Why do some with radical views become terrorists – but others do not?

— “Risk Assessment and the Prevention of Radicalization from Nonviolence Into Terrorism,” by Kiran M. Sarma, National University of Ireland, Galway
Is it possible to identify those who will and will not become involved in terrorism in the future? This question is of central importance to those given the task of assessing the risk posed by individuals who may be on a trajectory toward violence. In the article, Sarma discusses the challenges of conducting risk assessment for terrorism. He describes some of the current tools for screening people who have come to the attention to the authorities as being potentially at risk, and who may be on a trajectory from radical thought to violent behavior. Sarma argues that while risk assessment for terrorism is fraught with both ethical and empirical challenges, progress can be made in the area of human judgment and decision-making and in particular the way that assessors gather, synthesize and make decisions about information. The emphasis, he stresses, should be on structured judgments rather than just adding up scores on lists of “red flag behaviors.” “In practice, evaluators consider both the presence of factors and the relevance of risk factors,” Sarma writes.

— “Building Community Resilience to Violent Extremism Through Genuine Partnerships,” by B. Heidi Ellis, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and Saida Abdi, Boston Children’s Hospital and Boston University School of Social Work
Social connection is at the heart of resilient communities and strategies aimed at preventing youth from embracing violent extremism, according to this article. Acknowledging the enormous controversy surrounding existing initiatives, the authors maintain that healthy partnerships between government agencies and community members can, if done right, provide appropriate early warning systems for the prevention of violent extremism. This may require a paradigm shift, from a traditional top-down to a bottom-up approach, they write. Done wrong, top-down efforts to define and respond to the risk of violent extremism run the risk of undermining the very community assets that contribute to resilience. For instance, an overemphasis on one particular group as vulnerable to violent extremist ideology will lead to stigma and discrimination, which can undermine a positive sense of social identity for members of that group and degrade community resilience, according to the article.

— “Toward a Psychology of Humiliation in Asymmetric Conflict,” by Clark McCauley, Bryn Mawr College
The article explores how humiliation (defined as a corrosive combination of shame and anger) is often a key growth factor for terrorist conflicts. Research on humiliation as a psychological construct has barely begun, according to McCauley.

“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 writes. “But the fact is that humiliation will have to be better understood before it can help us understand intergroup violence.”

Research on humiliation is equally vital for understanding government reactions to terrorism — something that has been little studied by those interested in terrorism, he writes. “Perhaps the most startling implication of this analysis is that it is not only the weak who can be humiliated,” he adds. “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.”

— “There and Back Again: The Study of Mental Disorder and Terrorist Involvement,” by Paul Gill and Emily Corner, University College London
Summarizing the last forty years of research on the connection between mental disorders and terrorist involvement, the authors conclude there is no common psychological profile for a terrorist. Rather, the evidence suggests that some types of terrorists may be more likely to possess certain psychological traits compared with the general population and that those terrorist subsamples with high rates of mental health disorders still fall below 50 percent. No single mental health disorder appears to be a predictor of terrorist involvement. They suggest that the experience of mental health disorders may be just one of many risk factors that push and pull an individual into terrorist activity.

— “Revenge Versus Rapport: Interrogation, Terrorism, and Torture,” by Laurence Alison and Emily Alison, University of Liverpool
The idea that generating helplessness, dread and fear would be a reliable strategy for eliciting information runs counter to the research, according to this article. Tactics such as sleep deprivation, exposure to heat and cold and stress positions actually impair recall, damaging the value of any information generated, the authors write. So why is torture still used? “At least part of the reason why torture continues to emerge may lie in our human nature to accept that it is only used when there is no alternative, and it appears to be for the greater good,” they write. Rapport building, on the other hand, appears to be a more effective tactic, but has been both difficult to define and to measure. The authors developed a technique for analyzing audio and video interrogation footage to measure the effectiveness of interrogation techniques, and they applied it to a large data set of terrorist interrogations. They found that, among many other interpersonal skills, an adaptive authoritative manner on the part of the interviewer (characterized by being in charge, setting the agenda and advising) yielded more information than a maladaptive manner (characterized by being demanding, dogmatic, pedantic and rigid).