Under threat. Lay thinking about terrorism and the three‐dimensional model of personal involvement: a social psychological analysis

Abstract

After distinguishing between acts of terrorism and terrorist risk from a social psychological perspective, this paper focuses on the lay thinking about terrorism. We suggest an analysis carried out at the ideological/positional level of explanation, as opposed to the intra/interindividual level. This analysis is based on the Theory of Social Representations and its specific methodologies. It is supported by an empirical study completed on the airports of Marseilles‐Provence (France) and Boston‐Logan (United States). The study compared the lay thinking about terrorism among participants who had different levels of anti‐terrorism practice (French safety officers vs. French passengers) and of personal involvement (US vs. French passengers). The social representation of safety officers had a more practical orientation. In contrast, for passengers, the lay thinking about terrorism was normative in nature and displayed a salient affective component. Moreover, in the group of US passengers, who reported higher scores of personal involvement, the element ‘Muslims’ appeared as central for defining terrorism. These empirical results illustrated a theoretical proposal according to which, in conflict, threat, or crisis situations, and in the absence of practice, high personal involvement may favour the expression of lay thinking through a more narrow, radical, collective and mobilising form, the nexus, rather than through social representations.