title: Martyrdom's would-be myth buster.
abstract: Lankford overgeneralizes individual psychology from limited, fragmentary and doubtful materials, and underplays strategic, ideological, and group dynamical factors. His speculative claims manifest a form of fundamental attribution error: the tendency - especially evident in popular attachment to moral presumptions of individual responsibility and volition - to overestimate effects of personality and underestimate situational effects in explaining social behavior. The book's appeal may owe more to ideological preference than to interests of science or national security.
authors.affiliation: CNRS - Institut Jean Nicod,Ecole Normale Supérieure,29 rue d'Ulm,75005 Paris,France. satran@umich.edu http://sitemaker.umich.edu/satran/home
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Atran
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology*; D023481:Terrorism / Q000523:psychology*