‘Applying Psychology’ at Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life, Page 8

As a video message from one of the London suicide bombers offers the first direct glimpse into terrorist motivations and psychology, public statements from politicians continue to suggest that they are unwilling or unable to engage in fact-based analysis of the terrorist threat.

Not content to focus on actual physical acts of terrorism, the UK government now plans to extend powers to deport or exclude foreigners on the basis of their beliefs. As the government prepares to make it illegal to ‘justify’ terrorism, and to exclude those whose views ‘pose a threat to UK security’, we ask about the psychology of terrorism and wonder why UK politicians are so reluctant to engage in reality-based analysis. Contrary to currently popular political demagoguery, ‘to explain’ and ‘to justify’ are not the same thing.

As London’s Metropolitan Police announce their intention to focus stop and search operations on young Asian men in an attempt to prevent suicide bombings, we take a look at some underlying assumptions about stop and search. Mathematics and reflections on the psychology of suicide bombing suggest that stop and search will make virtually no difference to the probability of a suicide bombing taking place.

Most or all of us have experienced the feelings of success that come with completing some difficult project or task we’ve set ourselves. What if that project were the planning and execution of a terrorist attack on London that left at least dozens dead and hundreds wounded? Is there a ‘psychology of terrorism’?

The Percepts and Concepts Laboratory at Indiana University is using simple online interactive games to investigate how people behave in groups. You can play the games with other people or with artificial intelligence bots, while the cognitive scientists collect data and try to develop agent-based computational models of the behaviour.