Terrorist identity is built through closed-environment transformative socialization

Evidence

Rare events are the product of an idiosyncratic constellation of influences, some of which may occur fortuitously. Once initiated on a path to terrorism, individuals undergo intensive socialization into the role of terrorist. … This transformative socialization is usually carried out in a closed environment that becomes the recruits’ pervasive new reality, with new kinships, strongly held group beliefs and values, all-encompassing codes of conduct, few vestiges of individuality, and substantial rewarding and coercive power—all with the purpose of completely transforming recruits’ personal lives (Bandura, 1982). Those in charge further enhance the power of communal influence by curtailing recruits’ personal contacts and exposure to countervailing influences outside the group. Immersion in heavily prescribed activities that leave the recruits with little time to think or to explore other milieus has similar encapsulating effects. Regardless of the particular constellation of influences that shape the path to terrorism, every terrorist faces the moral problem of having to kill innocent people. Skill in disengagement of morality also requires intensive training to be able to inflict pain and suffering with equanimity (Haritos-Fatouros, 2003). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2127

Categorization

• XREF: The closed-environment socialization mechanism parallels Milgram/authoritarianism claims in the vault about how ideological encapsulation erodes independent moral judgment.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2127