1Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Sperimentale,Section of Psychiatry,University of Pisa,Pisa,Italy.
2Fondazione BRF Onlus,Institute for Research in Psychiatry and Neuroscience,Lucca,Italy.
CNS Spectr. 2018 Apr;23(2):141-144. doi: 10.1017/S1092852917000645. Epub 2017 Sep 21.
Terrorist behavior represents a subtype of human aggression probably determined by a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors, as well as by peculiar environmental influences and group dynamics. As regards terrorists' psychological characteristics, the available studies (mostly carried out with no sound scientific design) have failed to identify the common or typical pathological personality traits of modern terrorists. The popular opinion that terrorists must be insane or psychopathic is still widespread; however, no evidence exists that terrorist behavior may be caused either by prior or current psychiatric disorders or psychopathy. Not surprisingly, some theories have proposed social factors and non-pathological psychological traits as predisposing elements for terrorist acts, but they generally lack of empirical validation. Moreover, most of these theories do not explain why, even if so many people are exposed to the same social factors or show the same psychological traits, only a tiny minority of them join a terrorist group. Therefore, it is mandatory that systematic and scientific investigations be carried out in order to understand the possible bases for terrorist aggression, including the early detection of possibly associated psychopathology, and to design an appropriate counterterrorism prevention policy.
恐怖主义行为代表了一种人类攻击的亚类型，可能是由生物、心理、社会因素以及特殊的环境影响和群体动态共同决定的。至于恐怖分子的心理特征，现有的研究（大多是在没有可靠科学设计的情况下进行的）未能确定现代恐怖分子常见或典型的病态人格特征。尽管没有证据表明恐怖主义行为可能是由先前或当前的精神障碍或精神病引起的，但人们普遍认为恐怖分子一定是疯狂或精神病态的。毫不奇怪，一些理论提出了社会因素和非病态的心理特征作为恐怖行为的诱发因素，但它们普遍缺乏经验验证。此外，这些理论大多无法解释为什么即使如此多的人面临相同的社会因素或表现出相同的心理特征，只有极少数人会加入恐怖组织。因此，必须进行系统和科学的调查，以了解恐怖主义攻击的可能基础，包括早期发现可能相关的精神病理学，并设计适当的反恐预防政策。
