrains since its coining. The response then focuses on three aspects of Terrorist Assemblages and the engagement it provoked. First, it traces the the relays between racialisation and religion, particularly vis-a-vis the charge of fundamentalism. Second, the neat opposition between religion and sexuality (particularly when the latter expresses as queer) is troubled through different theories of how exceptionalism has worked historically and continues to constitute investments in certain democratic fantasies of secularism. Finally, the piece concludes by broadening the preceding conversation to a theoretical scope at the very level of identity, particularly how assemblage theory works through intersectionality to relocate critiques of the normative.     

Mental Health Interventions in a General Hospital Following Terrorist Attacks

Abstract

Over three years of repeated terrorist attacks in Israel have shown that the victims suffering from acute stress syndromes constitute the bulk of the casualties. The large number of psychological victims presents an immediate problem of hospital surge capacity. The need for alleviating acute suffering and preventing chronic, disabling posttraumatic syndromes requires organizational and clinical skills. The article reviews deployment and intervention protocols for the treatment of victims and affected staff members in a general hospital setting.     

齐文化对周村商埠文化和周村商帮的影响

齐文化对周村商埠文化和周村商帮的发展具有重要影响。周村商埠文化的形成主要有两个渠道：传统继承和现代培植。所谓传统继承,就是传统文化的影响,具体到周村的商埠文化,主要传承有齐文化、儒文化、民俗文化和外地文化传统。齐文化积极开拓进取的精神和注重发展工商业的思想渗透于以祥子号为代表的周村商帮的经营管理理念和实践中,周村商帮在全国各地的经营取得了骄人的成绩,成为山东商人的主体和代表。     

Exploring the Development and Dismantling of Equivalence Classes Involving Terrorist Stimuli

The Psychological Record - The present paper describes 2 studies that present a conceptual interpretation and experimental findings involving the developing and dismantling of equivalence...     

Terrorist threat and employees' perceived ability to cope with organizational change

This study investigated the impact of the perceived threat of terrorism on employees' ability to cope with organizational change as well as potentially underlying psychological mechanisms related to work satisfaction and initiative. Three days after the 2006 thwarted terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom, participants were reminded of terrorist threat (by pictures of terrorist attacks) reported lower levels in their ability to cope with organizational change, as well as lower levels of work satisfaction, than did participants who were not reminded of terrorist threat. Three months later, the same terror salience manipulation had no differential effect on these variables. Mediation analyses revealed that work satisfaction mediated the impact of terror salience on employees' ability to cope with organizational change.     

The Unwelcome Child as a Dynamic Construct of the Terrorist Mind

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - Psychoanalytic discourse on the dynamics of the terrorist mindset has been challenged by the absence of clinical work with terrorists in the literature....     

The Effects of College Residence Groups On Students' Self-Concepts,Goals, and Achievements

This study compared the traits and achievements of students in various living groups. Students in fraternities and sororities were found to be more socially oriented, and students in off-campus rooms or at home were less socially oriented on a wide variety of measures. When students' pre-college scores were controlled, there were few differences among the groups on self-ratings or life goals. Fraternity and sorority students had more college social achievements but were not superior in other areas of non-academic achievement or in grades. These results were interpreted as showing that the effects of living groups are small.