Are Terrorists Model Citizens? An Account of Political Culture Through Ecological Psychology

Bibliographic Data

ID19214922
AuthorsDavid Sánchez (0000-0001-7275-7887, Universidad de Granada), Adrian López Fleming (0009-0004-9328-4045, Universitat de Barcelona, corresponding author), Isabella R Wiehls (0009-0006-8422-4459, Universitat de Barcelona)
Year2026
Volume56
Issue2
Publication date2026-06-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-8308 • E-ISSN: 1468-5914
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/jtsb.70046
OpenAlexW7163525339
LanguageEN
References cited31

The aim of this paper is to provide a novel as well as radical perspective that helps to elucidate the fundamental function civic values fulfil within society through an embodied model that provides a framework, both theoretical and practical, for the shaping of the subject's political culture and habits. We examine the cognitive basis of the notion of civic values and rational choice theory, arguing that, when confronted with the “terrorist dilemma”, the latter appears as an ill‐formed scientific framework. We propose an embodied approach to the concept of political culture through ecological psychology, arguing that it not only offers a better scientific framework for the study of political culture and habits but also that this framework shows the profound limitations of the notion of civic values in the first place. We consider the implications for public policy in regards to the prevention of radicalisation, contrasting the public policy outcomes that derive from orthodox and our proposed model, examining specific cases such as the 2018 Toronto van attack

Embodied cognition · Function (biology) · Perspective (graphical) · Political culture · Politics · Public policy · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

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