“How can normal humans be brought to wholesale killing of civilians?” 

In this latest HFG Research and Policy in Brief, Clark McCauley, research professor of psychology at Bryn Mawr College, and Joel Wallman, director of research at HFG, examine the psychology that enables government forces or allied groups to kill civilians (politicide) and the psychology that enables nongovernmental groups to kill civilians (terrorism).

“Politicide and terrorism depend on similar psychologies to develop attacks on civilians,” write the authors in The Psychology of Killing Civilians. 

“For both, few perpetrators join the group for a chance to kill civilians, though they will later be asked to do so.”

This review examines material, status, and security threats as motivations for killing, predictors of politicide, radicalization of opinion and action, and more.

“Groups large and small can always find a few men and women who will kill them to save us,” conclude McCauley and Wallman.

Read or download the report (PDF)