Terrorist's Psychological Profile

The article is devoted to assessing the psychological characteristics of individuals convicted of extremist and terrorist crimes. MMPI test was used to examine 915 prisoners in various regions of Russia. The results of the analysis of the profiles of three categories of individuals are presented: extremists, terrorists and convicted for both extremist and terrorist crimes. In all three subgroups, a personality conversion profile was identified, testifying to the hysterical personality traits of the criminals and conflicting qualities, combining high activity with psychasthenic traits, making it easy to perform certain actions, often not well thought out and hasty, but evoking a guilty feeling that is supplanted by the psychological mechanism of denial. The expressed conversion is supposedly a consequence of unreacted psychotrauma. The results of a questionnaire survey, in which the main motives for the crime are named offense and revenge serve as a definite confirmation of this.

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