Personality and Social Contexts Commons^™

Trends. Terrorist Brains, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This Trends article discusses the construct of biological reductionism in the context of the case of Red Army Faction member Ulrike Meinhof. For the author, overly emphasizing the biological aspects of Ms. Meinhof’s case might obscure legitimate grievances, and ultimately, lead to more cases of violence associated with terrorism.

Trends. Disclosure Of Post-9-11 Arrestees And Maslow’S Hierarchy Of Needs, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This Trends article discusses the Maslowian hierarchy of needs in the context of 9-11 terrorist attacks and the relationship between executive and judicial branches of American government.

Trends. Getting Emotional On Nonlethal Weapons, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article describes a significant biopsychosocial impediment to developing nonlethal weapons affecting emotional functioning.

The Black And White Of Profiling: Sniping On The Sniper Case, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article analyzes the construct of profiling in the aftermath of the arrest of two suspects in the recent sniper attacks perpetrated in the greater Washington, D.C. area.

Trends. Sniping As Terrorism And Terrorism As Sniping, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This Trends article discusses the possible terrorist context of sniper attacks perpetrated in the greater Washington, D.C. area in 2002, and the potential impact on global social cohesion.

Personnel Security: Beyond Initial Screening And Selection To Career Aftermath, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article describes Issues pertaining to personnel security in the aftermath of an individual’s career with an organization.

Trends. If You're So Right, Why Are We Sure You're So Wrong? Iraq, Free Riders, And Social Loafing, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This Trends article discusses and evaluates public discourse surrounding the acceptability of militarily invading Iraq through a social psychological perspective. In social psychology, the research tradition for constructs such as free-riding and social loafing suggests that, wittingly or unwittingly, many political actors assume that the United States will act to address actual political threats in a certain way, and that they (the other political actors) can adopt contrarian ideological stances because they don’t have to address those same threats.

Humiliation And Terrorism: Final Common Pathway Or Lowest Common Denominator?, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article describes complexities in attributing a construct termed the primary causal factor to terrorist behavior perpetrated by espousers of variants of something called radical Islam against the interests of the United States Government (USG) and against something called the West.

Trends. Self-Esteem And Terrorism, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This Trends article discusses the role self-esteem plays in terrorist behavior. Analysis includes the application of Jennifer Crocker and Connie T. Wolfe’s views as presented in their 2001 Psychological Review article “Contingencies of self-worth” (Vol 108 (3), pp. 593-623).

The Double Edged Sword Of Disaster Psychology In The Context Of Terrorism, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article describes implicit assumptions, and clinical and political implications, of prescriptions for psychological services in the aftermath of terrorism-created disaster. The article is one of a series in IBPP that focuses on crisis psychology, stress management, and critical incident debriefing in an era of a United States Government (USG)-announced war on terrorism with global reach.

Trends. War On Personality And Personality And War: Comments On Nass And Lee (2002), Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This Trends article discusses another article – Identity and deconstruction, by Clifford Nass and Kwan Min Yee – published in volume 3 (2002) of Archives of Psychiatry & Psychotherapy in which the authors demonstrate that people reliably attribute personality characteristics to computer-synthesized speech, exploring the ramifications in a political psychological context.

The Societal Costs Of Surveillance: An Alternative View On Civil Liberties Constraints, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article explores some psychological phenomena bearing on the consequences of civil liberties constraints.

Vestiges Of Communism And Personnel Security, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article illustrates several interpretive difficulties in employing personnel security criteria in the context of national security.

Trends. Personnel Security In An Age Of Terrorism With Global Reach, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This Trends article discusses what an appropriate level of commitment to a security bureaucracy might look like.

Trends. Husbands, Wives, And Terrorism: The Validity Of Beliefs And The Threat Of Interpretive Strategies, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses threat assessment via linguistic analysis.

Trends. Aviation Terrorism's Winning Hand, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses aviation security, terrorism, and the psychology behind pilot motivations for opting out of flying members of the Israeli government to Israel.

The Personality Profile Of September 11 Hijack Ringleader Mohamed Atta, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of a posthumous, indirect assessment of the personality of Mohamed Atta, apparent ringleader in the September 11, 2001 terror attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, from the conceptual perspective of Theodore Millon.

Information concerning Mohamed Atta was collected from media reports in the one-month period following the attack and synthesized into a personality profile using the second edition of the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM-IV.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the …

The Personality Profile Of Al-Qaida Leader Osama Bin Laden, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of Osama bin Laden, founder and leader of the al-Qaida terrorist network responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States.

Bin Laden’s primary personality patterns were found to be Ambitious/exploitative and Dauntless/dissenting, with a secondary Distrusting/suspicious orientation, and subsidiary Dominant/controlling and Conscientious/dutiful features.

Ambitious individuals are bold, competitive, and self-assured; they easily assume leadership roles, expect others to recognize their special qualities, and often act as though entitled. Dauntless individuals are bold, courageous, and tough; minimally constrained by the norms of society; routinely engage …

Magical Thinking But No Magic: Implications For Sacred Terrorism, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article describes lay and scientific psychological constructs of magic with implications for terrorism perpetrated through religious motivation.

Trends. The Error Of The Fundamental Attribution Error: The Character Assassinations Of Sharon And Arafat, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses the propagandistic language surrounding Ariel Sharon and Yasir Arafat in the context of Middle Eastern politics of Israel and Palestine.