How Social Science Can Reduce TerrorismBy Scott L. Plous and Philip G. Zimbardo

In a press conference several monthsafter the terrorist attacks of Septem-ber 11, 2001, National Security Advi-sor Condoleezza Rice said: “I don’t

think anybody could have predicted thatthese people . . . would try to use an air-plane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as amissile.”

President Bush expressed similar sur-prise when he told the press corps onApril 13, 2004: “Had I had any inklingwhatsoever that the people weregoing to fly airplanes into build-ings, we would have moved heavenand earth to save the country.”

Yet long before September 11,social scientists had warned that anattack might occur. According toan overlooked 1999 report on “TheSociology and Psychology of Ter-rorism,” by the Federal ResearchDivision of the Library of Con-gress, “Al-Qaida’s expected retaliation forthe U.S. cruise missile attack against Al-Qaida’s training facilities in Afghanistanon August 20, 1998, could take severalforms of terrorist attack in the nation’scapital.” Among the possibilities listed inthe report: Suicide bombers might crashan aircraft into the Pentagon or otherbuildings.

As that passage illustrates, social scien-tists have made substantial progress inunderstanding and predicting terrorism.Moreover, that progress has acceleratedsince the attacks of September 11. In psy-chology, for example, a search of thePsycINFO database (the largest psychol-ogy database in the world, with entriesdating back to the 1880s) reveals thatmore research on terrorism has been pub-

lished since 2001 than in all previous yearscombined.

In this season of political campaigns,commissions, and controversies, the resultsof social-science research should be part ofany educated and informed discussion ofthe war on terror. From this new researchin the social sciences, as well as earlierscholarship in history and political science,several key findings have emerged.

First, studies suggest that, compared

with the general public, terrorists do notexhibit unusually high rates of clinical psy-chopathology, irrationality, or personalitydisorders. As John Horgan points out inthe opening chapter of Terrorists, Victimsand Society: Psychological Perspectives onTerrorism and Its Consequences (Wiley,2003), edited by Andrew Silke, the idea ofa “terrorist personality” rests on unsteadyempirical, theoretical, and conceptualfoundations. Indeed, because terroristcells require secrecy, terror organizationsfrequently screen out unstable individualswho might compromise their security.

Nor do terrorists differ greatly fromother people in self-esteem, religiosity, so-cioeconomic status, education, or person-ality traits such as introversion. Nasr Has-san, who spent years studying Palestinian

terrorists, put it this way during a lectureshe gave in 2002: “What is frightening isnot the abnormality of those who carryout the suicide attacks, but their sheernormality.” Thus far, behavioral researchhas found only one psychological attributethat reliably differentiates terrorists fromnonterrorists: a propensity toward anger.

In the words of a recent National Re-search Council report titled “Terrorism:Perspectives From the Behavioral and So-

cial Sciences”: “There is no single or typi-cal mentality—much less a specific pathol-ogy—of terrorists. However, terrorists ap-parently find significant gratification in theexpression of generalized rage.”

Beyond various sociopolitical, econom-ic, and religious objectives, one of themost common motivations for joining aterrorist organization is the desire for re-venge or retribution for a perceived injus-tice. Many terrorists report that acts of vi-olence committed by police officers, sol-diers, or others are what led them to joina terrorist group. Studies by Ariel Merariand others have found, for example, thatPalestinian suicide bombers often have atleast one relative or close friend who waskilled or injured by the other side.

In addition to harboring intense anger

over perceived injustice, terrorists differfrom the general public in their demo-graphic composition. Although excep-tions exist, terrorists are usually males be-tween 15 and 30 years of age—the samepopulation most likely to commit violentcrime in general, and the demographicgroup least likely to be deterred by thethreat of physical force.

Perhaps for those reasons, studies sug-gest that large-scale military responses to

terrorism tend to be ineffective ortemporarily to increase terrorist ac-tivity. To cite just one example, a1993 time-series analysis by WalterEnders and Todd Sandler in theAmerican Political Science Review,“The Effectiveness of Anti-Terror-ism Policies: A VAR-InterventionAnalysis,” examined 20 years ofterrorist activity and found a signif-icant rise in terrorism following

U.S. military reprisals against Libya. For ageneral review of the effects of militaryresponses to terrorism, see “RetaliatingAgainst Terrorism,” by Silke, who is aUnited Nations counterterrorism adviser,in Terrorists, Victims and Society.

Although every situation is different, re-searchers have found that military responsesto international terrorism can unwittinglyreinforce terrorists’ views of their enemiesas aggressive, make it easier for them to re-cruit new members, and strengthen al-liances among terrorist organizations. Fol-lowing the invasion of Iraq, for example,AlQaeda’s influence and ideology spread toother extremist groups not previouslylinked to the movement, according to Con-gressional testimony by J. Cofer Black, the

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september 10, 2004 the chronicle of higher education B9

Compared with the general public, terrorists do not exhibit unusually high rates of clinical

psychopathology, irrationality, or personality disorders.

michael morgenstern for the chronicle

B10 the chronicle of higher education september 10, 2004

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U.S. State Department’s coordinator forcounterterrorism.

The futility of fighting terrorism withlarge-scale military strikes is perhaps clear-est in the case of Iraq, where U.S. troopcasualties have steadily increased overtime. In May through August 2003, afterPresident Bush declared the end of majorcombat operations in Iraq, an average of4.9 military personnel were wounded perday. That climbed to 10.3 in Septemberthrough December 2003, 15.3 in the firstfour months of 2004, and 21.4 from Maythrough mid-August.

Even after the capture of Saddam Hus-sein, on December 13, 2003, suicidebombings and guerrilla attacks in Iraqcontinued to rise.

Similarly, the average number of sui-cide attacks per week in Israel was higherin the month after Baghdad fell than inthe preceding 14 months. And despite thefact that 70 percent of Al Qaeda’s coreleadership has been caught or killed, theorganization has carried out more attackssince September 11, 2001, than it did inthe three years before. According to theU.S. State Department’s most authorita-tive report, “Patterns of Global Terrorism2003,” there was a 27-percent increase in“significant terrorist incidents” worldwidefrom 2002 to 2003—along with a 56-per-cent increase in casualties—despite un-precedented spending by the United Statesto wage a war on terror.

If military responses to terrorism arecounterproductive, what can bedone? In the short run, the UnitedStates can fortify measures that pro-

mote self-protection, encourage citizensin likely target areas to be vigilant, andimprove training and information sharingamong intelligence organizations, law-en-forcement personnel, branches of govern-ment, and our allies. The report by theNational Commission on Terrorist At-tacks Upon the United States, releasedon July 22 and available at http://www.9-11commission.gov, offers detailed recom-mendations on how such goals might beaccomplished.

Although self-protective measures willnever be foolproof, they have the virtueof being nonprovocative and less costlythan war. For example, the cost of safe-guarding weapons-grade uranium andplutonium is relatively low, yet accordingto a recent report from Harvard’s John F.Kennedy School of Government (“Secur-ing the Bomb: An Agenda for Action”),less nuclear-weapons material was se-cured in the two years immediately afterSeptember 11, 2001, than in the two yearsbefore the attacks.

In the long run, research indicates that atleast three priorities are of paramount im-portance: reducing intergroup conflict, cre-ating incentives for the reduction of terror-ism, and socializing young people to rejectviolence as a means of problem solving.

With respect to the first goal, social-sci-ence research suggests that intergroupconflict is reduced when members of eachgroup are equal in status and are mutu-ally dependent on one another. At thelevel of nations, those conditions can be strengthened by addressing legitimategrievances and developing fair-trade agree-ments, joint investments of venture capital,cultural-exchange programs, and respect

for human rights, sovereignty, and inter-national law.

In terms of the second goal, the UnitedStates can create a sense of shared pur-pose and incentives for reducing terror-ism by increasing its foreign aid, hunger-relief assistance, and medical exports tocountries working actively to fight terror-ism. Currently, the United States gives alower percentage of its gross nationalproduct to foreign aid than does anyother developed nation. Clearly, however,one of the surest ways to win friends andreduce anti-Americanism is by helpingthose in need.

Finally, any comprehensive strategy toreduce terrorism must ensure that childrenare not socialized to embrace violence as ameans of problem solving. In the Oslo In-terim Agreement of 1995, Israel and the

Palestinian Authority pledged that theywould “ensure that their respective educa-tional systems contribute to the peace be-tween the Israeli and Palestinian peoplesand to peace in the entire region, and willrefrain from the introduction of any mo-tifs that could adversely affect the processof reconciliation.” For the sake of futuregenerations, a similar pledge should beformalized as part of a worldwide multi-lateral treaty banning educational materi-als that condone or incite violence. Withincentives for compliance and provisionsfor enforcement, such a treaty would beof considerable value.

Thus far, the Iraq war has cost the Unit-ed States an estimated $120-billion and isresponsible for the deaths of more than1,000 coalition soldiers and 10,000 Iraqicivilians—more than triple the number ofinnocent Americans who died in the Sep-tember 11 attacks, and a number thatgrows with each passing day. The time hascome to rethink our global strategy onterrorism, apply what we know from so-cial-science research, and find a more ef-fective way to make the world safe.

Scott L. Plous is a professor of psychologyat Wesleyan University and editor of Un-derstanding Prejudice and Discrimination(McGraw-Hill, 2003). A research bibliog-raphy and links on terrorism are availableon the Web site he maintains at http://www.socialpsychology.org/peace.htm. Philip G.Zimbardo is a professor emeritus of psy-chology at Stanford University. Among hisbooks is Violence Workers: Police Tortur-ers and Murderers Reconstruct BrazilianAtrocities (University of California Press,2002), which he wrote with Martha K. Hug-gins and Mika Haritos-Fatouros. He servedas president of the American PsychologicalAssociation for the yearlong term that start-ed shortly after the September 11 attacks.

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The futilityof fighting terrorismwith large-scalemilitary strikesis perhaps clearestin the case of Iraq.