Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-g98kq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-03-28T03:25:07.295Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The over-determination of selflessness in villains and heroes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2014

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi
Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi*
Affiliation:
University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. benny@psy.haifa.ac.il
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The suicidality hypothesis could be applied to other situations, such as cases in regular military organizations or in “terrorist” groups, where individuals put themselves in circumstances that are directly suicidal. Self-selection in these cases may be motivated by depression or short-term hopelessness. Both violent and charitable acts are over-determined, and a multiplicity of motives should be considered in explaining them.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , August 2014 , pp. 364
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Adams, J. (2010) Gandhi: Naked ambition. Quercus.Google Scholar
Asad, T. (2009) Thinking about terrorism and just war. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 23:3–24.Google Scholar
Batson, C. D. (2011) Altruism in humans. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Beit-Hallahmi, B. (1996) Psychoanalytic studies of religion: Critical assessment and annotated bibliography. Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Beit-Hallahmi, B. (2001) “O truant muse”: Collaborationism and research integrity. In: Misunderstanding cults, ed. Zablocki, B. & Robbins, T., pp. 35–70. University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Beit-Hallahmi, B., ed. (2010) Psychoanalysis and theism: Critical reflections on the Grunbaum thesis. Jason Aronson.Google Scholar
Beit-Hallahmi, B. & Argyle, M. (1997) The psychology of religious behaviour, belief and experience. Routledge.Google Scholar
Bradford, D. T. (1990) Early Christian martyrdom and the psychology of depression, suicide, and bodily mutilation. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training 27:30–41.Google Scholar
Fenichel, O. (1945) Psychoanalytic theory of neurosis. W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Freud, A. (1946) The ego and the mechanisms of defense. International Universities Press.Google Scholar
Kalley, J. A., Schoeman, E. & Andor, L. E. (eds.) (1999) Southern African political history: A chronology of key political events from Independence to mid-1997. Greenwood.Google Scholar
Lankford, A. (2013c) The myth of martyrdom: What really drives suicide bombers, rampage shooter, and other self-destructive killers. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Lifton, B. J. (1997) The king of children: The life and death of Janusz Korczak. St. Martin's Griffin.Google Scholar
Seelig, B. J. & Rosof, L. S. (2001) Normal and pathological altruism. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 49:933–59.Google Scholar
Wrightsman, L. (2001) Forensic psychology. Wadsworth.Google Scholar