The psychology of martyrdom: Making the ultimate sacrifice in the name of a cause.

Abstract

Martyrdom is defined as the psychological readiness to suffer and sacrifice one's life for a cause. An integrative set of 8 studies investigated the concept of martyrdom by creating a new tool to quantitatively assess individuals' propensity toward self-sacrifice. Studies 1A-1C consisted of psychometric work attesting to the scale's unidimensionality, internal consistency, and temporal stability while examining its nomological network. Studies 2A-2B focused on the scale's predictive validity, especially as it relates to extreme behaviors and suicidal terrorism. Studies 3-5 focused on the influence of self-sacrifice on automatic decision making, costly and altruistic behaviors, and morality judgments. Results involving more than 2,900 participants from different populations, including a terrorist sample, supported the proposed conceptualization of martyrdom and demonstrated its importance for a vast repertoire of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral phenomena. Implications and future directions for the psychology of terrorism are discussed.

Rebel with a Cause: Personal Significance from Political Activism Predicts Willingness to Self‐Sacrifice

“…Readiness to self‐sacrifice for the party's ideals was measured with a 10‐item scale developed by Bélanger, Caouette, Sharvit, and Dugas (), which was translated into Polish. A sample item was “I would be prepared to endure intense suffering if it meant defending those ideals” ( α = .86).…”

The “more is less” effect in equifinal structures: Alternative means reduce the intensity and quality of motivation

“…If they chose to donate, using a slider scale, participants indicated how much they wanted to give. This paradigm has been used in prior research (Bélanger, Caouette, Sharvit, & Dugas, 2014).…”

Terrorism, Radicalisation, Extremism, Authoritarianism and Fundamentalism: A Systematic Review of the Quality and Psychometric Properties of Assessments

“…Instruments to be used operationally by professionals included the VERA-2 with two distinct studies [14, 15], ERG 22+ [16], ERS [16] and IVPG with two distinct studies [17]. The tools developed as research measures of particular constructs were the 1992-RWA [6], RF-R [18], PHS [19], MMPI-2 [19], RWA-R [20], ITFS [21], ARIS [22], NBMASA [23], MEMS [24], MDFI [25], RF-I [26], SyfoR [27], IFS [28], SSS [29], ARIS-S [30], TCS [31], TRAP-18 [32] and a tool created by Schbley [33]. Finally, inventories not generated from a study comprised tools developed by Ross [34], Vaisman-Tzachor [35], Horgan [36], Saucier et al [37], Kebbell and Porter [38], Monahan [39], USAID [40], Borum [41] and the EMI-20 [42].…”