WHAT: What motivates young suicidal terrorists? Social scientists explain that terrorists are seldom psychotic and that culture and situational factors play an important role.
WHEN: Thursday, August 22, 2002, 2:00 - 3:00 PM
WHERE: APA Press Room: Meeting Room N136, North Building - Level 1, McCormick Place
WHO:
Chris Stout, Psy.D., Professor of Psychology, Northwestern University Medical School
The Psychology of Terrorism (Session 2097)
The complexities and relationships between poverty, war, trauma, civilian casualties, religious zealotry, social structures and biology will be examined from a psychological framework of terrorism. Highlights from a four volume book on the Psychology of Terrorism, edited by Dr. Stout, will also address terror and violence perpetrated by children, comparisons of terrorists and cultists and distinctions between fact, fiction and hysteria in beliefs about bioterriorism.
Ibrahim Kira, Ph.D., ACCESS Mental Health
Suicide Terror and Collective Trauma: A Collective Terror Management Paradigm (Session 2024)
Efforts to prevent future terrorism begin with understanding its dynamics and root causes. Why do people who fear death commit suicide, suicide terror and other acts of group violence such as September 11? Dr. Kira uses a framework of collective terror management to explain suicide and suicide terror and makes recommendations on ways to prevent acts of group violence, both national and international.
Richard E. Rubenstein, J.D., Professor of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs, George Mason University
Purification and Power: The Psycho-Political Roots of Religious Terrorism (Session 2229)
How can we understand a terrorist's motivation? Religious terrorism cannot be understood by analyzing the sources and structures of belief. He recommends understanding modern terrorism as a response of oppressed groups and individuals to a situation in which globalist domination creates feelings of alienation among the inhabitants. This can set up the possibility of igniting incomprehensible actions, such as the 9/11 terrorist act and the recent suicide bombings in the Middle East. Martyrdom taken in the form of suicide terrorist acts may be viewed as a way to reach self-purification of an alien system that dominates their lives.
Clark McCauley, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, University of Pennsylvania
Understanding the 9/11 Perpetrators: Crazy, Lost in Hate, or Martyred (Session 2097)
The 9/11 attacks should not be viewed as the product of individual pathology or pathological hatred. Polls suggest that very few Muslims hate the United States and even if the 9/11 attackers were among the few, the attackers themselves, judged by one of the terrorist's (Atta) manual did not act out of hate. Rather they understood themselves to be doing God's will. They gave their lives for a chance in paradise rather than for satisfaction of punishing their enemies. 9/11 was a way to die for a cause that gave meaning to the lives of the terrorists.
Steven Hassan, M. Ed.,
Freedom of Mind Resources Center, Inc.
Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People To Think for Themselves (Session 3248)
How people can avoid recruitments in cults and empower others to deprogram members is based on Hassan's experience of being a cult member and counseling victims of religious cults, political cults, therapy cults and even business cults.
Tom Pyszczynski, Ph.D., University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
In The Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror (Book, published by APA)
Why emotions of despair, fear and anger arose after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon will be explained using Terror Management Theory. This theory explains why humans react the way they do when faced with the threat of death. Ways to understand and reduce terrorism's effect will also be discussed.
Note: L. Rowell Huesmann, Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan, (Session 3166: Young Adult Terrorists: How To Grow One Without Really Trying) is unable to speak at the briefing but will be available for interviews.