Lankford (Précis target article, sect. 1) alludes to the “fundamental attribution error,” which is that the behavior of others is caused by internal disposition rather than external circumstances. We would like to call attention to another common error of attribution, albeit one that lacks a catchy name. That error is labeling someone's behavior as “irrational” without knowledge of their decision utilities (Weiss & Weiss Reference Weiss and Weiss2012). It is all too easy to assert that a choice one views as foolish must have been the product of faulty reasoning. Those who would label suicide bombers as cognitively deficient are in danger of committing the error.
It is also hazardous to infer motive from observed action. For example, if you were to see a man enter a restaurant, it would be tempting to impute hunger. While that may be the most likely explanation, he might actually have been meeting friends or business colleagues, or selling restaurant supplies, or complaining about last night's meal. He might have been seeking shelter from adverse weather conditions. Even seeing the man eat does not guarantee that hunger was the driving force behind the decision to enter the restaurant.
To understand a decision, an analyst needs to know what the options under consideration were, and also to know the utility parameters assigned to the various consequences inherent in those options (Weiss et al. Reference Weiss, Weiss and Edwards2010). Pulling the fatal trigger is one of the options in the package under consideration by a potential suicide bomber. The anticipated consequences attached to the trigger option include not only death for oneself and the targets, but also publicity and political gain for the cause, a label of heroism, or release from everyday cares and social connections. Anticipated consequences for the walk-away option include the converse outcomes, along with various possible punishments. These lists are speculative on our part; authoritative lists could come only from those facing the decision. Values, and especially saliencies, attached to the consequences may well fluctuate with mood and circumstance. And of course, the lists may vary across decision makers.
None of the researchers involved in the martyrdom versus depression debate, including Lankford (Reference Lankford2013c), is positioned to possess that information; nor are we. Absent the information, one can only speculate; and the debate may be couched in terms of that speculation. Those who argue for martyrdom envision high salience for gains for the cause, whereas Lankford pictures high salience for release from a life seen as not worth living.
Can the information needed for understanding the suicide decision be obtained? Eliciting utilities is challenging even when respondents are cooperative (Fischhoff Reference Fischhoff1991). People do not always know their own minds (Nisbett & Wilson Reference Nisbett and Wilson1977), and may not be sufficiently numerate to convey their feelings quantitatively. For terrorists, antagonism toward interrogation and deceptive intention may be even more formidable barriers to elicitation. Furthermore, pre-decisional access is likely to be limited by the potential bomber's secrecy concerns, and post-decisional access to successful bombers is by definition impossible.
Appreciating the difficulties, Keeney and von Winterfeldt (Reference Keeney and von Winterfeldt2010) attempted to comprehend the goals of terrorists by examining archival sources, rather than via personal elicitation. They examined documents available on the Internet, including how-to guides and manifestos written by Al Qaeda theoreticians. Although this information is valuable for formulating defensive strategies, it is not necessarily true that the utilities of individual terrorists are similar, nor that they correspond to those of their intellectual leaders. Indeed, one might expect the values of people considering an immediate and ultimate sacrifice for the cause (or in Lankford's view, a suicide) to differ considerably from those engaged in long-term planning.
The psychological distance between leaders and followers is accentuated by Lankford's chilling revelations regarding how handlers brutalize candidates. In the language of decision making, the handler attempts to control the options package, limiting the prospective bomber's options to those with negative utilities. Recruits who cannot bring their own positive options into the mix are then poised to choose a package that includes death as one of the likely consequences.
If information about the recruitment process were available, it might serve to inform the debate. We draw an analogy to employment settings, wherein a focus on selection suggests that management regards particular abilities as crucial, kinds of expertise that are not widely shared within the applicant pool. On the other hand, an extensive training program suggests that management expects qualified candidates to be able to acquire the requisite skills. Accordingly, we might judge a terrorist organization that tries to make bombers out of folks who express negative ideations (despair, worthlessness, etc.) to share Lankford's view that suicide terrorism is, indeed, suicide. In contrast, an organization that looks for true believers, regardless of mental health, acts as though it expects martyrs to be the ones who become successful suicide bombers. First-hand descriptions of what takes place during attempted recruitment would constitute valuable data, and might be available from those who chose not to enlist. Do recruiters inquire about personal issues, or do they emphasize the duty of the faithful? These data would tell us what terrorist leaders think motivates a suicide bomber. Those leaders are likely to be better informed than scholarly analysts.
Lankford (Précis target article, sect. 1) alludes to the “fundamental attribution error,” which is that the behavior of others is caused by internal disposition rather than external circumstances. We would like to call attention to another common error of attribution, albeit one that lacks a catchy name. That error is labeling someone's behavior as “irrational” without knowledge of their decision utilities (Weiss & Weiss Reference Weiss and Weiss2012). It is all too easy to assert that a choice one views as foolish must have been the product of faulty reasoning. Those who would label suicide bombers as cognitively deficient are in danger of committing the error.
It is also hazardous to infer motive from observed action. For example, if you were to see a man enter a restaurant, it would be tempting to impute hunger. While that may be the most likely explanation, he might actually have been meeting friends or business colleagues, or selling restaurant supplies, or complaining about last night's meal. He might have been seeking shelter from adverse weather conditions. Even seeing the man eat does not guarantee that hunger was the driving force behind the decision to enter the restaurant.
To understand a decision, an analyst needs to know what the options under consideration were, and also to know the utility parameters assigned to the various consequences inherent in those options (Weiss et al. Reference Weiss, Weiss and Edwards2010). Pulling the fatal trigger is one of the options in the package under consideration by a potential suicide bomber. The anticipated consequences attached to the trigger option include not only death for oneself and the targets, but also publicity and political gain for the cause, a label of heroism, or release from everyday cares and social connections. Anticipated consequences for the walk-away option include the converse outcomes, along with various possible punishments. These lists are speculative on our part; authoritative lists could come only from those facing the decision. Values, and especially saliencies, attached to the consequences may well fluctuate with mood and circumstance. And of course, the lists may vary across decision makers.
None of the researchers involved in the martyrdom versus depression debate, including Lankford (Reference Lankford2013c), is positioned to possess that information; nor are we. Absent the information, one can only speculate; and the debate may be couched in terms of that speculation. Those who argue for martyrdom envision high salience for gains for the cause, whereas Lankford pictures high salience for release from a life seen as not worth living.
Can the information needed for understanding the suicide decision be obtained? Eliciting utilities is challenging even when respondents are cooperative (Fischhoff Reference Fischhoff1991). People do not always know their own minds (Nisbett & Wilson Reference Nisbett and Wilson1977), and may not be sufficiently numerate to convey their feelings quantitatively. For terrorists, antagonism toward interrogation and deceptive intention may be even more formidable barriers to elicitation. Furthermore, pre-decisional access is likely to be limited by the potential bomber's secrecy concerns, and post-decisional access to successful bombers is by definition impossible.
Appreciating the difficulties, Keeney and von Winterfeldt (Reference Keeney and von Winterfeldt2010) attempted to comprehend the goals of terrorists by examining archival sources, rather than via personal elicitation. They examined documents available on the Internet, including how-to guides and manifestos written by Al Qaeda theoreticians. Although this information is valuable for formulating defensive strategies, it is not necessarily true that the utilities of individual terrorists are similar, nor that they correspond to those of their intellectual leaders. Indeed, one might expect the values of people considering an immediate and ultimate sacrifice for the cause (or in Lankford's view, a suicide) to differ considerably from those engaged in long-term planning.
The psychological distance between leaders and followers is accentuated by Lankford's chilling revelations regarding how handlers brutalize candidates. In the language of decision making, the handler attempts to control the options package, limiting the prospective bomber's options to those with negative utilities. Recruits who cannot bring their own positive options into the mix are then poised to choose a package that includes death as one of the likely consequences.
If information about the recruitment process were available, it might serve to inform the debate. We draw an analogy to employment settings, wherein a focus on selection suggests that management regards particular abilities as crucial, kinds of expertise that are not widely shared within the applicant pool. On the other hand, an extensive training program suggests that management expects qualified candidates to be able to acquire the requisite skills. Accordingly, we might judge a terrorist organization that tries to make bombers out of folks who express negative ideations (despair, worthlessness, etc.) to share Lankford's view that suicide terrorism is, indeed, suicide. In contrast, an organization that looks for true believers, regardless of mental health, acts as though it expects martyrs to be the ones who become successful suicide bombers. First-hand descriptions of what takes place during attempted recruitment would constitute valuable data, and might be available from those who chose not to enlist. Do recruiters inquire about personal issues, or do they emphasize the duty of the faithful? These data would tell us what terrorist leaders think motivates a suicide bomber. Those leaders are likely to be better informed than scholarly analysts.