RESUMEN

Terrorism continues to be an enigmatic and contested concept, lacking a universally accepted definition despite extensive scholarly debate. Lay intuitions, however, demonstrate a notable convergence in identifying acts as "terrorism" when specific situational features are present, such as indiscriminate violence and out-group perpetration. These features elicit predictable and robust precautionary responses, raising the question: Is there a unified and parsimonious explanation for these phenomena? It is hypothesized that a situational template exists in the human mind, the coalitional predation template (CPT), which evolved not to detect modern-day terrorism, per se, but to identify and respond to situations of predatory coalitional conflict. The paper examines the potential cues and mechanisms that constitute the psychological systems activated by such threats, suggesting that matching the input cues of the CPT triggers well-documented precautionary responses to terrorism. However, this cue-based system may not align neatly with contemporary threats, leading to disproportionate responses to some threats while underestimating others. The model also posits that interpretations of violence can vary due to incomplete cues and the social position of the evaluator, leading to public disagreements and inconsistencies in defining terrorism. Consequently, arriving at an unambiguous and widely accepted definition of terrorism may not be possible. The model presented may account for a range of phenomena, including the inclination towards attributing mental illness to particular violent incidents and the uncanny surface similarities between terrorism and war crimes. The findings have significant implications for both the theoretical understanding of terrorism and practical policy responses.

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RESUMEN

Models of radicalization have typically placed grievances at the heart of radicalization. In contrast, we argue that viewing the radicalizing agent as decidedly proactive, and less reactive, better accounts for the available data. At the core of our radicalization model is the functional structure of envy. The operative properties of the emotion align with essential and conspicuous features of the radicalization process: a motivation to monitor social differentials, an identification of sources of postulated welfare costs, an impulse to eliminate or depower purported competitors, an attempt to diffuse responsibility for one's aggressive actions, and the rejoicing at the envied agent's misfortune. Two of those operative properties are particularly important for our understanding of radicalization. Envy motivates the neutralization of competitors when responsibility for welfare costs is not objectively attributable to others' wrongdoing toward the party who feels injured. The "process of typification" serves as a means to diffuse responsibility. It extends the reach of individual concerns by downplaying the particulars of the personal situation motivating the envious agent while evoking universally shared interaction templates (e.g., humiliation, injustice) to appeal to a broader audience.

RESUMEN

Emotions are conspicuous components of radicalization, violent extremism, and conspiracy ideation. Of the emotions studied for their contribution to those social pathologies, envy has been relatively unexplored. We investigate the relationship between envy, radicalization, and conspiracy ideation. Envy appears to affect core aspects of radicalization, particularly the endorsement of extremism and the acceptance of violent means to achieve one's ends, while radicalization facilitates the adoption of conspiracy ideation, rather than the latter being a cause of radicalization. Implications for future research on radicalization and violent extremism are discussed.

RESUMEN

Our research brings to light features of the social world that impact moral judgments and how they do so. The moral vignette data presented were collected in rural and urban Croatian communities that were involved to varying degrees in the Croatian Homeland War. We argue that rapid shifts in moral accommodations during periods of violent social strife can be explained by considering the role that coordination and social agents' ability to reconfigure their social network (i.e., relational mobility) play in moral reasoning. Social agents coordinate on (moral) norms, a general attitude which broadly facilitates cooperation, and makes possible the collective enforcement of compliance. During social strife interested parties recalibrate their determination of others' moral standing and recast their established moral circle, in accordance with their new or prevailing social investments. To that extent, social coordination-and its particular promoters, inhibitors, and determinants-effects significant changes in individuals' ranking of moral priorities. Results indicate that rural participants evaluate the harmful actions of third parties more harshly than urban participants. Coordination mediates that relationship between social environment and moral judgment. Coordination also matters more for the moral evaluation of the harmful actions of moral scenarios involving characters belonging to different social units than for scenarios involving characters belonging to the same group. Participants high in relational mobility-that ability to recompose one's social network-moralize similarly wrongdoings perpetrated by both in- and out-group members. Those low in relational mobility differentiate when an out-group member causes the harm. Additionally, perceptions of third-party guilt are also affected by specifics of the social environment. Overall, we find that social coordination and relational mobility affect moral reasoning more so than ethnic commitment.

RESUMEN

The drag queen cultural phenomenon has been described at length. However, the depiction of outlandish and hyperbolic womanhood and taunting and formidable behavior at the core of drag queens' public persona has still to be fully accounted for. We argue that these aspects of the drag queen's public appearance could best be understood in a signaling framework. Publicly donning extravagant woman's costumes attracts harassment and brings financial, mating, and opportunity costs, generating the conditions for the transmission of honest signals. By successfully withstanding those odds, drag queen impersonators signal strategic qualities to members of the gay community. Data collected among gay and straight participants support a costly signaling reading of the drag queen cultural phenomenon. Participants generally agree that successful drag queens typically incur costs, while gaining specific social benefits.

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