Tag: terrorism and psychology

"ISIS provides existential fast food, and for some of the most spiritually hungry young Westerners, ISIS is like a Big Mac amidst a barren wasteland of an existence,” Omar Hague writes in the Psychiatric Times. “Who actually joins ISIS? Not psychopaths or the brainwashed, but rather everyday young people in social transition, on the margins of society, or amidst a crisis of identity.”

Steven Reisner and Stephen Soldz, writing for Counter Punch, take on those who have criticized the Hoffman Report, which found that the APA had actively colluded in the US Torture program. “They have not credibly refuted these core findings of Hoffman’s seven-month investigation, nor have they even attempted to do so.”

"Our findings show that empathy with an out-group member can be learned, and generalizes to other out-group individuals," a research team led by Grit Hein of the University of Zurich writes in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We Americans are living through a dread-inducing age,” Jessica Stern writes in the ‘Times, and our feelings of vulnerability have psychological and political consequences. Terror Management Theory, “which suggests that much of human behavior is motivated by an unconscious terror of death,” provides an explanation for the xenophobia and culture wars that often follow the dread of an attack.

What does the psychology of terror mean for America’s future? Social psychologist Daniel Kort weighs in on what the science of terror management theory, behavioral economics, and political polarization can tell us about where we’re headed.