Social exclusion is the main reason behind the growth of terrorism-related motives in people in many Western countries, a British study shows.
Results of the study by University College London (UCL) published on Sunday on the website of the Guardian newspaper showed that a lack of social integration made people more inclined toward terrorist activities.
The findings cancel out wide-held beliefs in Western countries that home-grown terrorism was a result of issues like religious conservatism, psychosis or poverty.
“This finally dispels such wrongheaded ideas,” said the study’s co-lead author, Nafees Hamid of UCL, whose team of researchers used neuroimaging techniques to map how the brains of would-be terrorists respond to being socially marginalized.
“The first ever neuroimaging study on a radicalized population shows extreme pro-group behavior seems to intensify after social exclusion,” Hamid said, as he elaborated on the…