http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/11/terrorism_society_a.html

The latest edition of Monitor on Psychology has an excellent article on the psychology of terrorism, looking at both what motivates people to join terrorist organisations and what influences attitudes to terrorist groups.

Being an article in the publication of the American Psychological Association, it's a round-up of American research on terrorism, however, there are two findings on terrorism which perhaps suggest one of the political challenges in dealing with the problem.

One of those is from terror management theory, in which making people temporarily conscious of a risk to their life or their impending mortality affects how people think about a range of issues, including response to terrorism:

To test whether the theory applies to the conflict between the Middle East and the West, Pyszczynski's team conducted a set of studies in the United States, Iran and Israel. In all three countries, people who were subtly reminded of their mortality—and thus primed to cling more strongly to their group identities—were more likely to support violence against the out group. Iranians were more likely to support suicide bombing against Westerners. Americans were more likely to advocate military force to battle Islamic extremists, even if it meant killing thousands of civilians. Israelis were more likely to condone violence against Palestinians.

So discussing mortal threat increases people's desire for violent responses to perceived terrorism.

However, the article makes clear that radicalisation is potentially increased by violent responses and that successful deredicalisation programmes take a supportive rather than a punitive approach:

In preliminary research, Kruglanski and colleagues note that many of these programs share:

• An intellectual component, often involving moderate Muslim clerics who hold dialogues with imprisoned detainees about the Qu'ran's true teachings on violence and jihad.

• An emotional component that defuses detainees' anger and frustration by showing authentic concern for their families, through means such as funding their children's education or offering professional training for their wives. This aspect also capitalizes on the fact that detainees are weary from their lifestyles and imprisonment.

• A social component that addresses the reality that detainees often re-enter societies that may rekindle their radical beliefs. A program in Indonesia, for instance, uses former militants who are now law-abiding citizens to convince former terrorists that violence against civilians compromises the image of Islam.

So the political dilemma seems to be that simply discussing the threat of terrorism makes people less likely to support the most effective counter-terrorist programmes, owing to the effect of mortality awareness increasing the desire for violent responses, which, if carried out, could increase support for terrorism in the target population.

Answers on a postcard please...

Link to article 'Understanding terrorism'.

AMENDMENT

Part V

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post-Mayfield.

Summary: Altering one thing in the past can change everything. House and Wilson. SLASH. Angst, Hurt-comfort. Warning! Primary character portrayed (in part) as a child.Story contains some paranormal-ish events.

meish_kaos

archea2

Rating : PG

Summary : AU. None of it ever happened, though Jo has an easy time persuading Gellert that it did.

http://feeds.reference.com/click.phdo?i=8ccd8d54c6e3f8266a57bb450a843a5d

http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/archive/2009/11/11.html

Title: Morning Rituals
Rating: PG-13 (handy-ness)
Disclaimer: They most certainly are NOT mine.
Summary: House thinks about how mornings used to be, how they are now.

And this little one.
 

Obviously, Happy Ending is stuck in my head.

I’m watching Glee. Glee is pretty cool. So is How I Met Your Mother. I like psychoanalysing TV shows like that. Glee is fun to psychoanalyse. i really should be stressing more about exams. Like, there is something seriously wrong with me. My mum said that If we were in singapore I would have gotten lots of prizes by now. I feel like I should’ve replied with: “well if we were in Singapore i bet i wouldnt be alive. SUCK ON THAT!”

And this is why i never want my parents to come to prizegiving, or anything school related. I stopped telling them about parent teacher interviews because the last time they went my mum spent the whole time glaring at me.

This week was full of lasts. I know its been said a gazillion times on everyone’s facebook, but last class, last study period, last lunchtime trip to subway, etc etc. I feel sad now, when im by myself, but i dont feel anything when im with people. Its nicer when im with people. JESUS CHRIST i am so weird.

Okay, so the hardcore Christian cheerleader in Glee is a BITCH. isnt that a bit of a contradiction? Hardcore Christians are supposed to be nice people...stereotypically. But then again Glee is about overcoming stereotypes, yes? Obviously, she’s just doing it for the popularity. But i think that everything is a little bit exaggerated on Glee. Thats nice too. A bit of exaggeration never hurt anyone.

NO! I DO NOT WANT TO PARTY IN THE USA WITH MILEY CYRUS!!!!! DO I LOOK LIKE A GODDAMN 8 YEAR OLD WITH HORMONES? Why, would you put an ad on TV that has a slogan asking you if you want to party in the USA with MILEY CYRUS??!?!? ugh. i hate miley cyrus. hate hate hate hate hate her. okay, so i dont know her, but the hype she has caused in small children is fucking annoying. I ACTUALLY prefer Chipmunk-voiced Vanessa Hudgens.

Mercedes from Glee is awesome.

Ohhh im in love with Glee right now. Its like the 100-times-better version of High School Musical. A-MAZING.

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2009/11/10/dan-radcliffe-signed-box-set-of-hp-books-at-charity-auction

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/11/the_wall_in_the_head.html

Looking back on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Somatosphere discusses how the wall became incorporated into German psychological theories as a diagnosis, a metaphor and a social force.

Apparently, an East German psychiatrist even went as far as suggesting a specific diagnosis of 'the wall disorder':

"...the book Die Berliner Mauerkrankheit (The Berlin wall disease) written by a prominent East German psychiatrist, Dietfried Müller-Hegemann (1973), shortly after the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 (but not published until after his emigration to the West). Müller-Hegemann drew on his collection of patient histories to highlight the deleterious social and psychological consequences of a society encircled by the wall. He investigated what Berliners had already started to talk about—whether the newly built wall was causing a novel psychological disease: “the wall disorder,”

Link to Somatosphere on the Berlin Wall in German psychology.

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/11/orchids_dandelions_.html

The Atlantic has an excellent article on how our assumptions about genetic vulnerability to mental illness may be misplaced, as many studies have missed out how the same genetic factors may cause people to thrive but only in quite specific circumstances.

One of the difficulties with psychiatry research is that it often has a sample bias, a blind spot if you will, as it typically studies people who turn up in front of mental health professionals because they're a problem to themselves or others.

It finds social, psychological or biological factors associated with the problem and then speculates that these might be involved in causing the problem.

Many times throughout history, however, it has later been discovered that perfectly functional people have the same traits but they weren't specifically looked for and so weren't included when the theories were devised.

In this case, the article tackles how genes originally identified as 'risk factors' for mental illness, could, in fact, be equally well conceived of as 'sensitivity factors' that heighten response to all situations.

When these situations include tragedy, abuse, or what in the medical literature are euphemistically called 'life events' (essentially, the shit in 'shit happens') the result may be an increased chance of mental illness, but when the situations are positive, life-enhancing opportunities, this extra sensitivity may lead to better outcomes.

Though this hypothesis is new to modern biological psychiatry, it can be found in folk wisdom, as the University of Arizona developmental psychologist Bruce Ellis and the University of British Columbia developmental pediatrician W. Thomas Boyce pointed out last year in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. The Swedes, Ellis and Boyce noted in an essay titled “Biological Sensitivity to Context,” have long spoken of “dandelion” children. These dandelion children—equivalent to our “normal” or “healthy” children, with “resilient” genes—do pretty well almost anywhere, whether raised in the equivalent of a sidewalk crack or a well-tended garden. Ellis and Boyce offer that there are also “orchid” children, who will wilt if ignored or maltreated but bloom spectacularly with greenhouse care.

At first glance, this idea, which I’ll call the orchid hypothesis, may seem a simple amendment to the vulnerability hypothesis. It merely adds that environment and experience can steer a person up instead of down. Yet it’s actually a completely new way to think about genetics and human behavior. Risk becomes possibility; vulnerability becomes plasticity and responsiveness.

Link to Atlantic article 'The Science of Success'.