In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Penguin Books, 2009, 312 pp, ISBN 978-0-14-311526-7This book is best described formally as a general explanation of and advocacy for libertarian paternalism, a term coined by the authors in earlier publications. Informally, it is about how leaders, systems, organizations, and governments can nudge people to do the things the nudgers want and need done for the betterment of the nudgees, or of society. It is paternalism in the sense that "it is legitimate for choice architects to try to influence people's behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better", (p. 5) It is libertarian in that "people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so", (p. 5) The built-in possibility of opting out or making a different choice preserves freedom of choice even though people's behavior has been influenced by the nature of the presentation of the information or by the structure of the decisionmaking system. I had never heard of libertarian paternalism before reading this book, and I now find it fascinating.Written for a general audience, this book contains mostly social and behavioral science theory and models, but there is considerable discussion of structure and process that has roots in mathematical and quantitative modeling. One of the main applications of this social system is economic choice in investing, selecting and purchasing products and services, systems of taxes, banking (mortgages, borrowing, savings), and retirement systems. Other quantitative social choice systems discussed include environmental effects, health care plans, gambling, and organ donations. Softer issues that are also subject to a nudge-based approach are marriage, education, eating, drinking, smoking, influence, spread of information, and politics. There is something in this book for everyone.The basis for this libertarian paternalism concept is in the social theory called "science of choice", the study of the design and implementation of influence systems on various kinds of people. The terms Econs and Humans, are used to refer to people with either considerable or little rational decision-making talent, respectively. The various libertarian paternalism concepts and systems presented are tested and compared in light of these two types of people. Two foundational issues that this book has in common with another book, Network of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders, that was also reviewed for this issue of the Journal are that 1 ) there are two modes of thinking (or components of the brain) - an automatic (intuitive) process and a reflective (rational) process and 2) the need for conformity and the desire for imitation are powerful forces in human behavior. …

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

This is the first comprehensive critical evaluation of the use of rational choice theory in political science. Writing in an accessible and nontechnical style, Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro assess rational choice theory where it is reputed to be most successful: the study of collective action, the behavior of political parties and politicians, and such phenomena as voting cycles and Prisoner's Dilemmas. In their hard-hitting critique, Green and Shapiro demonstrate that the much heralded achievements of rational choice theory are in fact deeply suspect and that fundamental rethinking is needed if rational choice theorists are to contribute to the understanding of politics. In their final chapters, they anticipate and respond to a variety of possible rational choice responses to their arguments, thereby initiating a dialogue that is bound to continue for some time.

Pathologies of rational choice theory: A critique of applications in political science.

Radicalisation, De-Radicalisation, Counter-Radicalisation: A Conceptual Discussion and Literature Review

Burglars on the Job, Streetlife and Residential Break-ins

This research note argues that the “lone wolf” typology should be fundamentally reconsidered. Based on a three-year empirical research project, two key points are made to support this argument. First, the authors found that ties to online and offline radical milieus are critical to lone actors' adoption and maintenance of both the motive and capability to commit acts of terrorism. Second, in terms of pre-attack behaviors, the majority of lone actors are not the stealthy and highly capable terrorists the “lone wolf” moniker alludes to. These findings not only urge a reconsideration of the utility of the lone-wolf concept, they are also particularly relevant for counterterrorism professionals, whose conceptions of this threat may have closed off avenues for detection and interdiction that do, in fact, exist.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1057610X.2017.1419554

End of the lone wolf: the typology that should not have been

This article provides an in-depth assessment of lone actor terrorists’ 
attack planning and preparation. A codebook of 198 variables related to 
different aspects of pre-attack behavior is applied to a sample of 55 
lone actor terrorists. Data were drawn from open-source materials and 
complemented where possible with primary sources. Most lone actors are 
not highly lethal or surreptitious attackers. They are generally poor at
 maintaining operational security, leak their motivations and 
capabilities in numerous ways, and generally do so months and even years
 before an attack. Moreover, the “loneness” thought to define this type 
of terrorism is generally absent; most lone actors uphold social ties 
that are crucial to their adoption and maintenance of the motivation and
 capability to commit terrorist violence. The results offer concrete 
input for those working to detect and prevent this form of terrorism and
 argue for a re-evaluation of the “lone actor” concept.

https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1556-4029.13676

Lone Actor Terrorist Attack Planning and Preparation: A Data‐Driven Analysis,

This report presents the results of a theory-guided assessment of evidence on the factors involved in Al Qai'da-influenced radicalisation, and puts forward a model which articulates possible mechanisms in the process.

Al Qai'da-Influenced Radicalisation: A Rapid Evidence Assessment Guided by Situational Action Theory

PURPOSE: Behavioural crime linkage is underpinned by two assumptions: (a) that offenders exhibit some degree of consistency in the way they commit offences (their modus operandi [MO]); and, (b) that offenders can be differentiated on the basis of their offence behaviour. The majority of existing studies sample at most three crimes from an offender's series of detected crimes and do not examine whether patterns differ across offenders. Here, we examine patterns observed across the entire detected series of each sampled offender, and assess how homogeneous patterns are across offenders. METHODS: Using a non-parametric resampling approach, we analyse the entire crime series of 153 prolific burglars to determine if they exhibit consistency and specificity in the way they commit offences. RESULTS: Findings suggest that offenders exhibit consistency in the way they commit offences. With respect to specificity, our results suggest that patterns are not homogeneous across offenders or the type of MO considered - some offenders exhibit more specificity than do others, and offenders are more distinctive for some aspects of their MO (particularly spatial choices) than they are for others. CONCLUSIONS: The findings provide support for the underlying principles of crime linkage, but suggest that some aspects of an offender's MO either conform to a common preference, or are perhaps more influenced by situational factors than stable scripted preferences. That some offenders fail to demonstrate sufficient specificity for accurate linkage suggests that identifying which crimes are likely to be the work of offenders who display more specificity a priori constitutes one challenge for future research of this kind.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/lcrp.12050

Consistency and specificity in burglars who commit prolific residential burglary: Testing the core assumptions underpinning behavioural crime linkage

We report on the findings of a scoping study. Our remit was to establish whether a theory of moral action and crime causation—specifically, Situational Action Theory—could provide a framework for understanding the causes of acts of terrorism, organising current knowledge, and outlining a systematic research agenda. This study is the first step towards realising such a program. We argue that, with Situational Action Theory, the "winning hearts and minds" strategy gets its scientific framework.

Noémie Bouhana

Papers

End of the lone wolf: the typology that should not have been

Lone Actor Terrorist Attack Planning and Preparation: A Data‐Driven Analysis,

Al Qai'da-Influenced Radicalisation: A Rapid Evidence Assessment Guided by Situational Action Theory

Consistency and specificity in burglars who commit prolific residential burglary: Testing the core assumptions underpinning behavioural crime linkage

Theorizing terrorism: terrorism as moral action