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Terrorism Is Terrorism

Decent Essays

In this modern era, being exposed to many sources of news media, we find out how terrorism is growing and devastating many parts of the world. Thinking of terrorism, people tend to see images of intensive war, mass-killing, ISIS or 9/11 attack. But what is really terrorism? And how does it happen?

Terrorism is defined as the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, as a mean to create terror or fear, in the pursuit of political, religious, or ideological aims. This definition fits the images we see on the news, or in other words, images that are readily available in our mind, bombings, fire, terror, enduring people, and aggressive terrorist. As availability heuristic is not always accurate, this general definition also does not tell us the whole picture of the reality and how terrorism arises.

We usually err to think that terrorists are born evil and destructive, so it is their internal disposition that rules the actions. For that reason, we underestimate the influence of the situation (religious conflict, for example). The fundamental attribution error first explains why and how we misunderstand terrorism.

Most problems of terrorism can be interpreted using social psychology to reveal how people and individuals interact, relate, and impact each other. It is shocking to realize how similar terroristic issues are to ordinary thoughts of everyday life, with the only difference that it is taken to the extreme. The in-group bias explains why

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