On cognitive debiasing and the judgment of suicide-attackers

Abstract

Suicide-attacks are possibly increasing in frequency all over the world. To date, these attacks are not considered as a manifestation of a particular mental illness. However, the process of radicalization of suicide-attackers has to interest the field of mental health. One plausible explanation for the radicalization of individuals is the use of biased cognitive schemes by the indoctrinator. Among these cognitive schemes could figure the causal attribution bias in which the subject cannot distinguish in front of two factors that operate simultaneously, the share of each factor in achieving a certain goal. Another cognitive bias would be the confirmation bias during which the subject would tend to adhere to ideas from his/her own thinking or the thinking of subjects who share some cultural values with him/her and refute any other ideas. Finally, the bias of polarization or splitting could also be incriminated. Through this bias, the subject would either be proud of being a member of a cultural group or ashamed when he/she feels that this group is being attacked and that he/she is unable to rescue it. Approaches to increase the awareness of individuals to the adverse effects of these biased cognitive schemes may theoretically reduce the risk of committing suicide-attacks. However, despite numerous attempts of “deradicalization” involving technological means of communication as well as social “reintegration” centers, all approaches aiming at raising awareness of cognitive biases need to be studied in a scientific manner before they become widespread.