Moral Judgment in Insurgent Terrorism

BAEZ, SANDRA; EDUAR HERRERA; NATALIA TRUJILLO; FACUNDO MANES; LIANE YOUNG; AGUSTÍN IBÁÑEZ

Congreso; Society for Social Neuroscience (S4SN) Annual Meeting; 2015

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has claimed that terrorism produces a sturdy damage and direct impact on human rights, with devastating consequences for the liberty and physical integrity of victims. Moreover, terrorism can destabilize governments, undermine civil society, jeopardize peace and security, and threaten economic development. Colombia is a country that has been affected by an ongoing and extreme violence for more than 60 years, having one of the greatest insurgency strength in the world. Currently, Paramilitary movements have contributed to a dramatic growth of terrorist violence in Colombia. Understanding the critical cognitive processes featuring terrorist motivations would help to understand, prevent and react over the undeniably catastrophic consequences of these practices. Nevertheless, little is known regarding the social-cognitive processes (e.g., executive functions (EF), emotion recognition, and moral cognition) underlying the brutal acts committed by terrorist groups. Here we studied an exceptional sample of Colombian incarcerated paramilitary ex-combatants using a well-characterized task that critically disentangle the contributions of intentions and outcomes to moral judgment. High levels of terrorism and insurgency, as well as aggressive and disruptive behaviors characterize this exceptional sample. All participants in this group were convicted of murder with a mean of 33 victims (most of them performed more than 4 massacres including exceptional cases of more than 600 victims). We also explored whether moral judgment is associated with other pertinent cognitive-affective domains. In addition, we evaluated whether moral judgment is better than the other measures in discriminating paramilitaries from controls. Results revealed atypical moral judgments in ex- combatants, related to a general impairment in the integration of intentions and outcomes. Moreover, moral judgment was the measure that best discriminated ex- combatants from controls, even when compared with other cognitive-affective variables in which ex-combatants exhibited an atypical or impaired performance. Results provide new implications for forensic research and one of the first approximations to understanding of terrorist?s cognitive profiles. [Grants from CONICYT/FONDECYT Regular (1130920/1140114); PICT (2012-0412/2012-1309), CONICET, and the INECO Foundation]