Citation

Kunst JR, Obaidi M, Coenen AC, Vasseljen VD, Gill P. Terrorism Polit. Violence 2023; 35(3): 634-657.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/09546553.2021.1967149

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The question of why people become terrorists has preoccupied scholars and policy makers for decades. Yet, very little is known about how lay people perceive individuals at risk of becoming terrorists. In two studies conducted in the U.K., we aimed to fill this gap. Study 1 showed that Muslims and non-Muslims perceived a potential minority-group terrorist in terms of both structural (e.g., life-history, social) and individual risk factors (e.g., personality, psychopathology, ideology). In Study 2, Muslims and non-Muslims perceived a potential right-wing majority-group terrorist as having more individual predispositions to terrorism than a potential left-wing majority-group terrorist. Importantly, in both studies, individualist perceptions such as psychopathology were positively associated with support for stricter law enforcement, whereas structuralist perceptions such as adverse childhood experiences were positively associated with support for social interventions. Lay people seem to have multifactorial understandings of individuals at risk of becoming terrorists, which influence their counterterrorism policy support.

Language: en

Keywords

Law enforcement; policy support; psychopathology; social interventions; terrorism