The enemy construction after September 11th: the aggressor identity effect on representation of terrorism

Everyday mass media reports about war against terrorism, terrorist acts and preventive war. By the way, what characterize an action as terrorist? As many authors underlines, there is disagreement on a common definition of terrorism. From a psychosocial perspective, it’s important to underline that an ambiguous notion of terrorism can legitimate the ingroup/outgroup differentiation that affect intergroup relations. The aim of this research is to study the influence of different variables on the interpretation of some violent actions as war or terrorism acts. Results on 325 university students sample confirm that the basic criterion for the evaluation of the actions is founded on the distinction between military or civilian targets (“target” effect). However, some subjects use a criterion based on the ethnic-cultural identity of the aggressor (“actor” effect).