Abstract
Terrorism is one of the most complex social problems of our time. So are the motives and deterrents of individuals who become or do not become involved in terrorism. Since individuals always have the choice between a set of alternative behaviors, they have to actively decide to engage in terrorist behavior. On the basis of reductionist social/behavioral/psychological science, no unifying explanatory theory has emerged. This chapter aims to approach the subjective and multi-motive reality of individuals who decide to become involved in terrorism with a subjected expected utility (SEU) lens. The SEU theory does not treat individuals as a homogeneous group of people but focuses on differences in the presence of uncertainty and risk preferences, thus abiding to the empirical findings on terrorists, namely, that there is no common profile. Yet, most individuals seem to have a behavioral preference for stability over change. Thus, the SEU lens is expanded by giving weight to the cognitive bias for the status quo alternative. Solutions for methodological issues in the quantitative analysis of rare events, i.e., the decision to become a terrorist, such as small samples and selection bias are proposed too, thus outlining a possible agenda for a more systematic research design in the empirical study of terrorism – whereby it is obvious that data access limitations are difficult but not impossible to be overcome.
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Buchenrieder, G., Struwe, D. (2022). Subjective Expected Utility Considerations in the Individual Decision for or Against Becoming a Terrorist. In: Baikady, R., Sajid, S., Przeperski, J., Nadesan, V., Rezaul, I., Gao, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Problems. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68127-2_83-1
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