TerrorismTerrorists’ personality traits indistinguishable from traits of the general population: Experts

Social scientists and psychologists have not found a personality trait that visibly marks a potential for violent extremism, making it difficult to identify members of a group who may take up arms in support of a common cause.

“As of now, there is no specific terrorist profile,” said Jocelyn Bélanger, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Quebec at Montreal who studies violent radicalization. “They come in all shapes and sizes.” Research on violent extremism, including interviews with current and former radicals, provide broad lessons on why and how some individuals might become violent radicals.

The Dallas Morning News points out that violent extremism occurs throughout an different communities, and is not limited to religious or political movements. For many individuals who feel humiliated or oppressed, or who seek rewards through heroism or martyrdom, radical movements offer “the highway to significance,” Bélanger said. Mental illness plays almost no part in political or religious terrorism, and while extremists might convince themselves that their actions are justified, research shows that they are not psychotic.

“There is little evidence of major psychoses being implicated, except in a minority of instances,” said Dr. Kamaldeep Bhui, a psychiatrist at Queen Mary University of London who studies violent extremism and is also editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry. In a recent research paper, Bhui and two colleagues wrote that “terrorists are generally well-integrated, ‘normal’ individuals,” not angry, social outcasts like many school shooters.

Psychiatrist Jerrold M. Post, who founded and directed the CIA’s Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior during twenty-one years with the agency, and now a professor at George Washington University, echoed that view in a report published last month. “There are no psychological characteristics or psychopathology that separate terrorists from the general population,” wrote Post. “Rather, it is group dynamics, with a particular emphasis on collective identity that helps explain terrorist psychology.” Post added that the Internet can let isolated individuals feel like an important member of “the virtual community of hatred.”

Pete Simi, a criminologist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is not surprised at the normality of violent extremists. Simi and colleagues studied forty-four members of radical American white-supremacist groups. All but four of the study subjects had personally committed acts of politically or racially motivated violence. The research uncovered that many of the study subjects had a high prevalence of childhood trauma, but Simi cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from his study. Childhood background might be a factor in embracing violent ideology, but it is not automatic.

Many people are abused as children, but not all grow up to become abusers. “What is clear is that most people in the general population who experience these conditions do not become violent, let alone violent extremists,” Simi said.