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Psychopathology & Severe
Mental Disorders
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| Psychological Types who would be most likely
to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction: |
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(According to the American
psychologist Berkowitz in 1972)
- Paranoid Schizophrenics
- Borderline Mental Defectives
- Schizophrenic Types
- Passive-Aggressive Personality Types
- Sociopath Personalities
*Berkowitz considered sociopaths to be the most
likely to use weapons of mass destruction.
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| Problems with this theory: |
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- Throughout the past 30 years, there has been very
little scientific evidence to support this theory.
- Studies have made comparisons of terrorists with
non-terrorists brought up in the same neighborhoods. The data showed
that each group had similar psychopathology rates that happened to also be
low in both groups.
- Jessica Stern (1999), a nuclear terrorism expert,
claimed that schizophrenics and sociopaths may desire to commit acts of
mass destruction but are less likely to actually succeed than others.
- According to McCauley (2000), lone bombers or lone
gunmen who kill for political causes may indeed suffer from
psychopathology, but terrorists in groups are quite different. They
can organize successfully and will be more likely to be within the range
of normality.
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Back to the
psychology of terrorism. |
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