Citation

Smith AG. Polit. Psychol. 2008; 29(1): 55-75.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, International Society of Political Psychology, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1467-9221.2007.00612.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study explored the dynamics of terrorism through a quantitative content analysis of documents issued by terrorist groups and nonterrorist comparison groups. Thirteen terrorist groups were matched with comparison groups that shared the same ideologies, and their documents were coded for ingroup affiliation, outgroup affiliation, and power motive imagery. As hypothesized, compared with nonterrorist groups, terrorist groups were significantly higher in ingroup affiliation motive imagery and significantly lower in outgroup affiliation motive imagery in the full sample of documents and in an indicator sample that included only terrorist groups' preterrorism documents. Terrorist groups were significantly higher than comparison groups in power motive imagery in the full sample and marginally significantly higher in power motive imagery in the indicator sample. These results highlight the important role that group dynamics play in terrorist groups.